“Kids are persons too!” | MIT Information

Professor Hal Abelson has committed his job to creating facts technological innovation much more accessible to all and empowering men and women — youngsters, in specific — by means of computer science. But his storied profession in personal computer science commenced with Abelson coming to MIT in 1969 to pursue his desire in arithmetic.

“The point I like to remind learners of is that they never have to know what they are likely to do with the relaxation of their daily life,” Abelson says. “I get a ton of emails from students in significant college asking what they ought to be researching, and I say, ‘Gee you should really be trying to do some thing that doesn’t even exist nevertheless!’”

Nowadays Abelson’s function is centered on democratizing accessibility to computer system science and empowering kids by exhibiting them that they can have an affect on their local community by the electric power of technological know-how. All over his career, Abelson has performed an critical purpose in quite a few educational technological know-how initiatives at MIT, which include MIT OpenCourseWare and DSpace, and as the co-chair of the MIT Council on Academic Know-how. He is also a founding director of Resourceful Commons, General public Information, and the Cost-free Application Foundation.

Nowadays, his Application Inventor platform, which allows older people and little ones to build their personal cellular cellular phone apps, has above 1 million lively people.

“Making training — both written content and applications — overtly accessible may possibly feel like an noticeable plan now, but it was truly unthinkable till Hal Abelson made it so, says Sanjay Sarma, the Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Bouquets Professor of Mechanical Engineering and previous vice president of MIT Open up Mastering. “Millions of pupils obtain the reward of learning today on their computers and clever telephones, and they may well under no circumstances recognize that it all commenced with an outrageously resourceful and brave break from the past. Thank you, Hal!”

When smartphones commenced coming into the marketplace in 2008, Abelson was on sabbatical at Google. The prospective of these strong, but little and personalised computing equipment encouraged him to make a system that could enable little ones and grown ups with no track record in laptop or computer science to make cell mobile phone purposes. Abelson recollects that all through his time in the lab of late Professor Emeritus Seymour Papert, he and his colleagues would dream about the match-changing possible of delivering small children access to more compact, a lot more individualized, and a lot more economical personal computers.

When Abelson came up with the notion for the Application Inventor platform, he remembers considering “mobile phones are likely to have a large impression on how individuals interact with computer systems. I thought to myself, would not it be amazing if children could actually build packages with these cell phones?”

The inspiration for Abelson’s get the job done aimed at democratizing access to computing stems in substantial element from

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These 6 startups are helping kids become programmers

Coding has become a modern-day toolkit to advance and ease our lives. It’s used everywhere – emojis, sharing memes, booking movie tickets, sending text messages, and even while you’re reading this article — almost everything is possible with just a few swipes and taps, all by coding. 

The kids know this. This is why coding has become a buzzword in classrooms across schools in the country. Many students consider it essential to education alongside regular subjects like English, math, and science – to not only open doors for opportunities but also enhance other skills such as problem-solving, reasoning, creativity, logical thinking, and much more.

Here are some kid-focused coding startups that are enabling students to keep up with technology and helping sharpen their minds by imbuing problem-solving and analytical skills.

CodeYoung

Founded by IIT-Delhi alumni Shailendra Dhakad and Rupika Taneja in 2019, the Bengaluru-based startup Codeyoung offers live coding classes to K-12 students.

The startup offers four programmes: app development, Python, Scratch, and web development for the age groups of five to nine, nine to 14, and 14-16. Each course includes 48 classes and costs Rs 19,999. They offer classes twice or thrice a week, depending on the student’s preference.

“Our curriculum goes beyond drag-and-drop block-based programming and provides a real-world coding environment where students are taught industry-level languages like Java and Python. Our aim is to teach kids the fundamentals of logic and problem-solving,” Shailendra earlier told YourStory

In September 2020, the startup raised an undisclosed amount in a seed round of funding led by Guild Capital to scale up in international markets and strengthen academic research, product teams, and technology.

Tekie

Founded by Naman Mukund and Anand Verma in 2017, Bengaluru-based Tekie is a live coding platform that brings the art of storytelling to make learning a movie-like experience.

The startup has also created the world’s first animated series on coding to teach text-based coding to kids.

“Coding education is still at a nascent stage in our country, primarily restricted to block-based coding. We want students to go beyond just getting introduced to concepts and learn to write real code. Keeping this in mind, we designed our course to teach text-based coding. We wanted to solve the gap in text-based coding for Class XI–XII students. The original idea was to be a B2B platform that could integrate with the school curriculum. But we iterated a lot on the product front,” Naman says.

In May 2021, Tekie raised $1.5 million in seed round funding led by GSV Ventures and Multiply Ventures to scale its operation to support the increasing demand. 

Codingal Education

Founded in 2020 by Vivek Prakash and Satyam Baranwal, Bengaluru-based Codingal Education is an online coding platform for K–12 kids.

Y Combinator-backed Codingal enrolled 40,000+ K12 students in 5 months

“Our mission is to inspire school kids to fall in love with coding, and we are building Codingal to deliver high-quality computer science education combined with world-class coding competitions.

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15 Best Coding Games for Kids

If you’re a parent, then chances are you’ve heard endless debates about how screen time affects children. And while it’s always a good idea to encourage your kids to put down their phones, tablets, and laptops in order to get some fresh air, there’s nothing wrong with giving your children some screen time — especially if they’re learning something with their devices. Looking for some educational online games that your kids will actually enjoy? Then you’ll want to check out the best coding websites and games for kids, which can nurture everything from problem-solving skills to critical thinking to creativity.

Learning to code has many benefits that can help kids out later in life, too. In addition to being a skill that’s highly valued in the workforce, coding teaches people how to work more efficiently and logically. As Steve Jobs once said, “Everyone in this country should learn how to program a computer, because it teaches you how to think.” Of course, it might help to know a little bit more about coding and its benefits before you get your children started (and no, teaching your kid to code doesn’t mean you expect them to become the next Steve Jobs). Here’s what you should know about coding programs for kids:

What is coding, in simple terms?

Simply put, coding is telling a computer or machine how to perform a task. As a rep from Raspberry Pi Foundation explains, “Coding is one aspect of digital making. When you write code, you are writing instructions for a computer to follow.” As complex as they may seem, computers are actually simple devices, so that’s why you have to give them really simple instructions that you then build into a complex set of rules. And learning how to provide those instructions isn’t just helpful for computers — it challenges programmers to communicate with computers in a way that makes sense.

Why is coding good for kids?

Teaching your kid how to code won’t just make them a computer whiz — it will teach them plenty of other valuable skills as well. “When young people are given opportunities to learn and create with code, they can do incredible things, from expressing themselves creatively, to highlighting real-world issues or controlling a robot,” the Raspberry Pi Foundation rep says. “Coding also helps develop young people’s resilience and problem-solving skills, as debugging is a key part of the process to ensure their code works correctly.” Yes, they may get frustrated at times, but it’s all part of the process!

At what age can a child start coding?

Just like when learning a new language, it’s both better and easier to learn coding skills from a young age. “There is research into children being able to learn aspects of coding from the age of three, as well as during kindergarten and early elementary school,” the Raspberry Pi Foundation rep explains. “Younger children typically learn coding by programming graphical symbols. Then they move on to block-based coding and

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