Developers are rock stars. They are the people who push the hardware and systems to do things that we may never have though they could do. They design our websites, that game you play on your phone, the service that keeps track of all your calendar, contacts, and emails. They create things out of nothing through the multitude of languages that they have to learn to stay competitive. They are always pushing themselves to do more, be better, learn something, break something, and create something useful for others. Are are artists for a digital age and some of us can't draw a stick figure well to save our lives. Or draw a unicorn either.
But there are not enough of us, or a diverse enough group of us. We are small and the demand is high. This is great if your searching for a job, but what about the group coming up behind us? How do we get them interested in learning computer science based classes and technologies? How do we show them that doing development isn't dull and can help fulfill a creative impulse that some of us didn't even know we needed? How do we show them that they can make a computer do something through a few lines of code?
We give them an hour. Just one hour. Show them through something easy (which I REALLY wish they had when I was starting out) that they are in control and they can create the cool games they play, or the applications that make our lives easier so others can focus on things they do. All it takes is an hour. How do I know this? I did it to start off three years ago. I took one hour and did something in scratch. I got bit by the bug and wanted to keep going down that rabbit hole.
Where do you find resources for that hour? Well, there is a great site call Hour of Code that can help you. There are also a bunch of companies that are supporting this years Hour of Code and you can as well. Through December 5 - 11 during Computer Science Education Week, there will be a number of places that are participating. Most Apple stores will have iPads set up with Swift Playgrounds for people (NOTE: Not just kids here!) to play with and learn. Schools, Church groups, gatherings of all sorts around the country will be hosting gatherings so please check the site. If you want to participate, then make sure to reach out to your local government, schools, school boards, maker groups, hacker spaces, local development studios, or just find a place and host your own! Bring a few computers, a few Raspberry Pi's, or whatever but share the hour with others and help them understand.
Here is what it means to take that hour:
Please consider taking this hour. Take it yourself and see if your interested or do like me and share with your kids or just whomever will listen to you. Learning to code helps with critical thinking skills and understanding computers. These are key to not only our futures but our children's futures.
Next week, an hour could change your life. It sure impacted mine.