Primary school students explore basic programming at Curtin Malaysia

Miri – 20 September 2017 – 35 students from Sekolah Kebangsaan Kelapa Sawit No. 4 had their first experience of basic programming during an ‘Exploring Programming’ module workshop organised as part of their visit to the campus of Curtin University Malaysia (Curtin Malaysia) recently.

Their visit was hosted by Curtin Educational Facilitators (E-FacT), a student-run organisation of volunteers who support educational development in local schools through the organising of education-based and skills-development programmes for students.

It was aimed at exposing these rural students to university life and get them interested in pursuing tertiary education in the future, as well as giving them the opportunity to experience first-hand the modern learning and teaching facilities and technologies used at Curtin Malaysia.

The workshop was held in the state-of-the-art Collaborative Learning Space in the campus’ new RM30 million Faculty of Engineering and Science building and conducted with the assistance of lecturers from the Faculty’s Foundation in Engineering and Science Department.

The students started by participating in a ‘Stack-Up Algorithm’ session which introduced them to the concept of devising simple instructions for constructing a structure using paper cups.

Information Technology lecturer and session facilitator Kamaroizan Mohamad said this method allows students to identify problems and carefully construct simple instructions to address them, thus teaching them to solve problems systematically.

In addition, the students took part in a ‘Binary Bauble’ session aimed at introducing them to the concept of binary numbers, a language that is used to store and represent information in computers.

Information Technology associate lecturer Nong Nurnie Mohd. Nistah, who was one of the session’s facilitators, said it was heartening to see the students actively engaging in the activity.

“Although they didn’t fully understand how computer memory works, they were very determined to decode numbers and letters using binary digits,” said Nong.

According to Curtin E-FacT president Sheikh Mohd. Ashrawi S. Zainal Abidin, this was the first time the student organisation had been approached by a rural school to conduct such an activity at the university as opposed to the student volunteers conducting activities in the schools. He said that feedback from the school indicated the students were very appreciative of the experience and are more motivated to excel in their studies as a result.

He added that the workshop followed an equally successful John Curtin Leadership Camp conducted by Curtin E-FacT involving five schools in and around Miri.

To find out more about Curtin E-Fact, visit its Facebook page (Curtin E-FacT) or its Instagram (curtinefact).

Students and teachers of SK Kelapa Sawit No. 4 with Curtin E-FacT facilitators.

Facilitator Kamaroizan Mohamad conducting Stack-Up Algorithm session.

Students with their Stack-Up Algorithm structure.

Students trying out Binary Bauble puzzle using interactive web application.