UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies joined the Los Angeles Unified School District and nonprofit Code.org to collectively launch the Los Angeles segment of National Computer Science Education Week at the UCLA Community School Dec. 10.
 
With support from President Obama and high-tech industry titans such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, organizers of the national campaign to promote computer science in schools are urging teachers across the country to teach K-12 students basic computer code this week as part of the “Hour of Code.”
 
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Dean Marcelo Súarez-Orozco of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies observes students of the UCLA Community School as they try their hand at writing computer code.  
Dean Marcelo Súarez-Orozco kicked off the event in L.A. at the UCLA Community School with local and state lawmakers, and industry leaders from Microsoft, Apple, Google and other Los Angeles–based technology companies in attendance.
 
Also attending was Jane Margolis, Center X senior researcher at the UCLA graduate education school, who serves on the Code.org advisory board and has been leading the effort to get more computer science classes into all local schools. Margolis is the author of “Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing.”
 
Among the speakers at the event supporting the initiative were Thelma Meléndez de Santa Ana, senior policy advisor and director of education and workforce development for the Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti; California Assemblyman Ed Chau (49th Dist.); Gerardo Loera, executive director of curriculum and instruction for LAUSD; and James Gwertzman, chief evangelist at Code.org.
 
Read the entire story at Ampersand, the online magazine for the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.