CodeHS Teaches Code in Schools

CodeHS recently caught my eye. The site offers a curriculum and trained tutors that can help students learn code rapidly, adapting a program for teachers in schools across North America so that it’s easy for them to teach code to their students.

It’s a concept that introduces code to a whole lot more people, something that’s really cool to see in action.

As they put it, “the goal of CodeHS is to spread the knowledge of computer science by offering well-crafted instructional materials supported continuously by the quality, personal attention of our enthusiastic tutors. We believe that everyone has the ability to learn computer science, and we want to help them do so.”

They have a free interactive code lesson users can access at http://codehs.com/signup_start once they’ve signed up for a free account.

As they describe it,”[CodeHS and our] free module teach Programming with Karel. Karel is a dog that only knows how to move, turn left, and place tennis balls in his world. We use Karel to show you what it means to program, and allow you to focus on problem solving without getting bogged down with syntax. By the end of the first module, students will have a good foundation on the fundamentals of programming and concepts such as loops, conditionals, and comments.”

Class in a box with CodeHS and code(love)

It looks nifty, and it’s something that lives up to the promise of a “class in a box”, making it easy for even struggling schools to get more code in front of their students. Here’s to hoping for more initiatives like this!