Coding for Kids
How Coding Prepares Your Child for the Future
Fifteen years ago, few people could predict that in the near future industries would be disrupted by technology. Take for example how Uber and Waymo are advancing the transportation industry through self-driving cars, and how virtual assistants like Alexa inject companionship into mundane tasks such as ordering pizza or getting directions. Most professional careers today require people to create or at least interact with online tools with competence. Young people who built software during the early days of computer languages may not have realized that playing around with code would give them an advantage later on, as now people are desperately trying to get the skills they need through things like coding bootcamps.
What can we learn from this? That there are skills and interests we should nurture in young people now that’ll be beneficial to them by the time they get to the workforce. These are skills that we may not initially see the use of, just as learning to code fifteen years ago may not have seemed vital to kids and their parents. So what are those skills you and your child will be glad you fostered? While we can’t predict the future with certainty, experts generally agree on key challenges and opportunities the future will bring. Here are just a few, along with ways Tynker can help your child get ready to succeed:
Energy. Do you have a young inventor in your home who’s interested in things like solar cookers, solar panels, generators, and other devices that harness and produce light and heat? As our society looks for alternatives to fossil fuels and needs to provide energy for our world’s population, we’ll need people who can think outside the box to achieve energy goals. Tynker’s Solar Power Clicker coding activity is a great way to get the wheels turning over ideas for transforming natural resources into energy!
Food. Experts predict that we’ll need to start thinking about food differently to feed a growing population. Climate changes will impact the amount of, and kinds of, land available to raise plants and livestock for human consumption. We’ll need to figure out how to create food with different kinds of spaces and tools. We’ll need people who can provide nutritious solutions, through options like vertical farming and other alternatives that haven’t yet been invented. In Tynker’s Change the World challenge, kids can brainstorm ways that they’d create food for the world’s population.
Creativity. To meet the challenges of the future, people will need to come up with innovative ways to approach the challenges ahead. We’ll need people who understand not only different ideas and facts but who can think about those things in creative ways, who can understand cause and effect relationships, and who can repeatedly deliver results. Learning how to code exposes children to sequential and algorithmic thinking, both of which help kids understand processes and problem-solving strategies.
Collaboration. People will need to learn how to collaborate with other people, how to communicate in meaningful ways. They’ll need to know how to build off of what other people have already done to make something even better. By remixing others’ projects in Tynker, kids learn about using other people’s ideas to create their own coding products. And in Crystal Clash, Tynker’s newest multiplayer coding challenge, the player with the best code wins, encouraging kids to get creative with code as they are battling each other. That spirit of competition, of wanting to create the best product possible, will be vital in the future as kids grow up to design their world.
According to a recent survey by Google and Gallup, exposing kids to computer science early on allows them to think about pursuing careers in computing. To help you provide that early exposure for your child, we offer coding activities at all levels so your future problem-solver can jump right in! From block-based coding to get familiar with programming concepts like algorithms, sequencing, and patterns, to editing real HTML, CSS, Python, and JavaScript pages with our code editor, kids will learn problem-solving skills and critical thinking at all levels.
With over 2,000 coding challenges and interactive tutorials, there’s something in Tynker for coders of any level! However your child chooses to contribute to the world of the future, learning skills like coding and critical thinking early on is sure to be a huge advantage!
