By learning with professional text editors like Eclipse and Atom, kids as young as age 7 build skills and confidence. They also learn the critical skill of debugging code using these editors, which gives them real life experience in a major part of development.
Coding games is high-interest and engaging for kids One thing many parents and educators don’t realize is that it is easy to get kids interested in computer programming, but incredibly challenging to keep them interested long term. CodaKid learned this lesson the hard way in October 2014 just after launch. By the end of our first month, nearly all of the kids enrolled in our beta program had lost interest and wanted to drop out. We were devastated. All of the hard work and planning went down the drain, and we second guessed whether we should just throw in the towel and go find real jobs. Rather than give up, we decided to pivot and introduce real game programming with professional languages and tools. We used things that kids were already interested in, like Minecraft, Roblox, 3D video games, and game apps. Making games is fun, but also demands focus concentration, and patience. But allowing kids to make creative decisions about gameplay, to test out their logic, and see others playing their levels brought engagement to levels we didn’t think possible. By the end of our first class, we had kids fist bumping and literally jumping out of their chairs. We have now taken our approach to our online courses and are achieving similar results.
You might think coding and programming skills are only valuable for people working in highly technical specialist jobs. While it’s true that learning to code is more important for some roles, that doesn’t mean you can’t find practical ways to apply coding knowledge in non-coding jobs. Mark Billion, CEO and principal software architect of Bankruptcy Anywhere says his coding knowledge has benefited him in unexpected ways as an entrepreneur. “We were able to use Python to code our advertising algorithms, which also saved us about $1,000 per month,” Billion explains. “So, if you are in business—any kind of business—coding is critical.” The ability to code allowed Billion to automate menial tasks that ultimately saved him money. That’s a huge plus for small businesses where budgets are typically very tight. For those who work closely with programmers and developers, learning the basics of coding can make you a much more valuable member of a team. “While I’m primarily a marketer, having technical knowledge is one of the biggest assets I can provide my team,” says Jake Lane, growth manager at Press Cleaners. “Being able to make a change to the code base helps free up our developers to focus on the more important stuff and reduces development lag time.” You don’t have to be a programming whiz to reap the benefits of learning to code. Knowing just enough to be useful can still be a positive asset in most business environments.