São Paulo – The Arab Code Week is designed to promote education in programming to students and instructors across the Arab world. The official event runs from February 8 to 15, but the event features an extended schedule of all-free activities.
One such activity will be a class taught by the Brazilian instructor of Saudi background Francisco Tupy (pictured above), on January 24 at 3 pm (7 pm, Tunisia time, where the organizers are). The only non-Arab trainer to be featured, Tupy will teach the only lesson in English – all others will be in Arabic. He said the class is intended for other instructors, and it will cover the educational uses of Minecraft Education Edition and its software programming tools.
“The purpose of this class will be to teach skills and competences so teachers can be aware of how to develop technology-based interdisciplinary activities in math, history and English lessons, for instance. This way, students can learn the subject in question while building skills in technology, or digital literacy, which has to do with logic and computational thinking, so they can figure out what a code is. This is an increasingly widespread language. Programming is more and more a part of curricula,” Tupy told ANBA.
The Arab Code Week, according to Tupy, is an event that connects Arab countries through coding. “All teachers are Arab. I am the only one not born in an Arab country, even though they have invited me because I’m a descendant and therefore have free transit in the community,” said Tupy.
The fully online event will span 15 Arab countries – Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Sudan and Oman.
“The Arab Code Week’s objective is to help the Arab community, especially the teachers, students and all those interested in the coding field to highlight their energies and abilities, especially since the coding language has become managing our world and solving problems around us. Therefore, the idea of the Arab Code Week has emerged to provide an educational environment in a fun and easy way that could help educators to smoothly teach the basics of coding for all ages, focusing on the youngster. In fact, it is a great opportunity for them to be exposed to new spheres and new specializations,” a press release reads.
The event also sets out to provide an environment for experience-sharing across the Arab world, in addition to fun coding competitions. “This will probably contribute to the spread the coding culture and sciences fostering the 21st Century skills such as creativity and mastering technology, science, mathematics, engineering, and the arts in accordance with The Global STEAM Approach,” the release goes on. STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. It is an educational approach based on investigation, dialogue and critical thinking.
The event is organized by the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) in tandem with the Tunisian Tunisian Association for Educational Initiatives and a team of coordinators and trainers from various Arab countries.
“The important thing is it’s an event designed to introduce the teaching of coding as a technological inclusion tool. This is one of the OECD’s future skills pillars, with an eye towards employability and the shifting labor market and education,” said Tupy. OECD is the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.
.For more on the Arab Code Week, check out the event’s Facebook page.
- Find out more: Schools recreate historic Arab sites using Minecraft
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
