Coding for Kids
District Adoptions Gain Steam
Palo Alto Unified, a leading California school district on the forefront of technology integration, has just announced its decision to expand use of Tynker district-wide. “Tynker has been widely adopted by our teachers because it is flexible enough to challenge 8th graders who are exploring fairly complex programming concepts, while also supporting students as young as five years old to successfully build simple programs,” states Ann Dunkin, CTO of Palo Alto Unified, and a presidential nominee for a key post in the Obama Administration. “Many students who work with Tynker in our schools develop a real interest in computer science and engineering and will be prepared for our rigorous high school computer science program.”
Minnetonka Public School District (MN) and Scarsdale Public School District (NY) also chose Tynker because of its ability to support project-based learning and motivate students across academic disciplines. Tynker’s curriculum and methodology helps students quickly visualize, learn, and apply concepts to create projects that connect their learning across math, science, social science, reading, literature, writing, and art — while also teaching them key technology skills. And because the program progresses year over year, students can build their programming skills over time.
Computer Science-trained educators in Elk River Area School District (MN) selected Tynker because it meets students’ needs right out of the box. Unlike other solutions the district evaluated, Tynker did not need to be tailored to meet the needs of more advanced middle school students. Tynker enables students to rapidly learn programming fundamentals and then continue to progress, providing a smooth on-ramp for them to learn mainstream programming languages such as JavaScript.
In addition to the broad coverage of grade-specific learning objectives that Tynker’s curriculum offers, Palo Alto Unified School District (CA) selected Tynker for district-wide deployment after observing that even teachers without coding experience were able to get up and running fast, and students were able to progress at their own pace. Many of their teachers have already integrated Tynker into classroom lessons, and have discovered that coding with Tynker is a very popular lunchtime and after-school activity.
According to Minnetonka’s Assistant Superintendent of Instruction, Eric Schneider, “Tomorrow’s jobs will require at least some level of knowledge or comfort in the area of computer programming. Our cellphones, tablets, and electronic devices aren’t magic boxes; they’re small computers that will provide high-level jobs for the next generation of computer scientists and digital entrepreneurs. We want our students to be at the front of that wave, and Tynker is helping us get there.”
To date, over 8 million students and 10,000 schools and school districts have started programming with Tynker because of its fun, easy approach to helping children learn to code. Whether a school district wants to rapidly elevate their primary and middle school programs to integrate 21st century computational thinking skills across all academic areas and grade levels, or provide a structured, scaffolded approach to teaching fundamental programming concepts, Tynker has become the solution of choice.
