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What if learning to code weren't actually the most important thing? It turns out that rather than increasing the number of kids who can crank out thousands of lines of JavaScript, we first need to boost the number who understand what code can do. As the cities that have hosted Code for America teams will tell you, the greatest contribution the young programmers bring isn't the software they write. It's the way they think. It's a principle called "computational thinking," and knowing all of the Java syntax in the world won't help if you can't think of good ways to apply it.

"That feeling of quality is the hardest thing for many developers to master. Well-designed code feels good to work with, and ugly code will make developers involuntarily cringe. The best developers learn to fuse abstract logic with the sensitivity of an artist. Learning to trust that aesthetic feeling is as much a part of development as any algorithm or coding pattern."

Code.org, the new non-profit aimed at encouraging computer science education launched last month by entrepreneur and investor brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi, has assembled an all-star group of the world's most well-known and successful folks with programming skills to talk about how learning to code has changed their lives - and isn't quite as hard as people might think.

"For the past five Mondays, Mr. Musselman and Mr. Schersten have been holding an after-school coding club for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. The students used Hopscotch, a free, introductory coding app using visual programming "blocks" to instruct the behavior of objects on screen."

The first two-dimensional bar codes, or QR codes, as they're known, were installed Friday at Arpoador, a massive boulder that rises at the end of Ipanema beach. The image was built into the sidewalk with the same black and white stones that decorate sidewalks around town with mosaics of waves, fish and abstract images.

"'m not a hacker. I don't know how to code. A programmer friend recently joked that I "couldn't tell Boolean from bit shifting" and I don't know what that means. So I was just a little bit intimidated when I sat down to play Hack 'n' Slash, a Legend of Zelda-style adventure that challenges you to solve puzzles by reprogramming the source code of the game itself."

"This document is a code of best practices that helps educators using media literacy concepts and techniques to interpret the copyright doctrine of fair use. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances-especially when the cultural or social benefits of the use are predominant. It is a general right that applies even in situations where the law provides no specific authorization for the use in question-as it does for certain narrowly defined classroom activities."

"The free QR-Code-Generator to create QR Codes with Logo, Color and vector formats (SVG, PDF, EPS)."

we really don't own our stuff anymore (at least not fully); the manufacturers do. Because modifying modern objects requires access to information: code, service manuals, error codes, and diagnostic tools. Modern cars are part horsepower, part high-powered computer. Microwave ovens are a combination of plastic and microcode. Silicon permeates and powers almost everything we own.

"Key findings from the report include: When publishers bundle a textbook with an access code, it eliminates most opportunities for students to cut costs with the used book market. Of the access code bundles in our sample, forty-five percent-nearly half-were unavailable from any other source we could find except the campus bookstore. This eliminated student's ability to shop around and meant that they were forced to pay full price for these materials. For the classes using bundles, students would likely be stuck paying full price, whereas for the classes using a textbook only, students could cut costs up to fifty-eight percent by buying used online. Schools that have invested in open educational resources (OER) generated significant savings for their students. OER are educational materials that can be downloaded or accessed for free online while carrying many other benefits for students and professors. For example, in Massachusetts, Greenfield Community College's use of OER in three of the six courses in our study meant that students there could spend as little as $31 per course on materials, compared to a national average of $153 per course. Switching the ten introductory classes in our study to OER nationwide would save students $1.5 billion per year in course materials costs."

"Today, computer science is absent in 95 percent of high schools in the U.S. Yep. Why? Because developing curriculum for these subjects requires time and expertise, and finding the qualified candidates to teach these subjects demands significant capital to lure talented programmers away from high-paying jobs in the private sector.  That's where CodeHS comes in. Founded by Stanford students Zach Galant and Jeremy Keeshin and incubated at StartX and Imagine K12, CodeHS is an online program built for high school students (and teachers) with no previous coding experience that intends to provide an easy and fun way to learn computer science."

"I made a series of posters that I often hang around the room when I facilitate workshops. It's fun for participants to get up and scan them at break time. Each poster features a quote about education or technology. Part of the quote or its author is missing and has been replaced with a QR code."

"Jeannette M. Wing actually phrases it, "computational thinking" in her article on the subject, and writes that "Computational thinking is a fundamental skill for everyone, not just for computer scientists. To reading, writing, and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child's analytical ability.""

"The Code of Best Practices for Academic and Research Libraries"

"What those parents likely don't realize is that the same neural mechanisms that make kids sponges for Mandarin likely also make them highly receptive to computer languages. Kindergartners cannot become C++ ninjas, but they can certainly start to develop the skills that will eventually cement lifelong fluency in code."

"Moving beyond improving career prospects, the conversation then turned repeatedly to the idea that literacy means more than using digital technology as a means of consuming things other people make. Digital literacy, Smith said, also is about "how to make it do what you want." Or as Geshner put it: "Are you an iPad or are you a laptop? An iPad is designed for consumption." Literacy, as he described it, means moving beyond a passive relationship with technology. "When you get down to coding, you're creating your own tools.""

"During the second half of the semester, student work outside the classroom is focused primarily on the completion of specialization badges. Students are encouraged to forge their own path through the course material by completing badges from the following categories: coding, industry analysis, graphic design, user experience, power user skills, and entrepreneurship. In order to earn an A grade on the badge component, students must master at least eight specialization badges. To ensure breadth, all students must complete at least one badge in each category in order to pass the course. (Note: Students were also allowed to pitch their own badges if they could make the case for the badge's connection to course themes.)"

Berlin filmmaker Sam Muirhead has come up with an ambitious stunt: He'll live without proprietary goods for one year in an effort to immerse himself in the open-source maker movement. Muirhead will be something of a fish out of water-he doesn't code and isn't a die-hard DIYer, but he's excited to spread the gospel and benefit the community.

Each SLC Camp is a combined Codeathon and Tagathon. These are volunteer events to help build usable applications to help teachers, parents and students in K-12 Education. Volunteers will use the open source sample code and APIs available at dev.slcedu.org, as well as tools available on the same site for bulk data ingestion, data format transforms, and meta-tagging of educational content.

"But come Saturday, you'll have to break the law to unlock your phone. If you want to get in under the gun, you can search the Internet for the code to enter to unlock the phone or find a tool that will help you accomplish the task."

ABSOLUTE GARBAGE. AND OTHER WORDS THAT I WILL NOT USE ON A MOOC.