To code or not to code, is that the question?

Abstract

Report on a national series of round tables conducted in late 2016, looking into his different stakeholders interpreted the imperative that "every should learn how to code"

Full text

To code or not to code,
is that the question?
2017

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
2

Foreword
Introduction 06
The journey 09
A series of symposia 13
What do we mean by coding? 16
What do we mean by digital literacy? 19
Are there key digital skills missing from the current curriculum? 22
Observations 25
Should everyone learn to code? 28
Familiarity does not imply competency 30
Integrating digital content into non-digital subject areas is challenging 31
New attitudes and behaviours are required 25
Conclusions 28
Next steps 30
Participants 31
Contents

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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Foreword
Digital technology has become an
indispensable part of our social landscape.
We are all struggling to manage its impact
on our personal, professional and public
lives and there is a palpable fear of being
left behind if we cannot master it.
As citizens, workers, employers, educators
and parents, we want to respond but,
how should we?
Adapting to digital technology, however,
is not a problem to be xed or a puzzle
to be solved. The systemic nature of the
technology also means that it is something
the we need to respond to as a community,
rather than individually. We need to work
together to ar ticulate the challenges and
the opportunities that digital technology
creates and decide how, as both a
communit y and individuals, we can work
together to create a future that maximises
the benets of technolog y while minimising
the problems.
As the leader of Deloitte’s national
education practice, I have a deep interest
in the ways in which education has
and continues to be ‘disrupted ‘ by the
emergence of digital technologies. It is a
well-worn fact that digital technology is
driving changes in education. Technology
has facilitated the production of new
models of teaching and learning that are
shifting our denitions of what it means to
be educated and also what it means to be
an educator. At Deloitte, we are working
with our education clients to assist them to
keep pace with these changes. Our clients
want us to base our advice on evidence
rather than speculation. That is entirely
understandable, but it is also important
that we keep thinking beyond the horizon.
One way that Deloitte ensures that it does
this is through the work of the Centre for
the Edge.
The Australian Centre for the Edge is
an applied ‘think-tank ‘ supported by
Deloit te; it is part of a larger Centre for
the Edge network within Deloitte, based
in Silicon Valley. The Centre explores the
edges of what is known and understood;
it speculates about the future, nding
interesting ideas and bringing these back
to the broader teams within Deloitte. The
Centre’s mission is to identify and explore
emerging opportunities that aren’t yet
on our clients’ agendas. The goal is to be
speculative, and deliberately thought-
provoking, but I want to emphasise that
the work of the Centre for the Edge is
grounded in data and obser vation.
Against this background, I was delighted
when Peter Evans-Greenwood, a Fellow at
the Centre for the Edge, and Tim Patston,
Geelong Grammar School’s Coordinator for
Creativity and Innovation, decided to jointly
turn their attention to education and the
question ‘To code or not to code?’ Peter
and Tim had noticed that while ‘everyone
should learn how to code’ had become a
catch cry, dierent stakeholders had their
own interpretation of the phrase and its
implications. There was no national, or
even local, consensus on the meaning of
the phrase, nor on how we should respond.
In response, Peter and Tim created a
neutral forum where stakeholders from
across public and private sectors –
including educators, parents, employers
and students – could gather to work
through how digital technology will aect
us all. It was also important for the forum
to have a range of dierent stakeholder
perspectives.
We are greatly appreciative of the
participants who contributed their time,
experience and opinions to the process,
as without their contribution this project
would not have been possible. It was
also gratifying to see that participants
approached each symposium with the
spirt of cooperation that was intended,
with open and robust discussions resulting
in a positive and productive series of
discussions.
The symposia showed that we were all
struggling with the same challenges, as
each conversation reached remarkably
similar conclusions despite following very
dierent paths. Digital technology was
commonly seen as a valuable tool, but one
which we’re yet to fully understand and
utilise. The symposia also highlighted the
systemic nature of the challenge, and the
need for a coordinated response if we want
digital technology to be a positive force in
our community.
We would like to thank Peter and Tim
for their leadership on this project,
and the Geelong Grammar School for
the opportunity to be part of a unique
collaboration the enabled us to explore
important and timely questions. We hope
that this conversation is the rst of many as
we work together to manage our transition
to a more digital world.
Colette Rogers
Partner
National Leader, Education

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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Foreword
We live in a technological age. Students
are surrounded by digital devices, from
their ‘smart’ phone to their ‘smart’ watch.
Teachers are being bombarded with
digital products that claim to enhance the
teaching experience.
While digital technology has become
ubiquitous, the ability for it to be integrated
into teaching has become more dicult.
We run the risk that digital technology
will subsume pedagogy, as information
becomes cheaper and cheaper.
How should we respond to this rapidly
changing world?
Geelong Grammar School has long striven
to contribute to the national and global
agendas of education. It was therefore
very pleasing when our Coordinator of
Creativity and Innovation, Dr Tim Patston,
and Peter Evans-Greenwood from
Deloit te’s Centre for the Edge, proered
the idea of devising and running a national
series of symposia to discuss ramications
of the digital age and how it is aecting
government, industry and education. This
partnership has lent a unique perspective
to this project.
We felt that it was a very good time to have
a close look at coding and digital literacy,
which are increasingly inuencing how and
what we teach. It seemed logical to reach
out to a diverse range of stakeholders
from across Australia, to take a snapshot
of where we are as a nation at this critical
time of change.
We would like to express our gratitude to all
of the par ticipants, who gave freely of their
time and expertise to ensure the success of
this project. It is a credit to the individuals
who took part, but also their organisations,
from school and tertiar y education,
government and the private sector. The
discussions were robust and fruitful, given
in the true spirit of cooperation.
Perhaps most surprisingly, this report
shows that all sectors are struggling with
the issues of coding and digital literacy.
Most organisations felt that, while digital
technology could be ver y useful, it is still
poorly understood and underutilised in
many elds. As devices become smarter,
it seems that we run the risk of people
becoming less able to understand the
processes behind the devices they are
using and consequently less able at
key skills such as creativity and
problem solving.
This report shows that it is time to take
stock. In the world of education, pedagogy
must come rst; giving our students’
skills and attitudes that will enable them
to ourish in an ever-shifting landscape
of study and work. Technology, digital
or otherwise, must be a tool that is
understood and utilised for a greater
purpose, not merely to do basic
functions with ignorant operators.
Thank you to Tim and Peter for
coordinating this project and to Deloitte
for working with us to explore this valuable
topic. We hope that this work will inspire
a response from all stakeholders, which
can improve how we best manage the
digital world.
Colette Rogers
Partner
National Leader, Education
Stephen Meek
Principal, Geelong Grammar School

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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Introduction

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Digital technology permeates the modern
world. We can order dinner via an app
on our smartphone or view a university
lecture on a tablet, both from the comfort
of our couch. We can call a taxi with a touch
of a button. Indeed, we might even work for
a computer,1 with a digital dispatch service
directing us to pick up a passenger, meal
or package, and our performance is rated
by a combination of survey and algorithm.
Many people are becoming increasingly
concerned that we’ll be replaced by
computers, with articial intelligence (AI)
supplanting people for many complex tasks
from playing Go (an abstract strategy board
game) to writing news articles or providing
investment advice. Digital technology
is used in all aspects of our personal,
professional, public and recreational lives.
In the last ten years – roughly since the
birth of the modern smar tphone – we
have adopted digital technology at a
star tling rate. Smar tphones and YouTube
quickly ipped from novel to ubiquitous.
How we relate to the world has changed
in the process, with the new digital tools
becoming a lens (or, as some worr y, the
lens) through which we experience reality.
For instance, why remember what you
can Google?
The digital environment that we’re creating
has led many people to conclude that
we either create digital solutions or be
replaced by them. There is also talk of the
need to introduce a universal basic income2
to support the people replaced by the
robots. This raises the question: should
everyone learn to code?
Over the last generation programming has
moved from a niche activity – a challenging
task that’s the responsibility of a small
digital elite – to a mainstream one. As
digital technology becomes increasingly
ubiquitous in everything from cars to
coee machines, is our education system
keeping pace?

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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Fixed broadband subscriptions (per 100 people)
Mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 people)
0
0
1970
196 0
1973
196 3
1976
196 6
1979
196 9
198 2
1972
198 5
1975
198 8
1978
1991
1981
199 4
198 4
1997
1987
2000
199 0
2003
1993
2006
199 6
2009
1999
2012
2002
2015
2005 2008 20 11 2014
7.50
35.00
15. 00
70.00
22.50
105.00
30.00
140 .00
Source: T he World Bank , World Development Indic ators3
Source: T he World Bank , World Development Indic ators4

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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Internet users (per 100 people)
0
1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 2012 2015
22.50
45.00
67. 50
90.00
Our ability to shape our future relies
on our digital competency – our ability
to control computers and turn them to
our will – and the best form of digital
competenc y is coding, or so it’s assumed.
Why shouldn’t learning to code be an
important part of our formal education,
possibly even supplanting learning a
foreign language, as isn’t coding the
language of our digital future? Everyone
from celebrities through to presidents
and prime ministers and even educators
has jumped on the ‘everyone should learn
to code’ bandwagon.
Signicant eort has been devoted to
update the national curriculum and to
meet the growing demands of digitally
literate students who have a deep
understanding of information systems.
The Australian curriculum includes the
general capability of information and
communication technolog y (ICT) and
the subject digital technologies, which
incorporates coding.
ICT capabilit y involves students learning to
make the most of the digital technologies
available to them, adapting to new ways
of doing things as technologies evolve
and limiting the risks to themselves and
others in a digital environment.6 Students
learn computational thinking, design
thinking, algorithmic thinking and systems
thinking to cultivate digital skills. From
year three, students begin to code using a
visual programming language and by year
7/8 they progress to a general-purpose
programming language to implement their
solution designs.
Source: T he World Bank , World Development Indic ators5
Computer programming –known as coding – is the formulation of a problem into an executable computer
programme. Dierent methods can be used to code; from imperative instructions using logical languages where
problems are described in terms of axioms and rules to mathematics-based functional languages. Programming
language can also vary from low-level languages, which are close to the detailed instructions used by a computer
through to high-level languages that are closer to the problem domain. Concepts such as ‘modules’ and ‘objects’
are also used to help organise larger programmes.

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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However, while ‘everyone should learn to
code’ is an attractive call to action, it might
not be the whole solution. There are the
practical concerns of which computer
languages to teach and how to best teach
them and the fact that our relationship with
digital technology is evolving. Our frame
of reference is the past, when there was a
clear distinction between using a computer
and making a computer.
We’re forging a new relationship with
digital technology. Today we might nd
ourselves working for a computer such
as ride sharing drivers or pick-and-pack
workers in a distribution centre. Or we
might work with a computer, collaborating
as peers, as humans do in freestyle chess,
where success is not determined by our
understanding of digital technolog y, but on
our ability to work with the technology to
nd an optimal solution.7 Or we might work
on computers, where we are adapting and
combining digital components, or encoding
domain knowledge in smart digital
components, to create a solution.
Our relationship with computers is
evolving into a more collaborative and
conversational one. For instance, in
freestyle chess, humans collaborate with
the computers, and with each other, as
they work on the next move. Similarly, Lee
Sedol, the second ranked professional Go
player in the world, after being defeated
by the Go computer AlphaGo, helped to
improve the solution by conversing with it,
training it. Many coding jobs are also being
automated, either via the development
of components that capture domain
knowledge or via code synthesis, where
a computer program is generated (by
another computer program) based on
a high-level description of the problem
to be solved.8 Indeed, Google is already
undertaking to retrain its army of coders
in this new ‘noncoding’ paradigm;9 simply
being a coder is no longer enough.
Learning to code can mean dierent
things to dierent people and this was the
reason we asked the question ‘should
everyone learn to code?’ The conversation
appears to have skipped directly from the
problem – the need to remain relevant in
a digital environment – to the solution –
teaching everyone how to code – without
reecting on what we mean by coding.
After all, the question seems simple. We
all use digital technolog y on a daily basis
(or it uses us), so it must be good. We use
digital technology in education and in the
workplace therefore we must be educated.
And coding is the language of computers so
it must be the essential skill in the
digital age.
The goal of this project was to explore this
thinking by asking:
• What are the intentions and aspirations
behind ‘learn to code’?
• What educational and social outcomes
we should be striving for?
• Are there key skills from ‘learning
to code’ not covered in the current
curriculum?
• Is there a better denition for
digital literacy?
• How does digital literac y relate to coding
and the rest of computer science?
• How do we demystify digital technology
and bring the community along?

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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The journey

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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While most stakeholders agreed that
‘learn to code’ is a vague, unquantiable
statement, many expressed dierent views
on how learning to code will benet the
next generation. Computer professionals
have a particular view based on their
education and experience (and it ’s not
uncommon to nd one group of computer
professionals that consider the work of
another not to be coding). For parents, it
represents the hopes and aspirations they
have for their children in a society infused
with digital technology. Employers have
more practical concerns, and are looking
for individuals with the skills they need
be produc tive in an increasingly digital
workplace. Educators are concerned
with the practicalities of crafting tangible
learning outcomes and packing them into
a crowded curriculum, and have invested
signicant eort into breaking ‘learning to
code’, and digital technology in general,
into a well-dened and teachable set of
concepts, knowledge and skills.
The challenge in understanding the
statement ‘everyone should learn to code’
is not in forming an opinion. Each group
has already done this independently. The
challenge is to align the thinking and eorts
of each group. What does the business
communit y mean when they ask for
graduates with digital skills? Are these the
skills we are teaching in the curriculum?
Does this address parents’ angst for their
childrens’ future? Are we tr ying to develop
competencies in the use and application
of current (and soon emergent) soft ware
tools and apps? Or are we developing
understanding, resilience and curiosity in
digital competency so learners of all ages
can span the boundaries in the pedagogical
(and andragogical) domains?
Five symposia of ~20 people
in ve cities across four states
providing ~100 points of view
comprising:
• ~50 educators, K-12 through
to tertiary
• ~15 from government
• ~40 from industry.

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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A series of symposia
In 2016 we held a series of symposia for
educators, policy makers and industry to
share their aspirations and experience,
with the hope of reaching a consensus
on what, as a community, we mean by
‘everyone should learn to code’.
Each symposium was conducted as a
round table using the Chatham House Rule
to encourage a frank and open discussion.
Participants were not required to identif y
themselves or their aliations.
We developed a series of questions to
initiate conversation and to ensure that
the topic was adequately explored. The
conveners did not participate to avoid
prejudicing the conversation.
It’s worthwhile noting that while each
symposium reached similar conclusions,
they all took quite dierent paths.
What do we mean by coding?
Each session began with the question
‘What do we mean by coding?’ Computer
professionals typically highlighted how
developing software should be seen as
a team sport, with coding as only one of
many skills required to create a nished
solution: there’s much more to coding than
‘coding’. Other participants expressed
how ‘coding ’ was shorthand for a larger
set of skills required to have a fullling and
productive role in a digital environment.
Participants agreed that ‘learning to
code’ should be interpreted as ‘having
the knowledge and skills required to use
computers in the pursuit of work’. In this
context ‘computers’ should be understood
as any digital tool – either a physical device
or a cloud- or network-based application
– that can be congured and shaped by
the user. This might range from conguring
email folders, scripting an animation,
creating a simulation or a website (possibly
from a template) through to tabulating
data in a spreadsheet or operating a 3D
printer. ‘Work’ should be understood as
‘any activity in pursuit of an outcome’ and
includes hobbies, interests and pastimes as
well as paid employment.
There was a consensus that coding –
programming a computer – is just one
component of the broader concept of
digital competency. There is a gap between
the knowledge and skills, application and
understanding required to be digitally
competent that is represented by the
desire that ‘everyone should learn to code’.
Similarly, learning a programming language
is not enough. Students must also learn
the aordances – or the properties of an
object that make it clear how the object
can or should be used such as the handle
on a teapot, – provided by the application
programming interfaces (APIs) and physical
interfaces of a digital tool if they are to be
digitally competent.
It was agreed that we need a ‘computers’
stream through the education system
for the students who want to pursue
computers in work. There is also an
important role for a coding unit in the
middle years of education, possibly late
primar y with a refresher in secondary,
to demystify coding. Some students
unfamiliar with coding will nd the unit
interesting and take up the computing
stream. Others will gain the knowledge
they need to work with coders. Several
participants noted, ‘This is more for the
kids at the bottom or in the middle, than at
the top’. Motivated students are typically
ahead of the curriculum.
It was agreed that making all students
competent coders is not the problem
we need to solve. The challenge is to
make students comfortable with digital
technology and tools so that they can
adapt them to their work. Younger
students, primary students in particular,
must discover that computers are a tool for
learning. They must also understand the
limitations of digital technolog y. Learning is
a process that develops over time. Asking a
computer to calculate a formula or nd an
article does not mean that you understand
the processes behind nding the answer.
Nor can you assume that the computer is
infallible. We need to teach children from
a young age that computers do not always
‘know ’ the right answer.

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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What do we mean by digital literacy?
We asked participants to dene digital
literac y. Many expressed concern that
digital literacy is usually interpreted as ‘the
ability to use computers’ which was seen as
vague and instrumental, rooted in a world-
view that has us either using or making
computers. A better approach is
to dene digital literacy in terms of
knowledge and skills, but there was no
clear consensus on how to frame these
knowledge and skills.
What distinguishes digital technolog y from
other technologies is that it is hard for the
layperson to understand how it works,
while the digitally literate can make digital
technology do nearly anything. Consider
this. It is easy to discover the aordances of
a piano, the possible actions we can take.
We can plunk a key or pluck a string. We
can change the sound of a piano or how it
is played for example by wedging cutlery
between the strings or pieces of paper
between the hammers. Digital technology
is dierent. It can be dicult to discover
the aordances of a digital tool, but at the
same time digital tools are much more
adaptable. Digital technology enables us
to think about problems using dierent
solutions. Working with digital tools is more
akin to co-creation than utilisation, with
the resulting solution a fusion of the user’s
knowledge and the knowledge embedded
in the tool.1 0
Discussion centred on the need to provide
students with the knowledge and skills to
discover the aordances provided by digital
tools, and how these tools can be reused,
recombined and repurposed to solve the
problem at hand. This concept is neatly
expressed in the term bricolage, a word of
French origin that means the creation of
something from a diverse range of
available things.
A common problem identied by
participants was that ‘digital literacy is
commonly a consumption model’. Students
are learning to use digital tools to create
works, but they are not learning how to
bricolage with digital tools, how to combine
the aordances provided by dierent tools
to create a new tool. Or as a participant
suggested: ‘Most employees can solve
practical problems in the workplace, such
as needing beer and snacks for Friday
afternoon drinks – if I give them fty dollars
they can nd beer and snacks. However, if
there is a digital technolog y problem, even
a basic problem with their device, they
cannot solve the problem unless there is
an app for it.’
Most technologies are simple, with few
aordances. For instance, applying a
clothes peg to a piano string requires us
to observe the string within the piano, and
source and apply a clothes peg. With digital
technology, aordances are hidden and we
have no knowledge of the materials used
in construction, which makes digital tools
dicult to understand and intimidating to
the novice user. User-friendly interfaces
and smarter devices alleviate this problem
by reducing the numbers of aordances
and making them more obvious, but they
also constrain what the user can do. A
common observation among participants
was that ‘the smarter the devices, the
dumber the user’.
Digital literacy means much more than the
ability to nd, use, share and create content
using technology. It is also the ability to
create new solutions from digital tools
and to adapt the tools to our purpose. It
implies the ability to use ingredients and
processes, combined with techniques to
apply to a variety of dierent contexts, as
well as spanning the boundaries between
dierent knowledge domains, to bricolage.
‘The inseparability of humans
and media sustains the idea
that students and tools are
agents performing knowledge
in coaction, while approaching
mathematical problems.
Looking at the solution to a
problem is seeing a fusion of
the solver’s knowledge and
the tool’s built-in knowledge,
rather than an aggregate of
both or a complementarity
between them’
— Carriera, S et al.
(2016), Youngsters Solving
Mathematical Problems with
Technology, Springer p. 276

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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Are there key digital skills missing
from the current curriculum?
It was recognised that there is a gap
between the digital skills and knowledge
provided by current teaching and the
needs of the workplace. Despite many
participants discussing the concept of
‘digital nati ves’,11 it was clear that this
term is misleading, as familiarity with
digital technology from a young age does
not translate into digital competency.
Employers highlighted what they thought
were the most basic skills required by the
workplace, ‘can you type, use a browser,
use a spreadsheet to add numbers, write
relevant and appropriate email’.
This problem was not conned to the
workplace. Universities also expressed
frustration at the low level of digital
competencies demonstrated by their
students, in particular using spreadsheets
and search engines. Too many people
appear to use these tools as ‘hammers’,
rather than developing a bricolage solution
to a problem. This severely limits not only
the ability to do basic tasks at university
and in the workforce, but leaves people
unable to construct eective solutions to
problems. This idea is combined with the
myth of the IT-technician as magician.
This basic lack of understanding leads
people to a state of ‘learned helplessness’
in some key areas. As one participant put
it, ‘as technology gives black and white
answers, people aren’t open to failure’.
There is also the sense of paralysis when
digital technology does not do what people
would like it to do. Rather than solve the
problem, there is a tendency to wait for the
magician to arrive and x it. If we do not
understand where technology comes from
and how it works, then we can’t navigate
the technology landscape. What we are
looking for is attitudes and behaviours,
or values, in addition functional use.

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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Observations

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
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Each symposium followed a dierent path,
driven by the participants, though all ended
up at a remarkably similar conclusion.
Should everyone learn to code?
There was strong agreement that ‘everyone
should learn to code’ should be interpreted
as everyone should learn how to make
the best use of digital technology to
create their own solutions. The form these
solutions take, and the technologies they
use will vary depending on the problem
that the individual is prosecuting and the
domain they are working in. Sometimes
the solution will require the development
of a software program – ‘coding’ in the
traditional sense – though often it won’t.
It is impor tant for the K-12 curriculum
to support a coding stream to ensure all
students have some exposure to coding to
help demystify digital technology.
Familiarity does not imply competency
It’s assumed that familiarity with digital
technology translates into digital
competency. However, experience has
shown that this is not true and that the
familiar narrative about tech-smart young
people, ‘digital natives’, is false. Participants
pointed out ‘we’ve been teaching [digital]
technology like we teach to drive a car’.
The problem is that for most of us a car is
simply a tool, a means to get from A to B,
and it wouldn’t matter if the bonnet was
welded shut or the car was completely
autonomous. Digital technology is dierent
to digital tools, and familiarity with digital
tools does not confer digital literacy,
nor does digital literac y confer digital
competency.
The power of digital technology lies in its
ability to be shaped, taking a collection of
digital (and non-digital) tools and adapting
them to a new purpose or moving them to
a new contex t, bricolage. There is currently
no teaching of the teachers in this in all
sectors from primar y through to post-
secondary. Teachers expressed frustration
at how quickly their organisations adopted
new technologies but how slowly, if at all,
they supported sta in adapting them to
their specic context. It’s easy to make
sweeping statements about the need
for a digital curriculum, but the task of
integrating digital technology into individual
subjects and topics is much harder, and
more important. Digital technology can
no longer lead pedagogy. Tools need to be
selected appropriate for use, and teachers
need to be provided with the time, support
and inspiration required to adapt the tools
and ideas to their own subject area and
classroom.
Integrating digital content into
non-digital subject areas is challenging
Students need digital skills and so do
teachers. Both students and teachers
also need to develop the ability to
bricolage digital solutions in their
chosen subject areas.
Education now has a strong vocational
focus, but the rapidly changing workplace
puts a premium on the prepared mind, and
standardised testing does not support the
practice of divergent thinking. A common
complaint among participants was that
‘we’ve perfec ted the skill of getting kids into
university, but lost the skill of preparing
them for university ’. The goal must be
for students to be able to integrate ever-
changing digital technology into their work.
This requires a new approach in education.
Signicant work has already been done on
capturing the concepts, knowledge and
skills behind digital technology, and there
are rich resources such as the Victorian
Digital Technologies curriculum12 and
Australian Curriculum: Critical and Creative
Thinking Capabilities.13 The Victorian Digital
Technologies curriculum was designed in
a modular fashion to allow content to be
exported into other
subject areas.
The problem, however, is to understand
how the digital content can be eec tively
integrated into a non-digital subject to
provide the desired learning outcomes.
Relevant core knowledge and skills must
be retained: many are domain specic,
but some ‘digital skills’ are not, as with the
creative and critical thinking curriculum,
and need to be sequenced. These must
include ‘resilience and appreciation of the
need for iteration, developing the capacity
to fail’. Unfortunately work in this area is
in its infancy.
New attitudes and behaviours
are required
There was a clear consensus that we
must focus on instilling the attitudes and
behaviours that the students will need
to thrive in a world where the half-life of
both knowledge and skills appears to be
rapidly shrinking. ‘The skills will change
but we need to give them capability and
condence to succeed’. Students (and
workers) need to develop processes
enabling them to discover and adapt new
ideas and tools to the task at hand, rather
than relying on (periodic) formal education
to provide them with the knowledge.
We need to consider how we weave ICT,
digital and creativity together.

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
18
Conclusion

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
19
Education is often seen to be lagging
behind technological change. This is
unjustied, as signicant eort has been
invested in packaging digital skills into
the education curriculums. However, our
relationship with digital technology is
evolving and the community is still learning
what it means to be digitally competent.
This was reinforced in the dierent
meanings read into the catchphrase
‘everyone should learn to code’. Our
aspirations are much broader than
teaching everyone how to code: we want to
ensure that everyone has ‘the knowledge
and skills required to use computers in the
pursuit of work’. This means understanding
the opportunities digital technology
provides as well as its limitations. While
only some of us might need to code, all
of us need to be digitally competent, and
our current approaches to teaching digital
competenc y are insucient. We can see
this in three key points that were common
across all symposia.
First, there is a common but incorrect
assumption that familiarity with digital
technology results in digital literacy and
competency. This assumption is behind
myths such as that of ‘digital natives’.
Being comfortable with a digital tool does
not imply sophisticated use. Likewise,
being digitally literate does not imply
an understanding of the benets and
problems of digital solutions. Despite
being repeatedly shown to be incorrect
the myth persists that the young have an
innate understanding of digital technology
and don’t need to be taught. This same
assumption holds for teachers, with
participants revealing that most ‘teachers
teaching digital technologies have less
than one year of technology training’.
Second, there is a need for a digital
technology stream in K-12 to support
digital specialists, individuals who focus
on developing digital technology and who
want to learn how to code. While most
students will not choose to become digital
specialists, it is important that all students
are introduced to coding to demystify the
technology and to expose them to a
career path that they might not have
otherwise considered.
Third, and nally, we need to understand
that it is not possible to teach digital
competenc y as an isolated subject: it
needs to be integrated into a broad
range of subjects and across the various
educational strata as the application of
many digital skills is domain specic. While
some students may know how to code,
they don’t have the skills to identify and
solve problems or to understand or control
the mechanics of the solution, nor do
they understand the limitations of digital
technology. Skills need to be exported
from the digital curriculum and imported
into other subjects where students can
learn how to bricolage solutions. We need
to address the broader issues of a lack
of practical problem solving skills, the
inability of many students to use digital
technology to solve a problem unless
‘there’s an app for that’. The focus needs to
be on providing students with the practical
skills to enable them to solve problems in
context, bringing the digital technology to
the problem (where appropriate) rather
than the problem to digital technology.
The challenge is to ‘create education
components that live up to the reality
of the kids’ age’, without simplifying the
concepts and skills so the educational
benet is lost.
Participants highlighted the collaborative
and cross-disciplinary nature of digital
technology. Statements such as ‘it’s a
collaborative rather than a creative subject’
and ‘one of the things we know about
this stu is that it shouldn’t be taught
from the textbook as it ’s non-linear’ were
common. Digital technology is not an
island, but is often treated as one. There is
a need for well-considered and well-taught
integration into all subjects. Students need
to understand both the potential and
the limitations of digital technology. They
need to be familiar with the technology ’s
aordances, the opportunities it provides,
and to have the ability to combine digital
and non-digital components to make
new solutions. They need to understand
that failure and iteration are an essential
part of the process. Formal education
must provide students with a series of
increasingly sophisticated challenges that
require them to bricolage solutions using
their knowledge and digital skills, integrated
into their non-digital subjects.
These digital skills must also cover more
than dierent ways of programming.14
Emerging technologies such as functional
programming and training-based
approaches such as machine learning need
to be included. Students need to explore
the dierences in these approaches (such
as how any large collection of rules can
be nondeterministic due to unexpected
rule interactions, or how it’s impossible
to determine why a machine learning
solution came to the conclusion it did),
as these technologies will increasingly
determine how they are measured in the
workplace and their ability to engage with
the broader community. Students must
also learn the implications of working for,
with or on a digital solution. As freestyle
chess demonstrates, our ability to make
the most of the capabilities and knowledge
embedded in a digital tool such as a chess
computer does not depend on depth of
domain knowledge or knowledge of the
underlying technolog y; it is a unique skill
in and of itself.
The challenge of teaching everyone to code
means that teachers need the support
of the broader community. Employers
and polic y makers need to identify good
examples of digital competency, and esh
out what it means to bricolage in dierent
industries and domains. Teachers must
be suppor ted with targeted professional
development to help them understand the
why and how of what they’re doing, and
they must be trained in using the digital
components within their subject areas.
While the groundwork has been laid and
a sophisticated digital curriculum already
exist s, what is missing is an understanding
of what digital competence means in
practice; what application looks like in
a world where society is forging a new
relationship with digital technology.

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
20
Next steps

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
21
Participants agreed that the symposiums
were a valuable and rare opportunity for
stakeholders from dierent parts of the
education sector to work together on
a problem in which they are all deeply
invested. Many participants want to keep
the conversation going. This report is
the rst step in understanding whether
everyone should learn to code.
Deloit te Centre for the Edge and
Geelong Grammar School will continue
this conversation in a second series of
symposiums to explore the question
‘What does digital competence look like in
practice, in dierent domains and across
the educational strata, including in work’.

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
22
Participation

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
23
Andrew Baylis
Ben Beaton
Melissa Cadzow
Ivan Carlisle
Paul Clapton-Caputo
Benjamin Champion
Christopher Cheong
Andrew Chester
Paula Christophersen
James Dellow
David Dimsey
Amanda Dodson
Fiona Fitzgerald
Sanda FitzGerald
Daniel Groenewald
Raphael Hammel
Stephen Harvey
Jacki Hayes
Nick Heng
Renee Hindmarsh
Stella Jinman
Wendy Johnson
Therese Keane
Damian Keegan
Bernardine Knorr
Jennifer Mumford
Margaret Northcote
Tina Photakis
Carol Puddicombe
Kynan Robinson
Jessica Sasheg yi
Kate Sonter
Kay Stacy
Lachie Stevens
Rosemary Stockdale
Elizabeth Stone
Charmaine Taylor
Grace Tuttle

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
24
Endnotes

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
25
1. This is an expansive denition of
‘computer’, including networked or cloud
applications as well as servers and
standalone devices such as personal
computers, tablets and modern
smartphones.
2. A universal basic income (UBI) is a form
of social security that guarantees that all
citizens or residents of a country receive
a regular payment, regardless of other
income or wealth.
3. The World Bank, World Development
Indicators (2016), Fixed broadband
subscriptions (per 100 people) [online].
Available at <http://data.worldbank.org/
indicator/IT.NET.BBND.P2> [Accessed
27/ 02/2017] .
4. The World Bank, World Development
Indicators (2016). Mobile cellular
subscriptions (per 100 people) [online].
Available at <http://data.worldbank.org/
indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2> [Accessed
27/ 02/2017] .
5. The World Bank, World Development
Indicators (2016), Internet users (per 100
people) [online]. Available at
<http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/
IT.NET.USER.P2> [Accessed 27/02/2017].
6. Australian Curriculum, introduction to
ICT general capability, available at
<http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.
au/generalcapabilities/information-and-
communication-technologycapability/
introduction/introduction>.
7. Freestyle chess is a chess competition
that allows any combination of human and
computer chess players to compete
as two teams. When IBM’s Big Blue beat
chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997
Kasparov wondered what would
happen if instead of competing against
one another humans and machines
collaborated? The rst freestyle chess
competition was played in 2005 and
resulted in an upset victory later reected
upon by Kasparov:
The surprise came at the conclusion of the
event. The winner was revealed to be not a
grandmaster with a state-of-the-art PC but
a pair of amateur American chess players
using three computers at the same time.
Their skill at manipulating and ‘coaching’
their computers to look very deeply into
positions eectively counteracted the
superior chess understanding of their
grandmaster opponents and the greater
computational power of other participants.
Weak human + machine + better process
was superior to a strong computer alone
and, more remarkably, superior to a strong
human + machine + inferior process.
Human strategic guidance combined
with the tactical acuity of a computer was
overwhelming.
Garry Kasparov (11 February 2010), The
chess master and the computer, [online]
New York Review of Books.
Available at <www.nybooks.com/
articles/2010/02/11/the-chess-master-and-
the-computer/> [Accessed 27/02/2017].
8. It’s interesting to note that Deep
Learning is also being applied to the
problem of program synthesis, with
Microsof t announcing progress using deep
learning to enable ‘non-coders’ to create
programs via interacting with a neural
network.
Singh R., Devlin J., Mohamed A., and Kohli P.
(21 April 2017), Deep Learning for Program
Synthesis, Microsoft
Research Blog. Available at <https://www.
microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/deep-
learning-program-synthesis/>.
9. Levy, Steven. ‘How Google Is Remaking
Itself as a ‘Machine Learning First’
Company.’ Backchannel, June 22,
2016. Available at <https://backchannel.
com/how-google-is-remaking-
itself-as-a-machine-learning-rst-
companyada63defcb70>.
[Accessed 13/06/2017]
10. See Carriera, S et al. (2016), Youngsters
Solving Mathematical Problems with
Technology, Springer p. 276, for a
discussion of the integration of digital
technology into mathematical problem
solving.
11. Marc Prensk y coined the terms ‘digital
natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’ in his essay
Digital Natives, Digital
Immigrants published in On the Horizon
[online] (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5,
October 2001). Available at
<http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/
Prensky - Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants
- Part1.pdf> [Accessed 27/02/2017].
12. The Victorian Digital Technologies
curriculum is available at
<http://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.
au/technologies/digital-technologies/
introduction/rationale-and-aims>
[Accessed 27/02/2017].
13. The Australian Creative and Critical
Thinking curriculum is available at
<http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/
generalcapabilities/critical-and-creative-
thinking/introduction/introduction>
[Accessed 27/02/2017].
14. Peter Denning explores the distinction
between coding and computational
thinking in Denning, Peter J. ‘Remaining
Trouble Spots with Computational
Thinking.’ Available at <https://cacm.acm.
org/magazines/2017/6/217742-
remaining-trouble-spots-with-
computational-thinking/fulltext>. [Accessed
June 13, 2017.]

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
Contacts

To code or not to code, is that the question? Centre for the Edge/Geelong Grammar School
27
Peter Evans-Greenwood
pevansgreenwood@deloitte.com.au
Deloit te Centre for the Edge
550 Bourke Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Tim Patston
tpatston@ggs.vic.edu.au
Geelong Grammar School
50 Biddlecombe Avenue
Corio Vic toria 3214

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