Kids programmers: the future that has already reached us

They teach robotics to girls in Nigeria 0:42

(CNN Spanish) -

At 13 years old, Luis Eduardo has it clear: he wants to work at NASA to build robots that go into space.

“

I would like to go to London, to the University of Oxford.

There they teach everything about astrophysics to work at NASA, "says Luis Eduardo, a first-year high school student, in an interview with CNN.

He himself investigated some universities with robotics programs.

And this did not come from nowhere, but from his childhood taste for mathematics and, a little later, for programming.

Mathematics has been his favorite subject in school since he started primary school, says Luis Eduardo.

This led him to find out about something called programming.

“For the same reason that I liked mathematics, since I was little I wanted to learn about robotics.

So my mom did research and found courses ”in programming, he says.

advertising

Programming and robotics, disciplines that were futuristic in other times, are now part of a context where the teaching of these skills is prioritized from an early age, experts told CNN.

However, they added that there are still many gaps to fill to make this type of educational program accessible.

Programming, a field of multiple possibilities

The courses Luis Eduardo refers to are from Robotix, a Mexican organization that promotes the education of boys and girls through robotics and STEM (an acronym that refers, in Spanish, to science, technology, engineering and mathematics) .

• Andrea Suárez, the young Latina who dreamed of building robots and is now a world champion of Battlebots

In these courses, for example, the 13-year-old has assembled and programmed robots with Legos to lift things and detect objects.

And it's not the only thing.

Programming, which according to Roberto Saint Martin, director of Robotix, has been developing as a trend for 30 years globally and for around 15 in Mexico, opens up possibilities in various fields.

“The possibility of the student making their own Internet page, the possibility of making their own app, the possibility of making an electronic element that could be a radio (…) or helping them make a droid of the Star Wars movie, ”Sain Martin mentions to CNN.

Or the possibility, also, of creating your own video game.

Luis Eduardo wants to combine his taste for robotics and outer space not only to build the next Curiosity or Perseverance, but to program open world video games "where the player could choose their own adventures, such as being able to travel to other planets and discover new ones" , He says.

Life on Mars?

Rover Perseverance begins the search 0:38

The future that has already reached us

The first year high school student sees programming as a hobby right now;

however, it is one of the skills that will have a great impact in the near future.

According to the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Future of Jobs Report 2020, programming is one of 10 emerging skills in the job market for the next five years.

"With the massive acceleration of technological change, we estimate that the global labor market may absorb approximately 150 million new technology jobs over the next five years. And many other traditional jobs will be converted into 'technology jobs', requiring employees to do so. occupy have more digital skills, "says the WEF.

Likewise, programming is, in addition to an emerging skill for the world of work, a way of causing an impact on society, for example, from video games, explains the director of Robotix.

"In a wide and widespread culture of video games (...), one of the ways that girls and boys have today (to generate an impact) is not just to be users of video games, but also to be participants in making their own video game ", mentions.

Videogames: arouse interest to create them

Who is the first woman on the NBA 2K cover?

0:43

The BYJU'S Future School company, which arrived in Mexico this year, agrees with the vision of promoting that girls and boys are creators of technology and not just consumers.

This company, which was born in 2011 in India, offers programming courses that can last from a month (the simplest) to a year and a half (taking all the blocks).

A point of special attention at BYJU'S are video games, since with them the interest in playing can be enhanced and at the same time creating, according to Carlos Tejada, vice president of Sales and Operations in Mexico of the educational company.

“As we want to turn children into creators of technology, many children are going to be creators of new video games.

So what we seek is to awaken that interest they have in video games and that, in addition to spending time playing games, they believe them, "Tejada explains in an interview with CNN.

One of the things that boys and girls can learn at BYJU'S is to program on Roblox, a video game platform where you can play and also create.

Precisely, on Roblox the audience that stands out the most are children: most of the users are 13 years old or younger.

Not accessible to everyone: gender gap

At BYJU'S, students like Valeria Valentina (11 years old) and Ingrid Rangel (16 years old) have taken advantage of programming courses to make a real impact.

The first of them created the app 'Happy Droplet', which teaches children to take care of water.

Meanwhile, the second one made Teen Finances (TeFi), which is an app that will help teens learn about personal finance, create and track savings goals.

However, despite the great benefits that this trend in educational technology and programming brings, it is still a topic that is not accessible to all children.

At Robotix, the programming courses between September 2020 and July 2021 were taken very unevenly: 83% by boys and 17% by girls, according to data the organization shared with CNN.

Something similar happens at BYJU'S: 80% of the students in Mexico are boys and 20% are girls, according to the company.

• Laboratoria, the bet in Peru that helps drive thousands of women to become technology developers

This is a problem of gender gap in the country, where women have much less access to studying STEM careers, explains María Eugenia de Diego, specialist in Adolescent Development at Unicef ​​Mexico.

"In Mexico there is a quite notable gap in the choice of STEM careers between men and women. To give you an idea, more than 50% of men in Mexico choose STEM careers and only 30% of women," he says in an interview with CNN.

"In general, it is thought that this gap arises when choosing careers, but no: it originates much earlier. In fact, it is documented that it originates, for example, in primary school when girls and boys are around 10 or 12 years, "he adds.

Economic gap

And just as there is an important gender gap in relation to teaching STEM careers, there is also an economic gap in Mexico that prevents the development of these skills.

According to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) of Mexico, 78.3% of the urban population in the country is an Internet user.

However, in rural areas the user population is barely 50.4%.

"Several factors are mixed (for this economic gap). The point of rural areas of course has to do because it is a matter of connectivity, of how I access technology, digital. There is a huge gap and completely accentuated by the pandemic ", details De Diego.

Along with this, explains the UNICEF specialist, there is also a problem of educational quality;

that is, not all children have access to the same learning because they do not have sufficient resources and because there is not adequate training for teachers.

"There is also an issue of educational quality gap. Why? Because teachers play a preponderant role in accessing education that has to do with digital. So, precisely in rural areas, educational quality is not the same either. The same as in urban areas. Nor is there as much access to teachers who are prepared to give this type of education, "he adds.

How to make programming and general teaching of STEM disciplines more accessible?

Robotix, on its own, has its own foundation to deliver its courses and materials to community centers, museums or schools.

In addition, Saint Martin emphasizes that it must be disseminated that there are also very good quality courses that are free, with which children can learn to program, among other things, video games.

Two of those organizations mentioned by the director of Robotix are Code.org and The Hour of Code.

If you click on each of them, you will be able to find a wide range of programming courses.

Some are in English, but many others are also available in Spanish.

• A UNICEF online game for detecting fake news

Meanwhile, Unicef ​​Mexico is working on a pilot program to promote the teaching of STEM careers in elementary schools.

It is a pilot that is still in development, but that will include training with a gender perspective so that both teachers can begin to change their pedagogies when teaching these topics, explains De Diego.

"Obviously from Unicef ​​alone we could not do it because it should be a systemic change. So, this would become a pilot, but in the medium or long term there would have to be a change at the educational system level: that all teachers are trained with the perspective of genre especially to give this type of disciplines, "he says.

The specialist adds that STEM disciplines must be fully integrated into the curricula so that teachers have the appropriate pedagogies.

In addition, the pilot program, which will seek to cover schools in rural and urban areas, will feature skills acceleration camps, known as 'bootcamps', to learn STEM disciplines interactively, not just by sitting in a classroom.

This program, says the UNICEF specialist, has been working since 2020 and is scheduled to come out at the end of this year, as long as the pandemic allows it.

GirlsBoysProgramming