Coding for Kids
Coding In The News: February 2020
The technological revolution is alive and kicking with a seemingly endless stream of announcements of awe-inspiring innovation. Yesterday, it was the out of this world new device your neighbor was showing off. Today, it’s the amazing app your kid downloaded to your phone that’s going to change your life. Tomorrow, who knows?
What’s happening in the world of technology? Are the possibilities to create really infinite? And where does it all start? At its core, everything begins with imagination, the ability to dream of more. The real question is how to make it happen. And in the 21st century, one answer is clear: Computer Programming or Code.
At Tynker, we teach kids to code, so we know that triumphs in technology come in all different sizes. Whereas some have an enormous global impact and others fill a unique niche, both are essential to tech’s vibrant fabric.
Here are a couple of interesting software developments that we found this month—the first affecting millions of people, the second—for the moment—just one:
An Online Learning Platform
China’s new school year was set to begin this week but because of concerns with the spread of the coronavirus, the country has postponed classes.
However, in order to keep China’s 180 million students on track academically, the government has instituted an online learning platform. Not so fast. A project of this size will require their biggest telecom and tech companies to fortify the country’s bandwidth and servers. That way, up to 50 million students can study at the same time without crashing the system! Meanwhile, half a million teachers will be utilizing a streaming service to conduct classes online and make sure students are keeping up with their courses. Considering the sheer number of students, it’s a huge task but with the right code, it should work!
DNA Technology
Thanks to advances in DNA technology, a man from Texas is free after spending the last nine years in jail.
Lydell Grant always proclaimed his innocence in a 2010 murder, but it wasn’t until recently that software advancements in DNA testing by a company called Cybergenetics proved he was telling the truth with a computer program called TrueAllele. A reanalysis of DNA gathered during the initial investigation using new algorithms known as probabilistic genotyping found a different suspect in the FBI database who later confessed. And now a man who spent almost all of his 30s behind bars is free. Meanwhile, the director of the Innocence Project of Texas thinks more than 5,000 inmates could benefit from the same technology used in Grant’s historic case.
We know the possibilities for discovery are endless, which means it’s anyone’s guess what the future holds for computer programming, just that developing focus and creativity in young coders is a great start.
Tynker offers over 3,700 courses and tutorials for all experience levels, emphasizing interest-based paths that make learning to code FUN.
We’ve taught more than 60 million kids around the world how to code with our award-winning programs, ages 5 to 18, from kindergarten all the way through high school.
What will your kid create with code?
Tynker is coding for kids.
