Eight months ago, in his final State of the Union Address and subsequent weekly address, President Obama set a bold goal—every American student should have the opportunity to learn computer science. The President’s case was simple. More than nine in 10 parents want CS taught at their child’s school and yet, by some estimates, only a quarter of K-12 schools offer a CS course with programming included.
The need for such skills across industries continues to grow rapidly, with 51 percent of all science, technology, engineering, and math jobs projected to be in a CS-related field by 2018. Since the President’s call to action, strong momentum for CS education has been growing at all levels of government and in the private sector.
To mark this progress, and celebrate new commitments in support of the President’s initiative, the White House is hosting a summit on Computer Science for All Wednesday.
As part of the White House’s Computer Science Summit, Chattanooga-based Thinking Media’s Learning Blade was featured as key component of two of the nationally announced commitments.
The Commitments are:
Thinking Media is committing to exposing up to 30,000 middle school students in 320 schools in Arkansas to CS careers through the governor of Arkansas’s initiative to deliver Learning Blade, a tool for increasing STEM career awareness, by December 2017. In addition, at a national level, TATA Consultancy Services will collaborate with Thinking Media and Learning Blade to introduce 10 CS careers and technologies in way that emphasizes social interaction and impact.
Tennessee STEM Innovation Network will create a virtual STEM education hub equipped with CS courses, CS and STEM career awareness through Learning Blade to reach rural and under-served students at over 150 schools by June 2017.
“Recognizing the value of career awareness as a key component to advancing computer science job readiness for our nation’s students is rewarding for our company. We are honored to be included in this national effort,” said Sheila Boyington, president and CEO for Thinking Media/Learning Blade.
“In order to prepare young people for 21st century careers, students need to be able to relate to the innovative work that professionals actually do within companies. We believe that the CS missions are a pioneering effort to expand their outlook and we are glad to partner with Learning Blade to inspire tomorrow's leaders today,” said Balaji Ganapathy, TCS.
Governor Asa Hutchinson said, “The Learning Blade’s focus on STEM education will offer Arkansas’s students new and exciting opportunities to learn real-world computer science concepts. This program will help our young learners master the fundamentals required for an array of specialized and highly-competitive STEM careers. This effort, along with my computer science initiative, is putting Arkansas’s students in an even better position to land tech-driven jobs. As the computer coding movement in Arkansas continues to gain momentum, I look forward to even greater numbers of students taking on the skills needed for these challenging and rewarding fields.”
Learning Blade challenges students to take on game-based projects that expose them to different aspects of science, technology, engineering, and math education – commonly referred to as STEM. Learning Blade is used in over 25 states including statewide in Tennessee and Arkansas and DC. The new Learning Blade Computer Science mission will be officially launched in Arkansas this fall.
For more information click here or contact Ms. Boyington at 309-3667.