Úlfur Atlason, project manager of Skema, is the representative for the European collaborative project EU CodeWeek. EU CodeWeek is a grass-roots movement celebrating creativity, problem-solving and collaboration through programming and other tech activities. The idea is to make programming more visible, to show young adults and the elderly how you bring ideas to life with code, to demystify these skills and bring motivated people together to learn. The group met in Bulgaria recently.

We met in Bulgaria where we laid the foundation for this collaboration and the preparations for EU CodeWeek that will be held in October. We attended various lectures and I met teachers, project managers and people from the industry who are all working towards the same goal. There was a good and creative atmosphere in the group. Our project at Skema is to build grassroots work in programming teaching in primary schools. With me on this project are Zuzanna Elvira Korpak, assistant project manager at Skema, and Guðný Ólafsdóttir, primary school teacher.

Among those that Úlfur met are colleagues from the Nordic countries, and a special collaboration with them and Skema is now being considered. Úlfur says that the Nordic countries are generally ahead of Iceland, having implemented programming fully in the curriculum of primary schools, while in Iceland, this has only been done partially. There is a need to do better in the Icelandic school system. Generally, western and Northern European countries are more advanced than those in Southern Europe.

Úlfur mentions Finland as an example of a country where programming instruction has become part of the primary school curriculum. Students are taught basic programming, which is mixed with other subjects, e.g., language and mathematics.

Programming lessons can take a very creative form and be linked with many subjects such as math or languages that can be trained by creating cartoons and interactive stories. More and more emphasis is placed on the STEAM disciplines and with programming it is possible to connect all the letters. (STEM subjects are disciplines in the fields of engineering, science, technology, computer science, and natural sciences.)

See more about EU CodeWeek here