Category Archives: Coding Curriculum

Harvard Scientist Codes a Movie onto DNA

How do you store your data? Flash drive? External hard drive? The Cloud? A Harvard scientist is trying to create a new, more organic storage space: DNA. The Los Angeles Daily News takes a look at this in a recent article titled “This Harvard scientist is coding an entire movie onto DNA.”

Emilie Munson of the Los Angeles Daily News writes, “What if all the information on the internet could be stored in a drop of liquid the size of a quarter? What if billions of copies of that information could be made in minutes? And what if it were guaranteed that all that information would be safe not just for your lifetime, but for millions of lifetimes? Sounds like wishful thinking, right? To Harvard genetics professor Dr. George Church, it sounds like the future. Church is one of the world’s premier DNA scientists. He made headlines recently for his research attempting to bring the wooly mammoth back from extinction. His many contributions since the 1980s include developing anti-cancer nano-robots and detectors for dark matter. Somewhat more obscurely, he’s the inventor of CRISPR, which allows scientists to elegantly cut and paste DNA, enabling the removal of undesirable chromosomes, among other applications. In 2014, scientists in Church’s lab successfully used CRISPR to cure mice of liver disease. Now, Church is focused on doing something no other scientist has succeeded in doing: coding a film onto tiny strands of DNA.”

Munson goes on to describe the process of coding the movie into DNA. She writes, “The DNA that Church is using to store ‘A Trip to the Moon’ is different from that found in living organisms. Instead, it is ‘unnatural DNA,’ crafted to be denser and more robust, perfected for storing high quantities of information. The process of coding the film to DNA is fairly complicated, but in simple terms, it goes something like this:

Every movie image is made up of hundreds of tiny pixels, each of a specific color. Church assigns each pixel a code made up of zeros and ones, for example 001001, based on its color. This code is then converted into adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T), the chemical bases that make up DNA.”

The things we can do with coding are truly fascinating. But no matter what wild things scientists and programmers do, there is one common thread: a quality coding education.

If you want to give your child a customized, high quality coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, we emphasize computational thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. Our lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise, making the entire curriculum customized. We may be known for having the most educational tech camp out there, but we also keep the focus on having fun. As a result, students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

If you’re looking to take your child’s coding education to the next level, you can’t go wrong with CodeRev Kids!

New App Helps Developers Locate Coding Problems

Often times, we think of coding in terms of creating things to make life easier for consumers. Recently, SourceDNA decided to offer up a product to aid developers. Venture Beat explores this in a recent article titled “SourceDNA launches Searchlight, a developer tool to find coding problems in any app.”

Ken Yeung of Venture Beat writes, “‘People think about the most obvious ways to solve problems. With developers, it’s solving a problem when they’re writing the code,’ said Lawson. ‘Most people don’t think about reviewing their work after the code has been written. You have to do a lot of detective work.’ What Lawson is referring to is that developers aren’t always looking deep into their code to find out what’s broken and needs to be fixed. Often it might just be a referral to a code library and if something is broken, it can be difficult to find out which customers are affected by the bad code. This is something SourceDNA wants to showcase — its ability to give developers the tools to build better apps than are currently out in the marketplace. Lawson explained that the company is already scanning through 60,000 apps a day, but is still playing catch-up. However, the service is something existing marketplaces don’t provide: When you submit an app to Apple or Google, the reviewers are going to make sure that the app doesn’t violate any of its standards. They won’t examine the code to see if there are any potential problems in the code itself. SourceDNA takes things one step further. Originally geared as a business intelligence service (think Nielsen for apps), SourceDNA has moved beyond telling companies about app trends to helping developers figure out what’s wrong with their apps. Lawson and his team have spent more than three years working on SourceDNA and seem to have found success with its BI unit. Today, it’s also targeting developers as a new audience, so now the company is addressing both sides of the ecosystem.”

In order to put your child in a position to build a career as a developer, you need to start with early coding education. When it comes to coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids.

At CodeRev Kids, we emphasize computational thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. The lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. Thus, the entire curriculum is customized.

Furthermore, while we are known for saying we are the most educational tech camp out there, we also keep the focus on having fun. By doing this, our students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

If you’re looking to begin or further your child’s coding education, there’s no better choice than CodeRev Kids!

Coding Considered “Child’s Play” for Dubai Startup

dubai-arab-emissionsWhenever we discuss the need for more coding education, our eyes tend to look overseas at countries where education, in general, tends to be more of a priority. We look at the youth in these countries as the future of our workforce, especially if we don’t improve our coding education efforts. To get an idea of what the state of coding education looks like overseas, consider a recent article for the National titled “For one Dubai start-up, computer coding is child’s play.”

Hareth Al Bustani of the National writes, “On one side of the room, children are building worlds and on the other, websites. A boy taps away at his keyboard, typing commands and tying up loose ends. He appears in his element, even if the name of the language he is using – Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) – would be enough to put most people off. ‘I’m making a ninja profile page,’ says Eissa Al Mulla, a nine-year-old Emirati, pointing to a screenful of text commands. He switches over to a preview of the web page and, like magic, it all makes sense. ‘I have to insert a picture and then write something about him, and then his interests, jobs and where he’s lived,’ says Eissa. The ninja, according to the webpage, is 23. ‘He likes backflips, teriyaki steak and lurking in the darkness. His jobs are protecting the city, defending against enemies and chopping fruit with his sword. He’s lived in Shanghai, Beijing and Tokyo,’ reads Eissa. The page is basic – a white background, one image and text of varying sizes and formatting – but Eissa has built it entirely using code. ‘It’s quite simple; it’s not that hard really. I’m just using indents to make it more organised.’ Eissa is on just his second day at the Coding Circle, an educational start-up based at Impact Hub Dubai. The web development course, which teaches HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and JavaScript, is taught mainly by Sajjad Kamal, 26.”

If you’re looking to get your child up to speed when it comes to coding, there’s no better option than CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, we focus on Computational Thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. Our lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. As a result, the entire curriculum is customized. In addition to having the most educational tech camp out there, we also keep the focus on having fun. Thus, students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

With a membership, students come into our center for customized class time between 10-25 hours per month, depending on the plan you choose. Class time hours are available anytime before 7pm on weekdays and between 10am – 3pm weekends.

Whatever coding education needs you might have, look no further than CodeRev Kids!

 

How Coding Can be a Career Game Changer Even if You Didn’t Start in Tech

coding-career-laptopIn South Florida, coding classes are booming. The Miami Herald takes a look at this in a recent article titled “South Florida’s hottest education trend: Coding class.”

According to the author of the article, “So like an increasing number of kids across South Florida, Daniel spent some of his summer days in an air-conditioned classroom, learning the first steps of something many people find daunting — crafting computer code. His immersion started simply. He played Minecraft, a video game where users construct a world with 3-D blocks, and then he learned to create changes in that virtual world to suit his liking. The importance of knowing how to code is no longer some secret shared among techies in Silicon Valley. Last year, President Barack Obama called on kids to start coding, and some celebrities you wouldn’t necessarily identify as geek types — like Shakira and Ashton Kutcher — spoke out about how all students need to develop the skill. In South Florida this summer, educators and entrepreneurs set up shop in classrooms and day care centers to host coding camps for kids of all ages and grades. While some were low cost or supported by grants, other ran as as much as $2,000 for two weeks.”

While youth in South Florida are taking early steps to get their coding education, adults throughout the country are doing their best to catch up with the changing market. The New York Times examines this in a recent article titled “As Tech Booms, Workers Turn to Coding for Career Change.” Steve Lohr of the New York Times writes, “After Paul Minton graduated from college, he worked as a waiter, but always felt he should do more. So Mr. Minton, a 26-year-old math major, took a three-month course in computer programming and data analysis. As a waiter, he made $20,000 a year. His starting salary last year as a data scientist at a web start-up here was more than $100,000. ‘Six figures, right off the bat,’ Mr. Minton said. ‘To me, it was astonishing.’ Stories like his are increasingly familiar these days as people across a spectrum of jobs — poker players, bookkeepers, baristas — are shedding their past for a future in the booming tech industry. The money sloshing around in technology is cascading beyond investors and entrepreneurs into the broader digital work force, especially to those who can write modern code, the language of the digital world.”

For youth in California, the best bet for a comprehensive, customized coding education is CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, we focus on Computational Thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. Our lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. As a result, the entire curriculum is customized. In addition to having the most educational tech camp out there, we also keep the focus on having fun. Thus, students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

Whatever coding education needs you might have, the best bet for your child is CodeRev Kids!

 

Utah County Girls Learn Both Coding and Networking with Executives

coding-php-womenCoding education is fun. For girls in Utah County, it’s also an early exposure to the business world. The Daily Herald discusses this in a recent article titled “Girl Code: Utah County girls learn coding, share products with execs.”

Karissa Neely of the Daily Herald writes, “It takes multiple lines of computer code to make even the simplest animation, game, website or story-board, but the girls at InsideSales.com’s first-ever coding camp tackled it all. The camp lasted from Tuesday to Friday, but the 37 girls, ages 7-14, were not hunched over computers the whole time at the InsideSales offices in south Provo. There was plenty of talk about code, but there was almost just as much time devoted to building teams and learning how to work together. In one such activity, the girls were broken up into small groups and given the same materials — tape, straws, cardboard, etc. — and told to create a holder that would protect a raw egg from cracking when dropped from a roof. Two of the six groups were actually successful in protecting their egg. ‘For all the groups, we saw that it really helped them see how good teams work together and collaborate,’ said Michael Plante, vice president of marketing at InsideSales. The girls, coming from all over Utah County, and even a bit beyond, needed those skills to do their final projects that were the culmination of the week’s efforts. With the coding skills they learned, 15 groups built an app, an animation, a movie, a game, or a website, and shared it Friday afternoon with their parents and InsideSales executives.”

At CodeRev Kids, we understand the need for coding education is imperative. By 2020, 1 million computing jobs will go unfilled in the United States due to a lack of appropriate preparation of our future workforce. As of right now, students are graduating from excellent universities without the ability to obtain positions that utilize their expertise, yet someone who graduates from college with a computer science degree is very likely to obtain a desirable and high earning position immediately.

In order to help give your child all the opportunities that a computer science degree will provide, we give him/her a foundation based on Computational Thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. Our lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise, thus making the entire curriculum customized.

Not just are we known for being the most educational tech camp out there, we also keep the focus on having fun. Because of this, our students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

If you think CodeRev Kids could be right for your child, check out our afterschool programs and summer camps!

Using Coding to Bring Together Different Faiths

different-beliefs-codingCoding doesn’t just bring computer enthusiasts together. Coding education can help to unite different cultures and people of different beliefs. Consider a recent article from the Huffington Post titled “Interfaith Girls Coding Class Teaches Students The Common Language Of Computers.”

Antonia Blumberg of the Huffington Post writes, “Sponsored by Near Neighbours, an interfaith wing of the Church Urban Fund, and funded by a grant from Department for Communities and Local Government, the coding class aims to expose students to faiths and cultures they may have previously had little contact with. Twenty-six girls, ages 12 and 13, were enrolled in the inaugural eight-week after-school class that ran from April 29 to June 17. The program aimed to equip the students with coding skills in Python, CSS and JavaScript. The girls came from different faith backgrounds and were enrolled at one of three schools: London’s Ayesha Muslim School, Maria Fidelis Catholic School and the Yavneh College Jewish School. Students were chosen by their school based on their IT skills, willingness to take on extra-credit and interest in engaging with people of other faiths, project founder Rabbi Natan Levy told The Huffington Post. Levy enlisted the help of Hannah Waxman, a local engineer at software company ThoughtWorks, to design and teach the class. The rabbi said he hopes to continue the course in the fall. ‘Computer coding felt like such an obvious focal point for this project, not least because it is an emerging field, but even more so because in this currently fractured world it holds promise as a shared language,’ Levy said. Just 11.2 percent of technology leadership jobs in Europe are held by women, according to a report by Gartner called the ‘2014 CIO Agenda: A Perspective on the Priorities of Women and Men.’ The percentage of women holding positions as chief information officers for technology companies has remained static at just 14 percent since 2004.”

At CodeRev Kids, we’re dedicated to providing coding education to youth through customized courses. Our students learn Computational Thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. Also, our lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. This makes the entire curriculum is customized. In addition to being the most educational tech camp out there, we also keep the focus on having fun. As a result, our students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

If you’re interested in giving your child a unique, first class coding education, check out our different after school tracks of STEM & Coding Camps!

The Coding Nightclub?

coding-night-clubThere are many places you might expect to see a coding training camp pop up. Chances are, a nightclub wasn’t the first place that came to mind. That is, however, exactly the case in Louisville. The Courier-Journal reports on this in a recent article titled “Coding-training site opens in former nightclub.”

Sheldon S. Shafer of the Courier-Journal writes, “An affiliate of the University of Louisville Foundation has transformed a former downtown nightclub, Icebreakers, into a hub for coding instruction, a field rife with many high-paying jobs. The Kentucky Innovation Center is overseen by Nucleus, a product of the UofL Foundation. Nucleus has developed the job-training site at 252 E. Market St. The building at Market and Floyd streets is near the UofL Foundation’s J.D. Nichols Campus for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, where a large new office building has filled up and a parking garage is under construction… The building’s classroom space is being called the Trinity Video Communications Center to recognize the Louisville company that donated the audio-visual equipment and engineering to make the system run on a wireless network. The new coding effort at the site was announced at a news conference Wednesday morning attended by Mayor Greg Fischer, Nucleus CEO Vickie Yates Brown and UofL officials. Fischer noted that by 2020, there will be 1 million more computer programming jobs in the U.S. than workers to fill them, and more than 10,000 of those jobs are expected to be available in the Louisville area. ‘Code Louisville is helping to quickly fill that need,’ Fischer said. ‘By taking coding classes in this updated space, local workers are gaining access to good-paying tech jobs.’”

On the west coast, we are just as aware of the need for coding education to prepare youth for the future of the workforce. At CodeRev Kids, we take a customized approach to your child’s education. Our lessons emphasize Computational Thinking. This is a concept that encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. These lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. As a result, the entire curriculum is customized. In addition to being the most educational tech camp out there, we also keep the focus on having fun. This keeps students engaged while helping them to learn to blend creativity with technology.

If you’re looking for a quality coding education experience for your child, your best bet is CodeRev Kids!

New York City Startup Launches Jewelbots to Get More Girls Coding

coding-girls-jewelbotsThe latest effort to engage young girls in coding comes in the form of a bracelet. Quartz reports on this in a recent article titled “This hi-tech friendship bracelet wants to get girls coding.”

Alice Truong of Quartz writes, “Jewelbots, a New York City-based startup, is hoping its programmable bracelet will spark an interest in science and technology for little girls. The company launched a Kickstarter project yesterday to cover the cost of manufacturing, easily blowing past its $30,000 goal, and it plans to ship its first batch of bracelets in March 2016. Jewelbots is the brainchild of Sara Chipps, cofounder of the nonprofit group Girl Develop It, and Brooke Moreland, who previously founded a fashion photo-sharing app called Fashism. The two wanted to create a wearable that little girls would want to tinker with. ‘We didn’t want a teaching tool,’ Moreland tells Quartz. ‘We wanted them to be inspired by natural curiosity—something they think is fun.’ The bracelet was designed to be very basic. There is no screen, but its charm has a motor and four LEDs that can be programmed to change colors based on different triggers. For example, it can match the color of the bracelet of a girl’s best friend when she is nearby. A button on Jewelbots also allows wearers to buzz their friends. (Since many classrooms bar smartphone usage, the bracelets use a mesh Bluetooth network that allows for bracelet-to-bracelet communication without a phone.)… It’s estimated that only 20% of computer programmers are women. Though tech companies have become more transparent about the diversity of their workforce, they are still slow to hire women (and minorities) in technical roles. At Apple, 20% of its tech workers (as opposed to marketing or business development) are women. At Yahoo, Google, and Facebook, the numbers vary from 15% to 18%.”

At CodeRev Kids, we’re encouraged when we see innovative efforts to engage underrepresented groups in coding education. That is why we take a customized approach to your child’s curriculum.

We emphasize Computational Thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. Our lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. At CodeRev Kids, we are known for saying we are the most educational tech camp out there, but we also keep the focus on having fun. Our students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology. For more information, check out our different after school Tracks of STEM and coding camps!

Louisville Teens Use Coding Program to Start Their Own Tech Company

coding-tech-startupFor many, youth coding education provides promise for job opportunities in the future. However, in the case of some Louisville teens, they are making those opportunities happen now. Urban Maxx puts a spotlight on these teens in a recent article titled “7 LOUISVILLE TEENAGERS CREATE A TECH COMPANY; BUILDING WEBSITES.”

According to Brad Harrison of Urban Maxx, “In an attempt to stay ahead of the technology curve, a collaboration between the Metro Louisville Department of Economic Growth and Innovation, Greater Louisville Inc, EnterpriseCorp, the Louisville Free Public Library, KentuckianaWorks and local employers was established to create the technology growth program known as Code Louisville. The program consists of a series of twelve-week sessions which uses the Treehouse coding program to train future software developers. According to the Code Louisville website, between 2010 and 2020, Louisville is projected to have a net increase of nearly 2000 new programmer and software developer jobs. In 2015, Code Louisville decided to expand its training program to include high school students from Louisville’s predominately black Russell Neighborhood, so it created a pilot program called Code Louisville After School. Classes for the the program would be held at the city owned learning center in the Russell Neighborhood known as The Beech… The program taught the students how to code using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Once they mastered the techniques, they designed the website for Coding at the Beech(atthebeech.com) and were then able to create their own website development company called Beech Technologies (Beechtech.org). Their newly founded company creates custom websites complete with a personalized internet domain, tech support, social media presence, software updates and frequent analysis reports to track the success of the client’s web presence. The websites are currently being offered at a discounted rate of $99 per month. Comparable services with their competitors generally range around $250 per month.”

At CodeRev Kids, we believe in empowering youth to start their own coding enterprises or fill the huge need for coding positions currently available in the workforce.

Our program emphasizes computational thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. CodeRev Kids’ lessons build upon one another and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. In other words, our entire curriculum is customized.

Also, while we are known for saying we are the most educational tech camp out there, we also keep the focus on having fun. This way, students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

If you want to empower your child with a quality coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids!

Youth Coding and the Field of Web Security

websecurity-hacking-passwordOften, when we talk about the need for more coding education, it’s a discussion about the amount of coding jobs that the US will need to fill in the future. However, we usually don’t get into the nitty gritty of particular jobs. One area where producing more talented young coders is imperative is in the field of web security. The Financial Times explores this in a recent article titled “Tech experts in fight for web security.”

Richard Waters of the Financial Times writes, “Prominent technology experts have warned that US and UK government demands for greater powers to crack encrypted private data could weaken internet security and hamper online freedoms. Prominent technology experts have warned that US and UK government demands for greater powers to crack encrypted private data could weaken internet security and hamper online freedoms. It highlights a rift that has opened up between government agencies and the tech industry since the Snowden revelations about widespread internet surveillance in the US and UK. Many tech and internet companies have reacted by encrypting more of their users’ data, prompting the US and UK to call for the technical powers to crack the encryption codes when needed. UK prime minister David Cameron last week renewed his warning of legal action to prevent the use of encrypted mobile messaging apps. In the US, FBI director James Comey is expected to renew his warnings about the spread of “strong” encryption systems before a Senate hearing on Wednesday.”

In order to prepare future government workers to battle threats to web security, it needs to start at a young age. When it comes to youth coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids.

At CodeRev Kids, we emphasize computational thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. Our lessons build upon one another, and we adjust starting points to each student’s level of expertise. Thus, the entire curriculum is customized.

We are known for saying we are the most educational tech camp out there, but we also keep the focus on having fun. As a result, students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology. We offer a variety of program tracks, including robotics, game development, app making, and computer animation. Browse our afterschool programs and summer camps to see what will be best for your child.

Whatever youth coding education needs you might have, we’ve got you covered at CodeRev Kids!