The U.S. Department of Education and Games for Change, with the support of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) hosted on April 21 the first-ever Games for Learning Summit where commercial game developers, publishers, expert educators, students, government officials, and other stakeholders identified strategies for the broader creation and use of high-quality video games in the classroom and beyond. The summit was in direct response to President Barack Obama’s ConnectED, an initiative that aims to empower educators with the best technology and digital content to enrich the learning experience for students.

It was an amazing experience to run a workshop about “Empowering Students to Design” with Shannon Sullivan (VP, Product & Technology, Globaloria), Scott Larner (Director, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards), Andrea Chaves (Spanish & Technology Educator, The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria) and her students, Daniela, Margot and Gabriela, who spoke about their experiences learning STEM and computing through designing their own games for change.

Here are some tweets from the event!

Join our session: Empowering Learners thru Game Design #G4L15 featuring @globaloria students & educators @usedgov pic.twitter.com/xingrrBAG5

— Idit Harel (@Idit) April 21, 2015

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You heard me say this before. Coding is the new literacy. On March 26, EdSurge released a new Coding Guide, including a guide for summer coding camps. They invited me to write an article to explain why parents need to learn to code. I believe they do in order to inspire their children in their STEM learning and computer science endeavors.

“We all read to our children from a young age and encourage them to write. We do not expect them to become novelists or journalists, but we know these skills are a pathway to productivity and prosperity. It’s the same with coding.”

Exciting news from Washington, DC. on March 23, 2015. With the White House Science Fair as a backdrop, President Obama announced a huge funding boost for STEM education and pledged $240M STEM education campaign. $90M in Federal funds will expand STEM opportunities for underrepresented youth like girls and those in the minority. In addition, a coalition of corporate CEO’s pledged $150M for a philanthropic effort aimed at expanding high-quality STEM education programs for the benefit of 1.5M more students in 2015. (Photo © Scripps Wire: “Obama ‘amazed’ by student science fair demonstrations”)

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