Coding Education

Facebook’s Spam-Killer and Peeking into the Future of Coding

What can Facebook’s new spam killer tell us about coding? Wired Magazine attempts to tell us the answer in a recent article titled “Facebook’s New Spam-Killer Hints at the Future of Coding.”

Cade Metz of Wired writes, “LOUIS BRANDY PAUSES before answering, needing some extra time to choose his words. ‘I’m going to get in so much trouble,’ he says. The question, you see, touches on an eternally controversial topic: the future of computer programming languages. Brandy is a software engineer at Facebook, and alongside a team of other Facebookers, he spent the last two years rebuilding the system that removes spam—malicious, offensive, or otherwise unwanted messages—from the world’s largest social network. That’s no small task—Facebook juggles messages from more than 1.5 billion people worldwide—and to tackle the problem, Brandy and team made an unusual choice: they used a programming language called Haskell. In the early ’90s, a committee of academics built Haskell as a kind of experiment in language design, and all these years later, it remains on the fringes of mainstream programming. At GitHub—the primary repository for software code on the ‘net—Haskell ranks 23rd on the list of the most popular languages. Even so, Facebook chose it as the basis for its enormously complex anti-spam system, which went live earlier this year. As I chat with Brandy inside the new Facebook building in Menlo Park, California, I’m trying to understand what this choice says about the evolution of programming languages as a whole. That may seem an innocent enough question, but any straightforward discussion of the merits of one programming language over another is inevitably met with at least a modicum of vitriol as it spills into the wider community of software developers. Coders choose programming languages for any number of technical reasons, but they also choose them for very personal reasons—and these personal reasons inevitably intertwine with the technical. If Brandy praises Haskell too heavily—or indeed criticizes it too heavily—so many others will cry foul. They’ll probably cry foul anyway.”

One way or another, the future of coding will most likely involve your child as more jobs make these skills a requirement. In order to prepare your child for this economy, you need quality, early coding education. When it comes to youth coding education, no one does it better than CodeRev Kids.

At CodeRev Kids, we emphasize computational thinking, which 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; thus, the entire curriculum is customized.

Furthermore, we keep the focus on having fun. As a result, students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

For more information, check out our afterschool programs!

Coding Curriculum, Coding Education

Leveling the Playing Field with Coding

Structural and systemic inequality are realities of the school and work world. Growth industries like coding provide the opportunities to level the playing field for underrepresented groups. Consider a recent article for the Huffington Post titled “Coding: The Ultimate Equalizer.”

Joel S. Bloom of the Huffington Post writes, “Should ‘coding’ be taught in all-American public schools? We know the U.S. is falling behind the rest of the globe in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. By exposing kids to coding, starting in kindergarten, we give them the tools they need to both compete and make smart life choices in a digital world. Coding is how technology, including software, apps and websites, is created. There are thousands of coding languages, such as JavaScript, Python and SQL, and early exposure helps young people understand and interact with the devices that provide the means to shape our technology-driven culture. Coding is valuable in that it teaches problem solving, design and innovation. It is practical in that it creates solutions to immediate challenges. It is creative in that it allows people to imagine and invent with few boundaries. It is liberating in that one can go from knowing code to owning one’s own company. It is equalizing in that code is not limited by the stigmas humans readily cling to, such as race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. But even more exciting, children love to code. That’s why the U.K. last year infused coding into the national curriculum starting at age 5. That’s why there are movements all across Asia to get young people, particularly girls, to code. They understand that you don’t expose young people to code simply to create a bunch of computer scientists. Exposure to coding can open up a love of learning that builds pathways to other critical skills, including many important ones in STEM.”

Even if coding were taught in all public schools, there is still a major need for individualized lesson plans. The only place to find this style of customized education is with a program like CodeRev Kids.

At CodeRev Kids our 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, making the entire curriculum 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.

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

Coding Education

Why Do Parents and Schools Disagree About Coding?

While parents across the country are pushing to get more coding in schools, recent research shows there is a serious disconnect between their sentiments and those of the schools. USA Today explores this in a recent article titled “Should students learn coding? Students, schools disagree, poll finds.”

Marco della Cava of USA Today writes, “Parents across the U.S. are eager for their children to learn coding and other computer-science skills, but their message hasn’t yet hit the in-box of school administrators. That’s the finding of a new Gallup study commissioned by Google that spotlights a potentially perilous economic disconnect as tech companies struggle to enlarge their engineering talent pools. In the works for 18 months, the survey, called ‘Searching for Computer Science: Access and Barriers in U.S. K-12 Education,’ polled 15,000 people ranging from students to superintendents. Among key and contrasting findings: while 90% of parents see computer science, or CS, as ‘a good use of school resources’ (and 67% say CS should be required learning alongside other core classes), fewer than 8% of administrators believe parent demand is high. They also cite a lack of trained teachers as a top barrier to offering CS courses. Three quarters of principals report no CS programs in their school.”

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, one businessman is certain that teaching coding isn’t just important for students’ skills; it’s necessary for our economy. WYMT 57 takes a look at this in a recent article titled “President of company says coding is a solution to the economy.” According to the author of the article, “The president of bitsource says that the company focuses on the technological needs of other entities, but also men and women in need of a job. Bitsource is new to Pikeville. The owners discovered a need for it when they were forced to search for business outside of the mountains. One co-owner, Rusty Justice, says it started with the need for a website, but then turned into something more. ‘We’ve always made our business in the coal industry and so we were looking for something to do to help these wonderful people we’ve worked with. We knew how talented and capable they were.’”

If you’re looking to provide your child with a quality coding education, your best bet is CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, we customize our lessons to fit your child’s specific needs.

Our students learn Computational Thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. Although 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, our students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology.

With CodeRev Kids, students can choose from five different tracks, each of which begins with introductory concepts which then lead to intermediate and advanced topics. These tracks include everything from creating games to making apps to building robots.

If you think CodeRev Kids could be right for your child, get signed up today!

Coding Curriculum, Coding Education

Kids Code the Darndest Things

When you give children some space for creativity, it’s amazing what they can do. Consider a recent article for the Huffington Post titled “These Kids Spent 8 Hours Coding And Broke A Guinness World Record.”

Rebecca Klein of the Huffington Post writes, “July 30 was a big day for over 1,000 members of Boys and Girls Clubs in the Seattle area: They learned how to code, and they broke a Guinness world record. A total of 1,337 students gathered at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, for a free coding camp that was also an attempt to break the record for the ‘most people trained in computer programming in eight hours.’ Microsoft approached Guinness when it had the idea to host the marathon training session. Guinness World Records set a benchmark of 1,300 students who had to take part, Microsoft representative Katie Fazzolari told The Huffington Post. The kids participated in coding activities, like learning how to do commands, and had to create a game. They had to demonstrate that they had finished their tasks for their time to count for the world record.”

Cool Mom Tech also highlights youth coding creativity in a recent article titled “9 awesomely cool coding projects for kids using the Dot and Dash robots from Wonder Workshop.” Liz of Cool Mom Tech writes, “Recently, I wrote about how totally in love I am with the Dot and Dash Robots from Wonder Workshop. So it makes me extra happy that they have joined us as as our newest Cool Mom Tech sponsor because, well, we all adore them! (Also, so does every kid who comes over and begs to play with ‘those cool blue robot things’ that have a permanent home in our living room.) What’s even better is that the free Blockly app (iOS and Android) that pairs with the robots has a new update every single week, meaning it’s constantly packed with tons of new puzzles and playful projects that are actually doable without an engineering degree, thanks to an easy drag-and-drop visual coding platform that’s perfect for kids about 8 and up. Maybe a little younger with your help.”

When it comes to youth coding education, nothing gives your child the opportunity to grow quite like CodeRev Kids. Our customized coding education emphasizes 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.

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, our students stay engaged while learning to blend creativity with technology. With us, children can explore coding through robotics, building apps, designing websites, creating games, and much more.

If you are looking to give your child a quality coding education, look no further than CodeRev Kids!

Coding Curriculum, Coding Education

CodeCloud Seeks to Help Adults Learn Coding on the Move

For adults trying to catch up on their coding knowledge, it generally requires a class. However, a Seoul/Singapore startup is looking to create an app that allows them to learn coding on the move. E27 takes a look at this in a recent article titled “CodeCloud is an interactive coding platform that gets you a job.”

Iris Leung of E27 writes, “Within the past few years, coding as a skill became anybody’s game with the likes of rap star Will.i.am telling the media that code can help fight global inequality. World leaders also followed suite, with Obama became the first President to write a line of code and Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong recently showed his C++ prowess by sharing his source code for a Sudoku solver. Online and physical coding schools have also cropped up ranging from easygoing interactive platforms like Codecademy to all out four-month curricula from General Assembly. Between the freemium models and fairly steep tuition costs, are students of these programs actually landing development gigs after? CodeCloud, a new interactive coding platform, wants to bridge that gap. Claiming to be the only ‘school’ that that lets users build projects for real companies, the one-year-old Singapore/Seoul startup (and incoming JFDI incubatee) already has had three projects completed included an Airbnb-Expedia mashup and a Bitcoin trading bot that uses machine learning and natural language recognition to predict movements in the cryptocurrency realm… Mike De’Shazer, NYC coding school App Factory Founder and CodeCloud Co-Founder believes that adult neophyte coders need a solution that’s fun, non-committal and actually leads to job opportunities. More importantly, it needs to be a passive way for people to learn at their leisure, which is why CodeCloud’s is plugging away on a free mobile game where budding coders can absentmindly tap away on their daily commutes. ‘The whole thing is very interactive and touch-enabled. Essentially the way it works is you drag words into slots. You start with very simple code then it gets more complex so this is a way that people can learn how to code passively. We found that there’s a huge gap — most adults that want to learn how to code don’t have the time. But they have time on the train or bus, so we realized that we needed to create a mobile experience,’ he said.”

No app, however, can make up for a classroom environment with an experienced educator. At CodeRev Kids, we provide just that, as well as a customized curriculum to give your child a solid foundation in coding.

Our curriculum emphasizes 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. Our learning tracks include robotics, apps, websites, and game development.

There is no better place for your child to develop coding skills than CodeRev Kids!

Coding Curriculum

From Low-Wage Worker to a Six-Figure Income Coding

Transitioning to a career in coding can literally transform a person’s life. The Tampa Bay Times takes a look at this in a recent article titled “Low-wage workers turn to coding to find lucrative jobs.”

Steve Lohr of the Tampa Bay Times writes, “After Paul Minton graduated from college, he worked as a waiter but always felt he should do more. So 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 startup in San Francisco was more than $100,000. ‘Six figures, right off the bat,’ 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 workforce, especially to those who can write modern code, the language of the digital world. Internet giants like Google and Facebook have long fought over the top software engineers in the country, and that continues. But now, companies in most every industry, either by necessity or to follow the pack, are pursuing some sort of digital game plan — creating lucrative opportunities for computing-minded newcomers who, like Minton, want to reboot their lives.”

WSOC examines jobs in the coding industry in a recent article titled “9 Investigates: Companies seek computer coding knowledge.” Stephanie Maxwell of WSOC writes, “Some of the highest-paying jobs in the country are going unfilled, because not enough college graduates possess the skills to fill them. Computer programming jobs are growing two times the national average and in North Carolina there’s more than 18, 000 vacant positions. John Sutton is president of the digital unit at Red Ventures, a technology company in Indian Land, South Carolina. Sutton said despite explosive growth in the past few years, Red Ventures struggles to find employees to fill their coding jobs. ‘The coding and engineering market is probably the hardest market out there today in the USU.S. Specifically in the Southeast, we’ve found it really difficult to attract good talent,’ Sutton said.”

When it comes to providing a quality coding education, we’ve got you covered at CodeRev Kids. With our customized curriculum, your child will receive a solid foundation in coding and have plenty of fun in the process.

At CodeRev Kids, we emphasize computational thinking, which encompasses a wide range of programming concepts and languages. With us, students have the opportunity to use their newfound skills to create apps, games, robots, and much more.

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.

When it comes to quality coding education, no one does it better than CodeRev Kids!

Coding Curriculum, Coding Education

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!

Coding Curriculum, Coding Education

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 Education

Karlie Kross Discusses Making Coding Cool for Girls


You can add Karlie Kross to the chorus of people trying to engage more young girls in coding. The Daily Mail reports on this in a recent article titled “Karlie Kloss reveals why she’s determined to make coding cool for girls while posing for sultry photo shoot for FLARE magazine.”

Caitlin O’Toole of the Daily Mail writes, “The beauty told FLARE she has recently enrolled at New York University, and is having fun picking out her courses. And she shared her love of a surprising hobby – coding. ‘It’s always fascinated me, but it’s not a subject I was taught in school,’ she said of her programming passion. ‘So last year, I decided to take a coding crash course and I ended up LOVING it.’ The model now encourages other women and girls to take up coding, and even donated $20,000 to New York’s Flatiron School for a scholarship to encourage women to code. The model told the publication that she feels a responsibility to be a good example to young people and admitted that she wants other women to follow in her footsteps by taking the course. ‘There’s a big misconception that coding is strictly mathematical; it’s actually incredibly creative,’ she told FLARE. ‘Code runs everything around us, and young women are so important to defining the future.’”

Education Dive also takes a look at coding education for girls in a recent article titled “Coding courses provide entry point for girls in tech.” Kate Schimel of Education Dive writes, “In a Girls Who Code course hosted this summer by the Florida State University, female students taught robots to dance, worked in groups to fix coding problems, and gained confidence for entering the male-dominated tech field… The course is one way Florida educators are trying to get more girls involved in computer science and tech, as few currently enter STEM fields… Meanwhile, Miami-Dade schools have introduced computer science classes as early as kindergarten, in part to engage female students in technology early on.”

For young girls in California, there’s no better option for coding education than CodeRev Kids. With us, children get a customized coding education that allows them to create everything from apps to games to robots.

Our program emphasizes 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. 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 want to give your daughter the best coding education opportunity, look no further than CodeRev Kids!

Coding Education, Education

Wired Argues You Should Be Coding in Your Physics Class

CodingAccording to Wired Magazine, if coding isn’t part of your Physics course, something is wrong. Rhett Allain of Wired explores this in a recent article titled “You Should Be Coding in Your Physics Course.”

Allain writes, “IT’S NEAR THE start of a new semester of physics. Many faculty are working on their plans for introductory physics courses. How many tests should there be? What about homework? Do I want to cover fluids? What about numerical calculations? Let’s talk about the numerical calculations. Sadly, I think the majority of physics faculty don’t even consider to include numerical calculations in their physics courses. Of course, by numerical calculations I mean the process of breaking a complicated problem into many smaller (and easier) problems. Since this makes many problems to solve, the simplest strategy is to use some type of computer. Thus some people might call this computational physics or even physics coding. Call it what you like, but I think it’s an important topic to cover in introductory classes. What are some of the reasons faculty don’t include numerical calculations? Here are some common concerns for faculty along with my reply. ‘This is not a computer science class.’ Well, that’s true. This is a physics courses. However, this is also not an English class. Does that mean that there should be no writing or reading? It’s not a math class, but students should still use math. It’s not an art class, but students should still be able to draw force diagrams. Physics is not ONE THING in isolation from all other things. Really, there are no classes that could just stand by themselves. Could you imagine any course that didn’t use words and instead only had pictures? No, that would be difficult. Physics has to use many different fields to study the nature of the universe. That’s what makes it so awesome. Of course it’s not just faculty that say ‘this isn’t a computer class’—students think this too. Here is my response to them.”

If you’re looking to give your child a foundation in coding that could lead to a prosperous career, your best bet is CodeRev Kids. At CodeRev Kids, we customize your child’s coding education, making lessons both highly informative and fun.

Our lessons emphasize computational thinking, which 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.

Even though 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.

Contact us to enroll in or simply learn more about our different afterschool programs.