Even around Hawke's Bay as I've met with many schools, there is a wide variety in attitudes to digital teaching. Often teachers and boards just do not know where to start.
Our world is digital. If you're into music, culture, medicine, social services, sport or business, all of it gets transformed by digital technology. Coding is a foundational skill which adds value to almost anything young children are passionate about.
Apple's CEO Tim Cook is advocating that coding becomes a mandatory subject at school.
Swift Playground is therefore an exciting development. Anyone in the world can now learn to code. All they need is access to an iPad.
I learned to code at Napier Boys' High School back in the 1980s. The excitement of computing and realisation that the digital world had no borders was what kick-started my entrepreneurial career.
In under 10 years, Xero is now on a quarter of a billion dollar revenue run rate, and employs more than 1500 highly paid staff all around the world.
Swift Playground levels the playing field for children all over the world. It's an easy step now for all schools to add coding to their curriculums in 2016.
It's important for schools, boards of trustees and parents to know that coding not only is becoming easily available for many people entering the workforce, the understanding of coding concepts and the ability to think and solve problems with logic will be expected skills in the global workforce.
In Hawke's Bay we are a bit off the global grid. Getting kids involved early with a global learn to code programme is a simple and obvious way to prepare our children for the new digital world we live in.
A couple of weeks ago we had the awesome Frances Valentine from Mindlab hosted at Napier Girls' High, talking to local teachers about how we have the first generation of digital native children coming through school.
It was fascinating to hear her theories of how children learn echoed differently in the experience of many of the teachers who attended. Mindlab is planning to establish a location in Hawke's Bay to equip teachers with the skills they need for rapidly evolving digital learning.
Funded by donations and grants and powered by passionate individuals, it's impressive to see how Mindlab is making a difference in communities such as Gisborne and especially in low-decile communities.
I chose to move back to Hawke's Bay for the lifestyle and as a base to operate globally. Fibre infrastructure is finally being delivered and now education can be delivered over that infrastructure, giving us a unique combination of lifestyle and global access. But I want to know my kids are not missing out on global opportunities by living here.
Knowing that these new resources like Apple's Swift Playground and initiatives like Mindlab are available to help our teachers through the digital transformation means our kids are operating globally and will leave our school systems well armed with what they need to be successful on the world stage.
- Rod Drury, who lives in Hawke's Bay, is CEO of Xero.
- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz
