Education

A New Bracelet Designed to Get More Girls Coding

Technology is improving every day. It is permeating all aspects of our life. New wearable technology is being used to encourage more girls to code. Consider a recent article for Kill Screen titled “THE WEARABLE TECH THAT’S GETTING GIRLS INTO CODING.”

Cassidee Moser of Kill Screen writes, “Taking friendship bracelets into the digital age, Jewelbots teaches young girls to tinker and code their way into the exploding world of wearable technology. Whether it’s the Queen of Coding Grace Hopper or the new wave of women innovation engineers, fashion brand CEOs and musicians, young girls today have a growing number of role models who use science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in their recipes for success. Having more role models is critical, but according to the founders of Jewelbots—the so-called friendship bracelets for the iPhone era—the next generation of women leaders and inventors will chase STEM endeavors at an early age, like a game of tag. ‘Kids want to have fun; it’s their job,’ said Brooke Moreland, co-founder of Jewelbots. These programmable wearables, which are powered by Arduino Gemma microcontrollers, teach girls how to hack hardware and code software so they can customize their own watches. ‘The sooner they realize how much fun they can have, the sooner they will be hooked,’ Moreland said. Hooking young girls with hands-on technology could lead them to careers that are underserved by women today. It might even inspire many to start their own STEM-related businesses, like Moreland and Jewelbots co-founder Sara Chipps. Through Jewelbots, Moreland and Chipps hope to inspire girls to pursue any careers, whether that means programming new video games or studying computer science. Hacking digital bracelets helps girls unlock their own curiosity and potential for becoming leaders in technology and business… Chipps is also a developer and co-founder of the non-profit Girl Develop It. She first noticed the importance of empowering young women while teaching them to write software at Flatiron School. Her female students were particularly excited, never realizing what they could do with software until someone took the time to show them.”

When it comes to hands-on 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 camps today!

Coding Education

Louisiana Governor and Deuce McAllister Spread the Word About Coding

While there are no shortage of coding educators willing to tell people about the wonders of coding, sometimes it takes outside voices to spark interest in children. Consider a recent article for the Clarion-Ledger titled “Gov. Bryant, Deuce McAllister spread coding gospel.”

Bracey Harris of the Clarion-Ledger writes, “Former New Orleans Saints running back Deuce McAllister joined Gov. Phil Bryant Monday in evangelizing the need for coding in the state’s classrooms. During the Bytes + Bites coding event to raise legislative awareness about the benefits of incorporating programming into a school’s curriculum, roughly two dozen students from a cluster of Jackson-metro elementary and middle schools switched roles to become teachers for the day. Sen. Brice Wiggins and Rep. Jay Hughes crouched down between scholars from Brown Elementary, Olde Towne Middle School, Reimagine Prep and Highland Elementary who showcased what they’d learned through programs like code.org and SCRATCH. McAllister, a longtime advocate for childhood education in Mississippi, told the young group of 15-year-old Luke Bannister from the U.K. who won $250,000, after placing first in World Drone Pix in Dubai. ‘I believe that next individual could be one of you guys in this room, because that’s the type of talent that you have,’ said McAllister. A common theme was that early exposure makes a difference. Half of the hands in the room shot up when Alexandra Vlachakis, southern district manager for code.org, asked how many students had an interest in computer science. Only a few were raised when she inquired how many had even known such a career path existed. Participants sat in three rows, deep in concentration as they tried to maneuver Princess Anna from the popular movie ‘Frozen’ around the screen, using a learning program from code.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting computer science. The budding coders may have seen what was a favorite character from a beloved movie, but Gov. Phil Bryant saw something different — workforce development. ‘We’re getting you ready for a job,’ said Bryant. ‘Go tell your mom and dad that you’ll have a really good job in the future.’”

Looking for the best in hands-on 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 camps today!

Coding Education

What is the Verdict on Coding Toys?

It’s no secret that coding could be the key to employment for many young Americans. For this reason, parents are looking for anything that can help get their child a leg up. Consider a recent article for Live Science titled “Do Computer Coding Toys for Kids Really Work?”

Tia Ghose of Live Science writes, “From beating the best human players at chess, to flying planes, to running stock market transactions, computers are now used in virtually every facet of modern-day life. But children aren’t being adequately prepared to understand and use this omnipresent technology, experts say. That’s why many parents are turning to coding apps and toys to help give their kids a head start. The toys, tailored to different age groups, range from robot turtles to stripped-down, visual coding languages made just for kids. But will that programmable robot or snowman game turn your baby into the next Alan Turing or Steve Jobs? [The Best Coding Toys and Apps for Kids] It turns out, no one really knows, because there’s very little research on the subject, and even less from outside a traditional classroom setting, said Andrew Ko, a computing education researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle. ‘We have a very immature understanding of how to teach computer science right now,’ Ko told Live Science. What’s more, coding apps and toys shouldn’t be taking the place of time spent in more traditional childhood exploits, such as playing in the mud or learning to read, experts said. However, early exposure to coding toys and apps can build enthusiasm, and that motivation could potentially translate to future computer science work, experts said. [The Top 5 Benefits of Play for Kids].”

If you’re looking for the best in hands-on coding education, there is no substitute for great mentorship. 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 camps today!

Coding Education

Coding Used for Suicide Prevention at MIT

Coding is about more than just helping young people prepare themselves for jobs later in life. Students at MIT recently showed it can be used to save lives. Consider a recent article for NBC News titled “MIT Students Use Their Coding Skills For Suicide Prevention.”

Allison Tate of NBC News writes, “Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are using their coding skills for an important cause: lowering the suicide rate at their school. In the past decade, there have been 12 suicides among MIT graduate and undergraduate students, according to the Boston Globe. While the university has instituted its own initiatives to support mental health, three students took it upon themselves to go a step further. Through an anonymous texting hotline called Lean On Me, anyone in the MIT community in need of support can reach out at anytime and connect with a peer — which can be just as important as getting help from a professional, says MIT sophomore Andy Trattner, one of the hotline’s creators. Trattner’s mother died when he was 10 years old, and he and his sister were sent to a therapist to help them with their grief. But that wasn’t what Trattner needed, he said. ‘It was really ineffective for me, because I didn’t have anyone who was a peer to speak with,’ Trattner, 20, said. So last fall, when he and fellow MIT students Nikhil Buduma, 21, and Linda Jing, 20, came together at MIT’s annual HackMIT hackathon with the intent to build something that could help support students’ mental health, Trattner wanted to make sure it would provide that kind of authentic peer connection. ‘I wanted to find a way to create a safe space where students could get past the trivialities of ‘How are you? What classes are you taking?’ and really get to the core of each other,’ Trattner told NBC News.”

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 camps today!

Coding Education

USA Today Explores the Discussion of Coding Schools and “Technical Ghettos”

What is behind the discussion of coding schools and “technical ghettos?” USA Today explores this in a recent article titled “How talk of coding schools creating ‘technical ghettos’ gets it wrong.”

Kalimah Priforce of USA Today writes, “On the last day of Black History Month, The Atlantic published an article entitled Will the Push for Coding Lead to ‘Technical Ghettos’? The article uses an inflammatory and racially charged phrase, ‘technical ghettos,’ to voice concern from some quarters that programs such as Kimberly Bryant’s Black Girls Code are not teaching young people of color the kind of computational thinking needed to achieve success in the tech workforce. The contention: That these programs are myopically focused on teaching kids to code. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am one of those educators who provides opportunities for our kids through Qeyno Labs, an inclusive innovation company that three years ago launched Hackathon Academy as a ‘pop-up school.’ We do much more than teach kids to code, and that is what makes our programs widely popular among low-opportunity youth and their communities. In our coding programs, we teach young people to be hackers, and the first thing we teach them to hack is their own isolation, because poverty is not desperation or deprivation, poverty is isolation. Young people taking part in a Black Girls Code workshop, a Qeyno hackathon or in a boot camp at The Hidden Genius Project build apps that address the challenges in their communities such as sex trafficking, police brutality and teen depression. We provide culturally-relevant wrap-around education and workforce development that empowers and prepares our kids to succeed not just as engineers in the tech workforce, but as entrepreneurs and artists. And the experts cited in this article would know this had they ever visited our classrooms, hackathons or boot camps.”

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 camps today!

Skills

The Similarities Between Basketball and Coding

Basketball and coding are much more similar than you might think. How so? Consider a recent article for Motherboard titled “How is Basketball Like Coding? Ask the Kids at This Madagascar Tech Camp.”

Emiko Josuka of Motherboard writes, “On Saturday mornings, Patrick Andriamahenina takes a group of 14 excited Malagasy kids through their basketball paces. But these are no ordinary lessons: Most have never touched a basketball before, and Andriamahenina is not using the lesson to teach them sport; he’s trying to teach them to code. ‘We’re drawing out the similarities between basketball and coding,’ Andriamahenina, a local Malagasy basketball coach, told me in French over the phone. ‘For example, while playing Scratch (a free programming language), kids have to think strategically and make quick decisions. It’s pretty much the same thing in basketball.’ Dream Camp—where 42 kids are currently receiving lessons—is a project geared to teach underprivileged Malagasy kids coding, conservation, sport, and hygiene. It was set up in November 2015 by Chris Corbett, the founder of Human Development League (HDL), a non-profit organization based in Madagascar. The Malagasy are an ethnic group that forms almost the entire population in Madagascar. The camp provides training to kids aged between seven and 12. To set up the pilot operations, Corbett teamed up with Andriamahenina, Malagasy coding guru Sahaza Marline, and basketball coach Cray Bony, who has run basketball camps in both the USA and Tanzania. The training venue is at the local technical high school, which has a basketball court but only five very old computers for roughly 1,000 students. ‘We really wanted to give these kids some coding skills that could help with future employment,’ Corbett told me. In a report, UNICEF states that out of the 100 children that attend primary school only 60 percent graduate, and only 25 percent go on to complete junior high school.”

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!

Coding Education, Skills

What is the Best Beginner Coding Language?

There are numerous coding languages. What is the most important to learn? Business Insider takes a look at this question in a recent article titled “This is the best beginner coding language, according to the top schools in the country.”

Tyler Lauletta of Business Insider writes, “There are many reasons you should think about learning to code in 2016. Jobs in coding are still rising at an amazing clip; there’s work to be had if you are looking for a career switch, or if you already work in tech in some capacity, chances are a basic knowledge of a coding language could help you raise your profile within the ranks of your company. And recently in the coding world there has been a bit of an upheaval; where Java was long considered the de facto first language to learn when starting off, now Python is widely touted as the best introduction to the field, with 8 of the top 10 computer science departments in the country now using the language in their introductory courses. People cite the language’s readability as the reason why Python is so great for beginners, as it reads in a similar manner to English in terms of structure and syntax. If you think you might want to dive into coding, but you don’t have the advantage of taking classes at one of the top 10 computer science departments in the country, StackSocial is currently offering a bundle of six Python courses in a deal that could be perfect for you. The bundle covers all the basics of Python you’ll need to understand to kick-start your career in the industry. You’ll start off with basic introductory courses meant to familiarize students with the language — learning what it is used for and what it is capable of accomplishing. From there, you’ll be able to learn more specific skills regarding the code, including using Python for penetration testing, app development, and analytics.”

If you’re looking for the best in 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!

Coding Curriculum

Coding Curriculum that Recognizes How Critical the Skill is to the Future Workforce

It’s no secret that coding is the future when it comes to employment opportunities. Some schools throughout the country are taking this more serious than others. Consider a recent article for the Gazette titled “Coding making its way into local curriculum as critical skill for future workforce.”

The author of the article writes, “According to whitehouse.gov, it’s estimated that by 2018, 51 percent of all science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) jobs will be in a computer science-related field, which is why on Jan. 30, President Barack Obama unveiled the ‘computer science for all’ initiative, which commits $4 billion to expanding access to computer science for elementary and middle school teachers and students across the nation. ‘In this generation, just having some idea of how things work on a computer is really valuable,’ said Hannah Buettner, an AmeriCorps member who led a free four-week workshop at the Cedar Rapids Public Library in January that taught kids the basics of coding using a children’s book called ‘Hello Ruby’ — the library will offer the same program again beginning March 1. Knowing how computers work makes kids ‘literate in a world where we’re surrounded by technology,’ agreed Matt Wilkinson, whose 6-year-old son participated in the workshop. Even without a computer, Buettner taught kids as young as 5 years old how to problem solve, recognize patterns and learn from their failures using activities in the book, she said. ‘People might seem shocked that a 5-year-old can learn the fundamentals of programming, (but) I don’t think it’s really age-based,’ said David Tominsky, the lead mentor at Imagination Iowa, a prekindergarten through 12th grade STEM program that encourages creativity, fosters entrepreneurship and helps kids learn to code. ‘A lot of people think they need to be in middle school and high school to work on critical thinking skills, but any kid can do anything you put in front of them if you give them the support they need,’ Hamilton agreed.”

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!

Skills

Study Shows Women Who Hide Their Gender Are Better Coders Than Men?

Recently, I became a fan of the ABC program Agent Carter. One of the underlying themes of the show is that society often overlooks women and their talents and accomplishments. In other cases, we as men assume superiority based on simply being men. While Agent Carter has her ways of addressing or manipulating these assumptions on TV, in the real world, we have studies to correct such erroneous assumptions. A recent study on women and coding serves as the latest case study. Consider a recent article for Fusion titled “Women are better at coding than men—if they hide their gender.”

Kristen V Brown of Fusion writes, “In a study published this week, a group of computer science students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and North Carolina State University examined how gender impacts the acceptance of contributions on the open source code repository site GitHub. ‘Surprisingly, our results show that women’s contributions tend to be accepted more often than men’s,’ the study’s authors wrote. ‘However, when a woman’s gender is identifiable, they are rejected more often. Our results suggest that although women on GitHub may be more competent overall, bias against them exists nonetheless.’ In other words, if you’re a woman on GitHub, the best way to get your code out there is to hide the fact that you’re a woman. The authors specifically examined ‘pull requests’ on GitHub, programmer parlance for suggestions for fixes to existing code. They looked at the contributions of women and whether the women had gendered or gender-neutral profiles. They found that women’s fixes were more accepted than men’s for every programming language in the top ten. But when gender was identifiable, the acceptance rate for women’s code fixes dropped to 62.5% from 72%. On projects where the woman’s gender was obvious and she was an ‘outsider’—an anonymous online stranger rather than a regular contributor to a software project—the acceptance rate of suggestions dropped below the rate of men.”

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!

Skills

Turning from Mining to Coding for New Careers

Coding offers plenty of potential for those looking to change careers later on in life. Consider a recent article for Arkansas Online titled “Miners switch from coal to coding.”

Tim Loh on behalf of Arkansas Online writes, “Today, he rolls into an office at 8 a.m., settles into a small metal desk and does something that, until last year, was completely foreign to him: computer coding. ‘A lot of people look at us coal miners as uneducated,’ said Ratliff, a 38-year-old with a thin goatee and thick arms. ‘It’s backbreaking work, but there’s engineers and very sophisticated equipment. You work hard and efficiently and that translates right into coding.’ He works for Bit Source now, a Pikeville, Ky., startup that’s out to prove there’s life after coal for the thousands of industry veterans who’ve lost their jobs in an unprecedented rout that has already forced five major producers into bankruptcy. Bit Source has hired only 10 coders, but almost 1,000 responded to its ads as the realization spreads across Appalachia that coal’s heyday is over. What fills its void is a challenge so immense that presidential candidates including Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have cited the industry’s woes on the campaign trail. ‘We’ve got a lot of high-skilled hillbillies here,’ said Rusty Justice, a 57-year-old co-founder of Bit Source. ‘We want to prove we can run a tech business from the hills of eastern Kentucky.’ Few places are as steeped in coal lore as Pikeville, a town of 6,900 wedged into a narrow bend in the Big Sandy Valley. Over the years, surrounding Pike County has produced more of the fuel than anywhere else in Kentucky. In 1996, when Ratliff was still a teenager and his father worked in the mines, the local producers dug up 35.6 million tons, a state record. He eventually followed his dad into those mines.”

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!