[ISEA2016] Panel: Waiching Chung, Pong Lam & Winnie Soon — Computer Programming Education and Creative Arts

Panel Statement (abstract)

In December 2013, the American president, Barrack Obama released a video on YouTube encouraging youth to embrace computer programming and practice coding. His video kicked off the nationwide Computer Science Education Week, in which there was a one-hour school tutorial introducing students computer programming. The New York Mayor Bill de Blasio recently claimed, “Hundreds of thousands of good jobs will be accessible to those with coding and other essential skills.” In a recent viral social media post, “Stop Teaching Programming, Start Teaching Computational Thinking”, Tom Igoe from the NYU, Interactive Telecommunications Program questioned the pragmatic purpose of learning programming and suggested learning to program can make you a more expressive person. The presentation invited three early practitioners in Hong Kong creative art/design scenes to address the issues and concerns of offering coding education in the creative industries

Introduction to the Panel
The panel authors are practicing artists and designers in Hong Kong and at the same time, they also teach programming in universities in both Hong Kong and oversea. In the panel, CHUNG planned to draw similarity between the visual composition principles in graphic design with computer programming; LAM intended to share his extensive creative experience in web design and creative coding education between Hong Kong and Taiwan contexts, and SOON addressed the social and cultural aspects of codes and software practices.

  • Dr. Wai Ching Chung (Bryan), Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong and Baptist University, Hong Kong
  • Pong Lam, Visual Communication Department, Kunshan University, Taiwan
  • Winnie Soon, School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Denmark

Full text (PDF)  p. 399-400