Category Archives: Coding Education

The Importance of Quality Mentorship in Coding Education

One key to great coding education is flexibility and quality mentorship. Consider a recent article for the Independent titled “Ireland’s coding teachers plead for more mentors.”

According to Jane O’Faherty of the Independent, “The call was made by CoderDojo, the country’s leading volunteer-led organisation in teaching coding, which is looking to expand. The charity, which was founded in Cork four years ago, has provided free classes in coding for up to 70,000 people both in Ireland and abroad. Now, it is calling for volunteers to help address a growing demand for classes across Ireland. The classes cover programmes such as Scratch, TouchDevelop, HTML, Javascript and Project Spark. Mary Moloney, CEO of CoderDojo, said that the charitable organisation had reached an additional 40,000 children around the world this year. ‘As of this week, we are in 63 countries around the world,’ she told the Irish Independent. ‘There are 180 dojos currently in Ireland, with 5,000 kids coming in on a weekly basis,’ she added. ‘All of them need mentors to help out.’”

Slate also explores coding in the classroom in a recent article titled “Can Coding Make the Classroom Better?” Chris Berdik of Slate writes, “There are two other STEAM labs in this school for third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders, which South Fayette opened in 2013. They’re in the center of each floor, with regular classrooms on either side, a layout that reflects a philosophy transforming the entire district. In the past five years, South Fayette has leveraged grant funding, new school construction, and creative scheduling to give nearly 3,000 kids, from kindergarten through 12th grade, dedicated spaces for hands-on projects—coding, 3-D printing, computer-aided design, and robotics—as part of their regular curriculum. The STEAM labs, STEAM coordinators, and technology education teachers are part of a districtwide embrace of ‘computational thinking.’ Computational thinking is intimately related to computer coding, which every kid in South Fayette starts learning in first grade. But they are not one and the same. At its core, computational thinking means breaking complex challenges into smaller questions that can be solved with a computer’s number crunching, data compiling, and sorting capabilities. Proponents say it’s a problem-solving approach that works in any field, noting that computer modeling, big data, and simulations are used in everything from textual analysis to medical research and environmental protection.”

When it comes to customized coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, our lessons focus on computational thinking, which encompasses a wide variety of programming languages and concepts.

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.

Sign up for one of our winter camps today!

Teaching Coding to Military Members

When veterans return from service, they often face hurdles in attaining the proper healthcare and employment opportunities. Teaching coding to them could be an answer to many veterans’ problems. The Northwest Guardian discusses this in a recent article titled “Coding class taught to service members.”

Christina Carmen Crea of the Northwest Guardian writes, “Code Fellows, a software development trade school in Seattle, conducted a 12-hour workshop for 43 attendees Nov. 13 at Camp Murray, near Joint Base Lewis-McChord, to give current service members and their families an inside look at a post-service career in coding. ‘Coding is the backbone to all businesses, whether online or offline,’ said Jeff Pecor, Tailwind Public Relations. ‘If you can learn how to write code, the job prospects and salaries are lucrative, and there will be a job out there for you.’ Stephanie Lingwood, Code Fellow main instructor, said she enjoys teaching these classes and seeing those ‘light bulb moments.’ ‘Coding is a challenging but rewarding career,’ Lingwood said. ‘To be able to teach some transitioning service members and give them transferable skills to find jobs after their service is rewarding. Service members already know what it’s like to be faced with challenges, so teaching them is easy because they’re willing to put in the work.’ Staff Sergeant Kelby Faulk, Bravo Company, Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, I Corps, said the class provided a condensed and easy-to-understand knowledge of the Web programming language known as HTML. Faulk transitions out of the military this month and will have served in the military for six years. ‘I’m not sure if I will go into any coding career right now, but getting a chance to feel it out in today’s class has been awesome,’ Faulk said. The workshop, called ‘Code 101,’ taught attendees about establishing a path software development career, how websites are built and deployed and how to code a website using industry-standard tools and professional coding practices. Sergeant Joko Riley, 864th Engineer Battalion, said the class was informative and a ‘brush up’ on skills he learned a long time ago. ‘I’m jump-starting this to see if it’s something I want to dive into after I transition out in June (serving six years in the military),’ Riley said. Antonio Garcia, Code Fellows teaching assistant, who transitioned out of the military in 2008 after serving six years, and has been a Code Fellow student since September, said it’s hard to transition out of the military into the civilian workforce.”

When it comes to customized coding education, you can’t go wrong with CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, our lessons focus on computational thinking, which encompasses a wide variety of programming languages and concepts.

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.

Sign up for one of our winter camps today!

Preschool Coding Classes in China

When we discuss the importance of coding, it is often in the context of the global workforce. We discuss how the U.S. has dropped from prominence in terms of math and science testing. While we focus a lot on what the U.S. is not doing, it is good to look at what other countries are doing. Consider a recent article for Bloomberg titled “Latest Craze for Chinese Parents: Preschool Coding Classes.”

Lulu Yilun Chen of Bloomberg writes, “Wu Pei began teaching her 6-year-old son to code this year, thinking he’d enjoy learning a skill that might boost his future job prospects in an increasingly digitized world. Now, she runs classes in Nanjing, China, and is helping more than 100 parents introduce their children to coding. The 35-year-old former computer programmer with Foxconn Technology Group is tapping growing demand from parents intent on preparing their preschoolers for a world in which Oxford University researchers predict half the jobs in some countries may be eliminated by robots and computers. Similar classes are taking off across China. Reynold Ren has taught about 150 primary school-age children in Beijing to use Scratch, a project developed by the MIT Media Lab and Arduino, which enables users to create interactive objects such as robots. In Hong Kong, about 2,500 students have taken courses that Michelle Sun runs at her First Code Academy. ‘Teaching the next generation coding is something that should be elevated to a strategical national importance,’ said Wang Jiulin, the Xi’an-based creator of Kidscode.cn, a website that shares free information and courses. ‘Even today, the majority of programmers in China can only perform very basic-level tasks and there’s huge demand for top notch coders.’…Wu thought over weeks about how she could introduce the fundamentals of coding to preschoolers — who are only just starting to learn math and Chinese — in a way they could understand. She settled on showing them a 3-by-3 unit grid on a board and invited them to play a game in which the students were asked to identify locations using simple directions, such as up, down, right and left. She then switched to a number system and asked the children to pinpoint locations using coordinates. When students are familiar with the concept of an X and Y axis, she teaches them to play simple games involving airplanes on Scratch. Once they are hooked, she encourages them to learn how to create similar games themselves.”

When it comes to customized coding education, you can’t go wrong with CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, our lessons focus on computational thinking, which encompasses a wide variety of programming languages and concepts.

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.

Sign up for one of our winter camps today!

A Customized Coding Education

One of the prime reasons CodeRev Kids is so successful is because we offer customized coding education. Giving students the space to explore at their pace is essential to engaging them. When we take a factory approach to coding education, we do our children a disservice. Consider a recent article for the Tennessean titled “If you want to kill coding in schools, make it universal.”

Jackson Miller of the Tennessean writes, “As software development in schools becomes the focus of public education in Nashville, take note: standardizing coding in schools will kill the very thing that propels its success. Teaching students to code is definitely a good idea. As a longtime coder myself, I am well aware of how software development is a strong career choice and a path to developing and honing critical-thinking skills. I see firsthand how coding nurtures both analytical and creative minds. But coding is not a silver bullet. The easy way to show support for coding in schools would be to announce some sort of poorly thought out and rash Universal Coding Initiative. While that kind of initiative would get great press and would likely include 6-foot, cardboard checks from area business partners — it would be the opposite of what is working now, and it would be the opposite of what Nashville’s students, teachers, and tech companies need. The Academy model in our high schools has given school principals and leaders the autonomy to choose focus areas within their building. High schools, middle schools, and even elementary schools are using clubs and after-school programs to create new opportunities for students. The student-based budgeting model that Metro Nashville Public Schools Interim Superintendent Chris Henson and his team developed is a step toward pushing the control of more dollars to the school level — where educators have deep understanding of students’ unique needs. When schools — and the high-performing teachers and administrators that run them — are given the ability to choose the programming that their students need, we open the door to great things.”

When it comes to customized coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, our lessons focus on computational thinking, which encompasses a wide variety 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.

If you are trying to give your child the best possible coding education, you can’t go wrong with CodeRev Kids!

Taking on the Coding Skills Gap

The United States has a major problem when it comes to the coding skills gap. We have a need for more people with coding capabilities but many college graduates are not leaving school with these skills. Consider a recent article for Bloomberg Business titled “Are You Wasting Your Money at Coding Boot Camp?

Sarah Grant of Bloomberg Business writes, “Fixing the gap between the skills that students graduate college with and the ones they need for a good job has been O’Donnell’s battle since he was Colorado’s secretary of higher education, from 2004 to 2006. In that role, he privatized the state’s student loan servicing business. ‘I was constantly getting complaints that there weren’t enough STEM grads,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t a lack of college grads; it was that the graduates didn’t have the critical skills employers needed.’ The rise of boot camps has been one answer to that problem. The pitch: Learn tech-related skills such as mobile development, Web design, and coding for a fraction of the time and expense it would take to get a Master’s degree. Boot camps last from 10 to 12 weeks and charge about $11,000. Starting salaries for boot camp graduates, said O’Donnell, can range from $70,000 to $100,000. There are 67 full-time boot camps in around 51 U.S. and Canadian cities, according to boot camp review site Course Report, which estimates that by the end of this year, the market will have grown 138 percent from last year. Not all these programs live up to the promise of all-but-guaranteed jobs with great salaries, however. And with no formal accrediting system in place, prospective students have little data with which to compare them. What’s more, lenders can’t determine how much a program will help or hurt student creditworthiness. Some programs don’t even track graduates’ outcomes, said O’Donnell. ‘If a program doesn’t even have the processes in place to know what their numbers are, it’s an indication that the program isn’t as competitive,’ he said.”

For those who really want to get ahead of the curve and set themselves up for lucrative coding-related careers, it starts early. When it comes to youth coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids.

At CodeRev Kids, we offer a customized coding education that focuses on computational thinking, which encompasses a wide variety 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. Even though we are known for saying we are the most educational tech camp out there, we also keep the focus on having fun. As a result, students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

Sign up for one of our classes today!

Customizing and Engaging Young Coders

Jobs are a very enticing argument and/or motivation for coding education for adults, but young coders need more hands-on engagement. For example, consider the impact of robotics. News 6 takes a look at this in a recent article titled “Muskogee Students Learn Coding, Robotics After School.”

Tony Russell of News 6 writes, “It’s a first for Muskogee Public Schools. Starting next week, more than 80 students at Robertson Junior High School will get a chance to do more extra curricular activities after school. When the bell rings around three, students who don’t play sports at Alice Robertson Junior High School go home. That gives them about two and a half hours to do whatever they want while they wait for their parents to come home from work. So the school decided to ask for grant money from the Oklahoma Department of Education to keep the students learning after school. Austin Robinett, an eighth grader, is signing up for the program in hopes of getting hands-on learning after class.  He and his fellow students believe the program is needed in Muskogee. ‘You have a whole bunch of kids who have nothing to do after school, so they go out and do whatever they want to do with their friends and go get in trouble,’ he said. ‘I think it’s a great opportunity for kids to learn something that would actually benefit their future and their career.’ ‘It’s really important because it gives us something to do after school,’ said Phuong Ngyuen, a seventh-grade student.”

Or for another look at engagement, consider a recent article for CBS DC titled “Maryland Coding Contest Encourages Students to Pursue Computer Science.” According to the author of the article, “An hour of computer coding might be the first step toward a well-paying career in computer science. That’s the idea behind the Hour of Code challenge happening across the country and in Maryland Public Schools. According to Code.org, Maryland currently has nearly 20,000 open computing jobs, but only 2,000 computer science students graduating from the state’s colleges and universities. ‘We are not graduating enough students in computers science fields to fill those jobs,’ says Cindy Hasslebring, special assistant to the state superintendent of schools. The average salary for a computer science occupation in Maryland is $98,593. To encourage more students to learn this profitable skill, the Maryland Hour of Code contest will give a $10,000 technology award to a public school that provides an hour of coding to each of its students during Computer Science Education Week, Dec. 7-13.”

When it comes to youth coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, we offer a customized coding education that focuses 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, the entire curriculum is customized. Even though we are known for saying we are the most educational tech camp out there, we also keep the focus on having fun. As a result, students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

Sign up for one of our classes today!

How Coding Can Kill Two Birds With One Stone

There are more coding jobs than there are people to fill them. This provides opportunities for women and minorities who have been systematically denied chances in other industries. Consider a recent article for the Atlanta Black Star titled “Study: Coding Boot Camps Bring More Women, Minorities into Tech.”

According to the author of the article, “As technology increasingly becomes a vital part of our lives, diversity in tech will continue be a major issue.According to a study by New York startup Course Report, coding boot camps like Black Girls Code and Code for Progress are filling the diversity gap at a quicker rate than the diversity initiatives of tech giants. The report revealed that 36 percent of the attendees at coding camps are women. Course Report co-founder, Liz Eggleston, said that may be a result of the tech industry’s on-going diversity movement. ‘The market demand is there,’ Eggleston said. ‘Tech companies want to get closer to a 50-50 split, so they’re demanding more female applicants.’ The report findings suggests that companies like Twitter,who announced months prior that they intended to add more women to their work force, should consider attending the coding camps to begin their recruitment process.”

UALR Public Radio also explores the importance of coding, especially for young people, in a recent article titled “Governor’s Radio Address: Coding In The Classroom.” The author of the article writes, “Teachers like Gerri McCann are our schools’ secret weapons. As a high school French teacher from the Manila Public School District, Ms. McCann’s first impression of computer coding was that it was like ‘learning another foreign language.’ But she realized its importance and dived right in. By the end of her training, she was confident enough to add teaching Computer Science to her other subjects, including French, English and Literacy Ready classes. Now Ms. McCann can offer her students even more opportunities to succeed beyond high school. Learning the ‘foreign language’ of coding was challenging, even for someone who began her career teaching French. But Ms. McCann understood the value of coding and earned a master’s degree in Information Systems. Why would she do that? To better prepare her students for a technologically driven world — a world in which computers touch everything.”

When it comes to providing youth with a customized coding education, we’ve got you covered at CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, our lessons focus on computational thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming languages and concepts.

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.

Sign up for one of our fall classes today!

Finding Good Coding Teachers

In some places, it is hard to find quality coding teachers. Consider a recent article for the Tennessean titled “Search for coding teachers encounters obstacles.”

Jaime McGee of the Tennessean writes, “If the point of building a computer science program is to prepare students for jobs that are in high demand, how do you find coding teachers who are already highly sought after in the private sector? It’s the conundrum that coding programs across the United States face as they seek to fill their teaching ranks. At RePublic Schools, which offers computer science at four Nashville schools, the strategy has been to find teachers who are interested in teaching coding, rather than finding coders interested in teaching. ‘Given the way the economy and the actual demand for jobs is right now, someone who is really proficient in computer science seems to have a lot of flexibility in the job and environment they work in,’ said Ryan York, RePublic’s chief information officer. Part of it comes down to salary. An average middle or secondary school teaching job pays about $49,000 in Tennessee, while Tennessee software developers make an average of $82,000 to $88,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. York was a math teacher at Apollo Middle School when he taught himself computer programming. He created software for teachers that would help them track students’ proficiency more efficiently and develop individualized learning plans. Having already developed a passion for education, he shifted his focus to technology, but still within schools.”

Some adults might need unconventional ways to pick up on coding so they can teach it to youth. Consider a recent article for Quartz titled “This new robot teaches kids about coding—but it’s awesome for grown-ups, too.” Mike Murphy of Quartz writes, “Dash and Dot are meant for young children (although the box says ‘Ages 5 to ∞’), so Gupta says for now at least, the actual code behind what kids are doing in the app won’t be available for them to check out. But Gupta says he wants to get kids thinking at an early age about how things in the digital age actually work. And although I’m not the target demographic, I liked building little programs to make Dash and Dot terrorize my coworkers, or annoy my roommates. I liked being able to take a broad view on my programs, seeing how every step would unfold—something that is often lost in laymen looking at a text-based programming language. While I’m not entirely convinced that a five-year-old would be able to appreciate the coding aspect of Dash and Dot yet, Gupta said it’s a toy that’s meant to grow with kids.”

When it comes to customized coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, students learn 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.

Sign up for one of our after school programs or fall classes today!

Making Up for Lost Time with Coding

Later in life, many people realize they missed out on an opportunity by not learning coding early on. Consider a recent article for Quartz titled “Coding bootcamp grads boost their salaries by 40% on average.”

According to the author of the article, “A comprehensive study examining the outcomes of coding-school alumni found they, on average, boosted their salaries by 38%, or $18,000, after completing their programs. In a report released today (Oct. 26), the Course Report, which tracks the learn-to-code industry, found participants on average paid $11,852 for tuition, with programs typically lasting three to four months. A third of them said their schools guaranteed jobs to students after completing their programs. But 21% of the 665 students who graduated between 2013 and 2015 reported being unemployed. When the employment rates are broken out by graduation date though, 89% of students who were 120 days out of school found full-time jobs, Course Report cofounder Liz Eggleston tells Quartz. While the makeup of students who attend coding schools still largely skews white and male, there are encouraging signs these so-called bootcamps are helping diversify the industry by encouraging people in their early- to mid-careers (on average, participants were 31 years old) to become programmers. The survey found 36% of bootcamp grads were women, compared with the 14% of women who were awarded bachelor’s degrees in computer science in 2013-14. They also saw a bigger increase in salary following the completion of their programs, a lift of $25,283 compared with men’s $14,839, and reported higher salaries overall.”

Readwrite also takes a look at this in a recent article titled “How Much English Majors Earn After Coding Bootcamps.” Gregory Ferenstein of Readwrite writes, “Silicon Valley is racing ahead with its own alternative to college and new research from bootcamp review site Course Report suggests that graduates are out-earning some of their diploma-wielding peers. Nicknamed ‘coding bootcamps,’ these offerings have become a cottage industry of fast-track private vocational schools for graduates looking to enter the competitive tech industry as software engineers, data scientists, and other in-demand jobs. Many graduates hold college majors notorious for slim earnings potential (like English Majors,) and are now fully-employed in the tech industry making a lot more money.”

When it comes to providing youth with a customized coding education, we’ve got you covered at CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, our lessons focus on computational thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming languages and concepts.

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.

Sign up for one of our fall classes today!

Customizing Coding Education to Reach Kids

It’s one thing to recognize that there is a major need for coders in the workforce. Developing an effective plan of action is another. Institutions throughout the country are making an effort to inspire young coders through a variety of methods. Consider a recent article for NPR titled “Federal Student Loans Expand To Cover Some Coding Boot Camps.”

Meg Anderson of NPR writes, “Starting soon, students will be able to use federal loans to pay for certain coding boot camps, the immersive web development courses that promise to make students into programming experts in just a few months. The experimental program will allow traditional accredited colleges to partner with coding boot camps and other short-term certification programs. Because they’re attached to colleges, the U.S. Department of Education will be able to evaluate their effectiveness. Colleges can begin applying today. The price tag for coding boot camps can be as much as $20,000, but the allure of high paying tech jobs has attracted an estimated 16,000 students this year alone. Enrollment in these programs is soaring, but the hefty cost means camps have been popular mostly among those privileged enough to afford the risk.”

Delaware Online also takes a look at ways to reach the youth in a recent article titled “Delaware native makes coding kid-friendly.” Scott Goss of Delaware Online writes, “Peter Kinney played a lot of video games while growing up near Townsend. Perhaps a little too much, if you ask his mother. But Kinney’s love of gaming – particularly strategy games – seems to have paid off. The 25-year-old Charter School of Wilmington graduate is now the lead programmer at Digital Dream Labs, a Pittsburgh-based educational technology company he co-founded in 2012. This month, the startup released the final version of Puzzlets, an innovative gaming platform that includes a downloadable app designed to teach basic computer programming skills to children ages 6 and older. The game, called Cork the Volcano, is similar to familiar titles, like Super Mario Bros., in that it involves a character avoiding obstacles to advance to the next level.”

When it comes to youth coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids. Our lessons focus on computational thinking, which encompasses a wide variety of programming languages and concepts. These 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.

Sign up for one of our fall classes today!