Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools

深入揭露科技巨頭如何催化、拉攏並最終掌控美國電腦科學與人工智慧（AI）教育的內幕。

美國四年級學生正在上 Google 品牌的程式設計課；Amazon 為七年級生講授倉庫機器人如何運作；Microsoft與 Apple 則提供進階先修（AP）電腦課程。如果讓埃克森美孚石油公司（Exxon）來編寫學校的氣候課程，或是學校指定可口可樂與麥當勞來上營養課，許多教育工作者和家長定會強烈反對。然而在今天，科技巨頭幾乎影響著教育供應鏈的每一個環節。它們提供學生做作業所需的課堂設備與軟體；它們向學校推銷最新的 AI 工具；甚至越來越多科技公司推出自家企業品牌的學校課程，形塑著數百萬兒童「怎麼學習」以及「學習什麼」。

近年來，科技產業以驚人的速度與規模，推動電腦科學和 AI 教育進入校園。在《程式兒童》一書中，《紐約時報》資深科技與教育調查記者 Natasha Singer 基於長達十年的追蹤報導，揭示了科技巨頭如何利用「學習程式設計」的許諾（高薪工作！改變世界！），將美好的產業願景編織進美國教育的骨幹中，有時甚至邊緣化了公民素養與批判性思考等關鍵概念。Singer在書中帶領讀者深入剖析科技巨頭在全國推廣程式課程時所使用的強大招數；繼之揭露這些科技公司如今正如何套用同一套招數，將其 AI 工具推上校園主流。

《程式兒童》在報導強勢科技公司形塑教育與我們孩子未來的同時，也帶來了希望。一群先驅教師奮力爭取更廣闊科技教育願景——這種教育不是只教孩子演算法和製作應用程式 (App)，而是讓學生學會拆解演算法、討論網路倫理、以及研究如何解決社區面對的問題等，培養深入思考與面對科技巨頭及其顛覆性數位工具對社會所帶來的衝擊。

The inside story of how Big Tech catalyzed, co-opted, and ultimately came to capture computer science and AI education in America.

Fourth graders doing Google-branded coding lessons. Amazon schooling seventh graders on its warehouse robots. Advanced Placement computing courses from Microsoft and Apple. Many educators and parents would object if Exxon wrote their school’s climate curriculum―or if schools assigned nutrition lessons from Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. Yet today, tech giants influence nearly every step of the education supply chain. They provide the classroom devices and software many students use to do assignments. They sell schools on the latest artificial intelligence tools. And increasingly, tech companies are launching their own corporate-branded school curricula, shaping how and what millions of children learn.

In recent years, the tech industry has helped spread computer science and AI education in schools at astonishing speed and scale. In Coding Kids, award-winning New York Times journalist Natasha Singer draws on a decade of reporting to reveal how tech titans used the promise of coding (high-paying jobs! change the world!) to weave rosy industry visions of technology into the very fabric of American education, sometimes sidelining crucial ideas like civics and critical thinking. Along the way, Singer takes readers through the powerful playbook Big Tech used to scale coding lessons nationwide. Then she shows readers how tech companies are now applying the same playbook to mainstream their AI tools in schools.

A revelatory account of the powerful forces shaping education and our kids’ futures, Coding Kids also offers hope. It tells the compelling stories of pioneering teachers fighting for a broader vision of tech education―one that not only teaches kids algorithms and app-making, but also asks students to grapple with the societal impacts of tech giants and their disruptive digital tools.