U of A Professor Joins Middle-Schoolers for Hour of Coding

Photo by Heidi Stambuck

U of A professor Derrick Mears talks with Rogers eighth-graders about coding.

Demand for computer coding skills will continue to increase and jobs will be plentiful in the field, University of Arkansas professor Derrick Mears told eighth-graders at Kirksey Middle School in Rogers.

Those were some of the answers to the questions Mears posed to the students in Julia Powell's career and technical education classroom the morning of Dec. 8.

"Why should I learn to code?" he asked them to consider. "What can you do with this when you leave school? Could this actually be a job for you?"

More photos from the visit can be viewed on the College of Education and Health Professions Facebook page.

The occasion was national Computer Science Education Week, and Kirksey was one of nearly 200,000 schools around the world taking part in the Hour of Code, a global movement promoted by Code.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding access to computer science and increasing participation by women and underrepresented students of color. Kirksey Middle School's goal was for every student to complete one hour of code or at least two class periods of coding time.

Now in his 25th year as an educator, Mears said he spent the first 12 years as a high school and middle school teacher in Kansas City. Since then, he has taught on the university level. He pointed out - with the help of a video clip - how children from the time they are babies are learning how to use technology and they expect it to be available to them and easy to use. In the video, a little girl of about 1 touches a printed page, moving her finger around as if she expects it to respond like a computer tablet or phone, expanding the view and showing her different images.

Mears also told the students a story about how he attended a high school in Neosho, Missouri, that had some of the first Commodore 64 computers. He asked them to calculate - based on the memory storage capacity of the Commodore 64 and the megabytes of storage needed to play a music video - how many of the old machines would be needed to play the video. It would be 86 of the Commodore 64 computers, the students figured out, and Mears compared that to the capacity of the phones in their pockets to hold hundreds of songs, videos and other digital data.

Mears is a clinical associate professor who joined the College of Education and Health Professions faculty in 2014. He coordinates the educational specialist degree in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and he also teaches in the educational technology degree program.The educational technology program is ranked No. 18 among the Best Online Master in Educational Technology Degree Programs in the nation by TheBestSchools.org.

There are several options available to students who want to become coders and do coding as a profession, Mears said. The educational technology master's degree in the College of Education and Health Professions prepares graduates to work as instructional designers and other professionals in many settings, including education, business, government and health, he said.

Before coming to the class, Mears visited an employment listserve and found statistics on entry-level jobs available now in computer coding. More than 100 jobs on the site paid $50,000 annually and 10 jobs paid $85,000, with more than 200 jobs paying salaries within that range.

"The demand is huge for these skills you are learning in this class," he said.

After Mears' talk, Powell set the students to work creating computer games on a free programming platform called Scratch. Mears went around the room, talking to students as they worked and asking questions. He said he got some ideas for a technology class he will teach at the U of A in the spring.