Category Archives: Uncategorized

IMHP Partnership Continues in Ladera Heights and beyond

We are very happy to be continuing to work with IMHP in Ladera Heights to provide our pilot coding classes to our group of very smart students.

We just checked out our venue at Leimert Theater for upcoming Saturday classes with kids in South L.A.  Very excited about doing this work.

On the horizon is coding at the EXPO Center next to the Forum.  So happy to be spreading our program all around L.A.

 

School partnership at Broadway Elementary in Venice has begun

After a number of Broadway students joined our winter camp, due to popular demand, we are partnering with Broadway Elementary’s afterschool program to provide our Modding and Adventures in Programming classes to students on campus for Winter Term.  In less than 2 days since registration opened, we have almost completely filled our 60 slots.

If you read this and you would like us to come offer our courses at your school, please let us know and let your school’s afterschool coordinator know.  We will be happy to talk with them about arranging a similar class…AND WE BRING THE COMPUTERS TO THE SCHOOL.

We can’t wait to spread coding to students everywhere.

 

Winter Camps Success so far! Continue this week and next

Winter Camp Pic

Thank you to all our wonderful campers who made last week’s winter camp so amazing.  Students built and customized their own websites using HTML 5 and CSS 3.  They created their own blocks, items, worlds, teleporting, lightning-shooting swords, created and customized their own armor, and even made their own biomes.  Talk about heaven for any student who loves Minecraft and creativity.  Of course, they had to code in Java to accomplish these awesome feats.  Who knew that 3rd-5th graders could write code in Java!!!  Well, we’ve proved that they can.

Students modeled and animated their own 3D projects using Maya 3D, created unique games and projects in Scratch, and learned to code in Javascript and Python!!!

We’ve attached a pic from our winter camp above so you can check it out!

Lack of Computer Science Education in Schools still a major problem

Check this link for a thorough description of the problem facing our students now:  http://www.computinginthecore.org/issues-solutions.

Basically, the United States is WAY behind in the field of Computer Science education, which happens to be the field that opens most doors in terms of finding work in the 21st Century.  As the above link describes, “No other subject will open as many doors in the 21st Century, regardless of a student’s ultimate field of study or occupation, as computer science.”

While some schools do teach basic computer skills, they lack the conceptual depth of instruction that is valued in the work place.  This is the gap that we fill.  We focus on computational thinking, advanced problem solving, and using logic to solve problems with unclear solutions and many possible outcomes, just the way actual problems in the real world usually function.

We have quoted Carnegie Melon’s computer science department below to provide a more complete definition of Computational Thinking.  Their site link is here:  http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~CompThink/

“Computational thinking is a way of solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior that draws on concepts fundamental to computer science. To flourish in today’s world, computational thinking has to be a fundamental part of the way people think and understand the world.

Computational thinking means creating and making use of different levels ofabstraction, to understand and solve problems more effectively.

Computational thinking means thinking algorithmically and with the ability to apply mathematical concepts such as induction to develop more efficient, fair, and secure solutions.

Computational thinking means understanding the consequences of scale, not only for reasons of efficiency but also for economic and social reasons.”

 

Did anybody see what college-age interns who code are making these days? These coders all started young.

Check out the link below for the article, and the graph below to see what College aged interns are making in the tech industry.  Almost all these coders all started coding in elementary and middle school.  Not bad for a college job!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/12/05/tech_internship_salaries_an_even_longer_list_that_will_make_your_eyes_water.html?wpsrc=fol_tw

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