Luleå’s schools coding – a challenge from the municipality

Publication date: February 22, 2019

As of July 1, 2018, computer programming is included in the Swedish curriculum.

Computer programming is a part of mathematics and the students will encounter computer programming from grade 1.

In Luleå, the municipality wanted to bring attention to this change in the curriculum during Code Week and gave all schools a challenge; that in Luleå at least 100 events will be carried out and that all schools will participate, making the municipality the most successful in Code Week in Sweden.

To help the teachers, the municipality prepared tips and links to good computer programming exercises to do with their students. This was handled by the municipality’s head teachers in mathematics, who are an inspiration and role models for their colleagues. During the spring of 2018, these teachers received training in computer programming and together have developed educational and inspirational material for their colleagues.

At the conclusion of Code Week 2018, Luleå had reached 139 events and about 6,000 of the municipality’s students had in various ways been part of Codeweek. Luleå also had the most events in Sweden.

Elisabet Dimeus, one of the lecturers, succeeded in involving all her teacher colleagues in the two schools she works at. She says that her colleagues and students now know that computer programming is both fun and easy. For her, it was also important to show that one can work with computer programming without using a computer and that it develops the students’ problem- olving abilities.