Category Archives: Skills

Coding Education, Skills

Is Learning Coding as Important as a Second Language?

While they are in the minority, there are some people out there that still don’t see the value in coding. However, others are debating whether or not it’s more important than learning a second language. Consider a recent article for the Shorthorn titled “Column: Coding is as valuable as a second language.”

Alex Purcell of the Shorthorn writes, “Computer coding covers the basics for fueling the revolution of computers and cell phones. And it’s something everyone should learn how to do. It’s redundant, but it bears need for emphasis: technology impacts every person. No matter what profession or lifestyle, it’ll find it’s way into everyone’s world. Technology embodies life in the 21st century. We need to learn about how it works. We need to learn about how technology survives and how it fails by learning to code. Computer coding is a way into the depths of the world around us. Software itself is becoming a universal language connected to the inner workings of our society. If we want to learn how to speak with the machines that surround us, we should have a basic knowledge about coding. Coding helps with finding jobs. Zach Sims, co-founder of Codecademy, says in a Time article that efficiency can be discovered by learning to code. ‘It creates higher-level job opportunities for un- and underemployed young people, some of whom will go on to found their own companies,’ he says. Not only could you start a breakthrough company, but pre-existing corporations are increasingly desperate to keep technology in their businesses. People who know how to program are crucial for an enterprise to compete and can quickly secure a place in the top tier of potential employees. Even if you don’t want to code for the rest of your life, there’s still use for it. Basic coding knowledge helps with grasping the automation that makes everyday life easier. It’s naive to be deaf to the current language of our world.”

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, Skills

Young Professional Using Coding to Double Salary in a Year

A coding career can be life changing. Black Enterprise explores this in a recent article titled “How Coding Helped This Young Professional Double Her Salary in One Year.”

Courtney Connley of Black Enterprise writes, “As a high school student who enjoyed HTML and CSS coding, Jayana Johnson discovered her love for tech at an early age but had no clue how to establish a career within the industry. After dropping out of Long Island University as a broadcast major, she went back to the drawing board on what she wanted to do professionally and eventually landed a job as an events coordinator forCitigroup. After eight months at the company, Johnson then went to work as an assistant in the tech department at Weber Shandwick, and it was there that she solidified her decision to get more involved in tech. Now, as a UX Designer for MasterCard, the 27-year-old shares how coding school helped her to double her annual salary to $100,000 in just one year… It’s definitely something I was always interested in, but it was always just an interest and not something I pursued or was told there was a possibility to have a career in. I never saw anyone who looked like me that was doing what I wanted to do. I didn’t even know how to go about it until later on in life. Now, it’s easier to ask about programs instead of going to a four-year university and having to spend so much money… What I do is a little bit different than what most of my peers do. One of the reasons I wanted to go with MasterCard is because not only do I do Web design, but I also do user experience design, including front-end development… Other skills, besides actual tangible skills, are soft skills in terms of being able to network, because a lot of this has to do with who you know at the end of the day. So just getting yourself out there and becoming a part of the community and being involved not only in taking in the skills but giving back a lot. People will get to know you, find out what you’re about, and be willing to help you.”

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!

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!

Coding Education, Education, Skills

Hackathon Aims to Strengthen Conservation

Coding provides the potential solutions to many of the world’s problems. This includes conservation. Consider a recent article for Mongabay WildTech titled “Coding for conservation: Hackathons generate apps and ideas.”

Sue Palminteri of Mongabay WildTech writes, “The general goal is to quickly develop a product that solves the challenge presented at the start of the event. Products generally take the form of websites, mobile apps, and robots, which can be created on the spot with limited time and resources. The Facebook ‘Like’ button, for example, was apparently designed at a hackathon. Participants also seek less tangible outcomes, including the chance to meet like-minded people, learn new skills, and use these skills creatively to build something new that addresses a particular challenge. The challenge proposed for the Hackathon for Wildlife was to ‘Develop innovative approaches and business models to connect 20 million people worldwide with wild animals, through a combination of technologies that include GPS hardware, data, games, and social media.’  The challenge built on the worldwide outrage about the killing of a lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe. Once people knew his name, he gained celebrity status and the concern of many thousands of people.  Might games or social media be venues for generating this kind of compassion for other wild animals?… Participants are typically technology developers, designers, programmers, and user-interface experts.  A themed hackathon might also attract subject-matter experts. At the Hackathon for Wildlife, attendees included 13 tech and wildlife specialists from companies including ESRI, BRCK, and Amazon, and seven local and international wildlife organizations. Among the 65 participants were also wildlife enthusiasts, computer science students, teachers, and working professionals… Participants mainly work furiously to complete a project that was likely proposed and agreed upon hours before. After a brief introduction to people and objectives, teams of 3 to 8 people, who often have just met one another, self-select to work collaboratively toward a particular idea or solution to the hackathon’s challenge. (Hackathon for Wildlife participants formed 10 teams.) They spend the next 24 to 48 hours (usually a weekend) brainstorming, designing, coding, and learning new technologies, with the goal of producing a prototype for that concept. They also might attend one or more short training sessions.”

Looking for the best in 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!

Coding Education, Skills

JavaScript and Being a Star Programmer in 2016

When it comes to programming, a lot of the discussion right now is centered around mastering JavaScript. Consider a recent article for Mashable titled “To be a star programmer in 2016, learn Javascript and move to Utah.”

Anita Bruzzese of Mashable writes, “Coding is the hot job of the near future, and the word is out. It’s becoming more competitive and employers are raising the bar for jobs. While there are thousands of job listings for programmers and coders on various job sites, the increasing number of people capable of filling those jobs means that those in the industry will have to up their game if they want to thrive in their careers in 2016. First up: technical skills alone won’t cut it any more. Language skills — and we’re not talking PYTHON — are crucial. For example, one employer looking for a coder has told headhunter David Klein to screen out resumes that are not written well, or ones that contain grammatical errors. Klein, director of recruitment for KDS Staffing in New York, says that the employer is looking for coders and programmers who can ‘communicate well.’ Michael Choi, founder of Coding Dojo, says that employers ‘are doing more filtering,’ especially since there are more qualified applicants for jobs. ‘In general, the bar is going up,’ Choi says. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, computer programmer jobs are expected to grow 8% by 2022. While boot camps such as Coding Dojo continue to turn out coders in addition to various schools worldwide, other qualified personnel will enter the pipeline through the TechHire initiative, a public-private partnership aimed at filling tech jobs. At the same time, companies are placing more demand on coders to help them fill the strategic and business goals of the organization. No longer will coders specialize in certain areas – they will be asked to broaden their knowledge and be able to collaborate more, Choi says.”

Looking for the best in 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!

Coding Education, Education, Skills

The Coding Lessons That Go Beyond Computer Skills

For many people, how there is even a debate still going on the validity of coding in the classroom is mind boggling. Yet, that debate continues to rage on throughout the country. Consider a recent article for the Lancaster Online titled “What do kids learn from coding? Much more than just computer skills, educators say.”

Kara Newhouse of Lancaster Online writes, “Third-graders at Pequea Elementary School in Penn Manor can’t quite explain how computer coding is used in the real world, but they do know this: it’s a lot of fun. ‘I like coding because you get to play games, but it makes you think and stuff,’ said 8-year-old Kennedy Dings. Last Thursday, Kennedy and her classmates participated in Hour of Code, a global campaign in which children try software programming for one hour anytime during Computer Science Education Week. The event was launched in 2013 by Code.org, a Seattle-based nonprofit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science. During the first year, only a few Lancaster County schools and organizations joined in the Hour of Code. This year, at least 10 local districts and private schools participated. Kennedy and her Pequea classmates, who have been learning coding all year, served as ‘tech experts’ for older and younger students at Hambright Elementary during Hour of Code. (Pequea’s third-grade classrooms are located at Hambright this year because of school renovations.) On Thursday they introduced fifth-graders to coding with online and offline games. In the online games, students drag and drop instructions — ‘lines of code’ — into a sequence to make a character perform a task, such as navigating a maze. The instructions are in plain language, such as ‘turn right’ or ‘jump,’ but the principles are the same as for building computer programs. In a board game called Robot Turtles, players get a stack of cards with directions such as ‘move forward’ or ‘blast through the wall.’ They take turns picking choosing cards to create their code.”

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

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!