Dec 23, 2023 - CBC News - Growing number of Alberta students interested in computer science, study suggests
Original Text (Processed by AI)
Right now, we're about to test how our robot drives interest in computer science at Bev Facey Community High School. Because of student demand, the school just added a second competitive robotics team. According to a recent University of Alberta study, computer science education has been growing steadily across the province. Between 2009 and 2019, it's gone up annually by more than 30%.
"We ended up finding that, as we kind of suspected, there was a really substantial growth rate, and it's been pretty consistent over the last 10 to 12 years. But also, that growth rate was not necessarily consistent within different groups. Classes have been growing faster in cities than in rural areas, and they're still drawing more male students than female."
High school teacher David Hay thinks the subject's growth is a good thing. Even as artificial intelligence threatens to replace some programming tasks, the ideas of computational thinking and being able to design things are never going to go away. That's something that we need more and more people to understand.
Students say they're not surprised by the trend. With the new iPhones, laptops, and computers, a lot more students and kids are getting into technology at earlier ages. "I believe that could be a big reason why people are going into computing science now."
The appeal for some is getting to build things like robots or games. Basically, when you see the final result, you kind of look at all the efforts you've done to come to this point, and it's really satisfying. Both students say they're enjoying their classes now, and in the future, could see themselves pursuing careers in computer science.
Meline Cummings, CBC News, Sherwood Park.
Dictation
Right now, we are about to test our robot.
Interest in computer science is growing at Bev Facey Community High School. Because of the students demand, the school just added a second competitive robotics team.
According to a recent University of Alberta's study, computer science education has been growing steadily across the province. Between 2009 and 2019, it's gone up annually by more than thirty percent.
We ended up finding that, as we kind of suspected, there was a really substantial growth rate, and it has been pretty consistent over the last 10 to 12 years. Emm but also, that growth rate was not necessarily consistent within different groups.
Classes have been growing faster in cities than in rural areas, and they're still drawing more male students than female.
High school teacher, David Hay, thinks the subject's growth is a good thing. Even as artificial intelligence threatens to replace some programming tasks.
The ideas of computational thinking, and being able to design things, and that's never going to go away. That's something we need more and more people to understand.
And the students say, they are not surprised by the trend.
With the new iphones, laptops, and computers, a lot more students and kids are getting into technology at earlier ages. I believe that could be a big reason why people are going in computing science now.
The appeal for some, getting to build things like robots or games.
Basically, when you see the final result, you kind of look at all the efforts you have done to come to this point. And it's very satisfied.
Both students say they're enjoying their classes now, and in the future could see themselves pursuing careers in computer science. NC, CBC News, Sherwood Park.