This week’s blog post is written by Bec Spink, teacher at Aitken Creek Primary School and co-creator of ‘Code the Future’.

Today’s students live in a technology saturated world. Technology is transforming education as we know it. But while many students often know how to use technology, they rarely understand how it works.

‘Code the Future’ aims to move students from mere consumers of technology to creators and producers, and to equip the next generation with the skills to not only use technology but to make it work for them. Our goal is to connect core stakeholders, and get developers into schools collaborating and working side by side with students and educators.

It is these through these industry partnerships that ‘Code the Future’ believes students will be provided with authentic, real world opportunities and have the chance to take computer science to the next level in schools and be given opportunities to move beyond just visual representations of coding into exposing and teaching students real programming languages in order to design, create and produce real products. For teachers, connecting and collaborating with developers is invaluable for real world application to student learning in the classroom.

It is a crucial time for education in Victoria with implementation of the new Digital Technologies curriculum coming soon to AusVELS. Now is the time for the technology industry and educators to connect, collaborate and work together to bring the best opportunities to our students.

What’s great is that ‘Code the Future’ is developing a community of both educators and developers, a place where educators can post ‘coding’ projects and activities and be matched with developers in their area, willing and eager to volunteer some time to work with students. The support and positive feedback we have had for this venture has been great, recently being featured in The Age newspaper.

We are currently seeking pilot project submissions from passionate teachers who would like the opportunity to be connected with industry professionals to develop computer science and coding in their classrooms. At this stage, the idea for a project is completely up to the educator. The important idea behind the pilot projects and bringing about this connection is to get developers and teachers working together for the benefit of students.

Interested teachers can submit projects here.

You can read more and sign up at codefuture.org, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.