"Code Stars" - Short Film — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01"Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer...
2. 0:04because it teaches you how to think." - Steve Jobs
3. 0:09What do you want to be when you grow up? Um... an astronaut.
4. 0:12I want to be a fashion designer. A basketball player. I want to be an actor. A doctor. A
5. 0:17teacher. A chef. An artist. What do you wanna be when you grow up? A mermaid!
6. 0:24(interviewer) Do you know what a computer programmer is? (student) Yeah--umm... no. No. Uhh, no.
7. 0:32I think it's something that has code and it's able to decode a mystery. I think that they...
8. 0:41umm, wait what? (interviewer) Computer programmer? (student) No.
9. 0:48Nowadays, just about everything requires some form of programming. So what is it?
10. 0:55Programming is basically explaining to a computer what you want it to do for you. When you're programming, you're teaching possibly
11. 1:02the stupidest thing in the universe, a computer, how to do something. Programming is one of
12. 1:08the only things in the world that you can do where you can sit down and just make something
13. 1:13completely new from scratch-whatever you want. It's really not unlike playing an instrument
14. 1:18or playing a sport. It starts out being very intimidating, but you kind of get the hang
15. 1:26of it over time. Coding is something that can be learned and I know it can be intimidating,
16. 1:31and a lot of things are intimidating, but what isn't? A lot of the coding people do
17. 1:38is actually fairly simple. It's more about the process of breaking down problems than
18. 1:46coming up with complicated algorithms as people traditionally think about it. Well if it's
19. 1:51fairly simple, why aren't there more of us doing it? Over the next 10 years there will
20. 1:57be 1.4 million jobs in computer science and only about 400,000 grads qualify for those
21. 2:02jobs. That's a shortage of a million people! So how do you start?
22. 2:16I was obsessed with maps when I was a kid, and cities specifically, so I taught myself how to program. I had a
23. 2:25very clear goal of what I wanted to do which was to see a map of the city on my screen
24. 2:31and play with it. Put things on the map, move things around the map, see what was happening
25. 2:36in the city. How it worked, how it lived, how it breathed. The best early thing was
26. 2:41actually using software to decide when the classes in my school would meet. And that
27. 2:47put me in a position to decide which girls were in my class.
28. 2:54The first program I wrote asked things like, "What's your favorite color?" or "How old are you?" I first learned how
29. 3:00to make a green circle and a red square appear on the screen. The first time I actually had
30. 3:06something come up and say "Hello world!" I made a computer do that? It was astonishing.
31. 3:11When I finally learned a little bit of programming, that blank wall resolved into a bunch of doors.
32. 3:17And you open them and finally you start to open enough doors that the light comes in.
33. 3:21And to me, a finished program is like a structure filled with light. All the corners are illuminated
34. 3:27and you understand the structure of it. It's a really serene feeling to have completed that.
35. 3:41It took me some time to realize that creating things with your hands or creating
36. 3:45code, creating programs is just a different way to express creativity. I think right now
37. 3:52there's a big emergence of the culture of making. People who make their own scarves
38. 3:59and hats, people who write their own apps. Now it's just limited by your imagination.
39. 4:03And sort of what kinds of ideas, what kind of understanding can you build into a computer
40. 4:10to do these things that were previously impossible.
41. 4:18All great things are built in teams when you
42. 4:22collaborate with other smart people. You're testing your ideas, you're stimulating each
43. 4:28other, that's what makes us successful. It's not some flash of brilliance from somebody
44. 4:33who codes 24 hours a day for 3 weeks. The magic happens when we're all on the same page
45. 4:41collaborating and building something together. There's a much greater need in the world for
46. 4:46engineers and people who can write code than there will ever be supply. And so we all live
47. 4:54these very charmed lives. To get the very best people we try to make the office as awesome as possible.
48. 5:21We have a fantastic chef. Free food. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Free laundry.
49. 5:28Snacks. Even places to play and video games and scooters. There's all these kind of interesting
50. 5:35things around the office.
51. 5:38Places where people can play or relax, or go to think, or play music, or be creative.
52. 5:46I went on the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the United States
53. 5:49and there's about a third of the pie that's all the things that you would expect. They're
54. 5:54working for the government, they're working in typical technology jobs, but then the rest
55. 6:00of the pie--the majority of the pie--just split down into these little tiny slices of
56. 6:04every industry imaginable. And what it is, is computers are everywhere! Do you want to
57. 6:09work in agriculture? Do you want to work in entertainment? Do you want to work in manufacturing?
58. 6:15It's just all over.
59. 6:28Here we are, 2013, and we all depend on technology to communicate,
60. 6:33to bank. Information. And none of us know how to read and write code.
61. 6:43So you guys, what else? Who else has an idea of what we can change with our program?
62. 6:48What else can we do?
63. 6:51What I saw my students take away from using Scratch and programming in our classroom
64. 6:57is that they're willing to push through problems. It really builds critical thinking. It builds
65. 7:02problem solving. And it's something that they can then apply to math in the classroom. Or
66. 7:08their reading skills. We integrated science with this programming and I saw my scores
67. 7:15go up 30%. When I was in school I was in this after school club called the Whiz Kids and
68. 7:23when people found out they laughed at me. You know all these things. And I'm like, man
69. 7:27I don't care. I think it's cool. You know I'm learning a lot and some of my friends
70. 7:33have jobs. It's important for these kids. It should be mandatory. To be a citizen on
71. 7:40this planet, to read and write code.
72. 7:47I just think you have to start small. That's one of the biggest misconceptions about
73. 7:52computer science and programming overall is that you
74. 7:55have to learn this big body of information before you can do anything. You don't have
75. 8:00to be a genius to know how to code. You need to be determined. Addition, subtraction, that's
76. 8:06about it. You should probably know your multiplication tables. You don't have to be a genius to code.
77. 8:11Do you have to be a genius to read? Do you have to be a genius to do math? No. I think
78. 8:18if someone had told me that software is really about humanity. That it's really about helping
79. 8:26people by using computer technology, it would have changed my outlook a lot earlier. Whether
80. 8:31you're trying to make a lot of money or whether you just want to change the world, computer
81. 8:34programming is an incredibly empowering skill to learn. To be able to actually come up with
82. 8:38an idea and then see it in your hands and then press a button and have it be in millions
83. 8:44of people's hands, I think we're the first generation in the world that's really had
84. 8:48that kind of experience. The programmers of tomorrow are the wizards of the future. You're
85. 8:53going to look like you have magic powers compared to everybody else. I think it's amazing. I
86. 8:57think it's the closest thing we have to a superpower. Great coders are today's rockstars.
87. 9:03That's it.
88. 9:06To start learning a superpower go to Code.org.