Introduction
With coding becoming more integrated into more and more jobs and more career paths come open for those who have a skill set in coding, I wanted to start a coding club for kids to help teach them the basics of coding and introduce them into the world of code. School board already see this as the future and are starting mandatory classes for kids to take. However, often times these courses are taught by teachers who are just following a curriculum and have no outside experience in coding expect for their lesson plans. Often times this causes the content to be just the bare minimum of what the is possible with coding. There are also many people in the community who homeschool their kids. This makes even more difficult to go deeper into the wonders of coding as resources become harder to find. I want to start the club in order to give those who find coding interesting, a guided, free, and more in-depth exploration into coding.
Choosing a Language
When I started to learn to code, I learned in C, a lower level language. Though it gave me a deeper understanding on what is happening in the background, I think it would be too much for the recommended range. So based on a few factors, I think the obvious choice is to do start the club in Python.
The first reason why I want to start with Python is because on how simple it is in both syntax and ease of use. There are no semi-colons you need to worry about after every line, you don’t need to memorize logic symbols, and you can get away with more relaxed formatting. This will really help with 2 things. It will cut down on the amount of things that I will help teach, which in turns, help with time management in my limited 1 hour a week timeslot. It will also help keep items simple for a younger aduince.
Another reason for Python is how flexible it is in it’s capabilities. It really is a “Jack of all trades, mater of none, but better than one”, type language. The ability to use Python from anywhere from simple games to website to DevOps really makes a perfect programming language to explore different areas. Since my goal is to help engage kids in learning about programing and all different aspects of it. This will help them decide what type of coding they would like to go into without diving into and spending too much time on a language and aspect of coding they dislike.
The final reason is that there is internal resources for a select few programs that the Library provides it staff member currently. One of those languages is Python.
Conclusion
As a child, I always wished that I was introduced to coding sooner and I was always grateful that I was able to be introduced into coding when I did. I really was a trajectory into my what I am so passioned about today.