Positive impacts of computer science on children

Abu Dhabi: Thousands of students of private and public schools in the capital region are coding to create simple animation games as part of their ICT and digital technology classes in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), officials said on Monday.

To highlight the young coders’ progress, a number of social media influencers joined Google and Adec officials to get a glimpse of what the students have learnt so far and produced with their knowledge.

“A majority of senior management officials in hi-tech companies have a background in coding and around 95 per cent of Google’s own senior management have coding skills — many of whom were exposed to it at a younger age,” Sam Blatteis, Head of Government Relations and Public Policy at Google, told Gulf News.

During the presentations that took place at Hazza Bin Zayed School, Grade 7 students Ahmad Sadeq Mohammad and Khalid Saeed Khalfan showcased their project which told the story of a student who succeeded at teleporting to the White House before being thrown out kicked the front lawn by security.

“Coding is something that I thought was impossible before I tried it. I never thought I would be able to do it,” said Mohammad who plans on becoming a professional animator.

“Now that I know how it’s done, I am able to point out the different techniques used in the video games I play and the cartoons I watch,” he told Gulf News.

Meanwhile, 12-year-old Mariam Al Khoury and Ruqayya Al Hosani’s animation portrayed two young girls exploring and appreciating UAE culture and heritage.

They said that coding has taught them to become more patient and to try new things.

“I never imagined coding would become a hobby of mine. I always thought that I would always have swimming as my only hobby,” Al Hosani said.

Her teammate, Al Khoury, revealed that using coding for school projects in different subjects such as maths, science and Arabic has taught her to become more confident

“My parents are very proud of me and the school is constantly motivating us through competitions and prizes to continue our work and to never give up,” she said.

Al Khoury plans on becoming a cardiovascular surgeon and hopes to use her programming skills to raise awareness on common health issues such as type 2 Diabetes.

There to support the children were Emirati TV host Diala Ali, business entrepreneur Khalifa Bin Hendi, creator of Freej and Mandoos animations, Mohammad Saeed Hareb and Emirati columnist Khalid Al Ameri.

After the presentations, Hareb shared his personal coding and animation experience with the students for about 15 minutes, teaching them how to make their work appear more realistic and have better flow.

“We spent time purely discussing code on a deep level and to do that with students at this age is extremely impressive because this is something that I usually do with graduates. I was pleasantly surprised,” he said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the event, e-Leaning Programme Manager at Adec Dr Najla Al Naqbi told Gulf News that coding is a daily practice for all of us and teaching it to children at a young age can change their mentality.

“Due to the ‘if, then’ nature of coding, children can improve their reasoning skills. They can determine the consequences of their actions and their possible outcomes. Everybody mentally codes whenever planning their day or organising their life and coding has improved the students’ ability to solve problems and work in teams,” she said.

“They are also reaching further than making a simple slide show presentation to actually integrating animation into their classes whenever they are required to present,” she added.

Adec first worked with Google on a pilot to test 100 students’ response to coding. The children were in Grades 4,5 and 9.

“After seeing their reaction to it, we knew we had to make it available for students from Grades 1 to 12,” she revealed.