Why coding is indispensable for students and young minds?

Learning coding has always been a cup of tea for tech enthusiasts and IT professionals. But for kids, it may seem like an impossible endeavor. Recent advances and research in technology put coding at the forefront of one of the future careers. Simply put, coding is the practice of understanding the computer language by using a series of inputs and outputs. By learning coding, students can grasp insights into the inner workings of the technology and determine how that can be leveraged to solve a particular problem.

Coding can also enable young minds or students to enter the realm of modern technology. It provides them the power to create interactive apps and games.

Why Coding is Imperative for Students?

As coding is a computer language, it will strengthen students' verbal and written skills. They will be exposed to different languages at an early age, helping them to understand the world around them better. With coding, children will reap valuable skills of computational thinking that involve a mechanism to logically crunch complex problems into simple and manageable bits and step ahead to solve them. Entering into STEM discipline itself gives students a lot of innovative ideas. And getting started with coding will help them to bring these ideas to reality by creating apps or games, for instance that will be beneficial for the mass. This means that coding ties the rope between an innovative idea and its execution.

Many STEM programs have already included coding to help children to be able to visualize abstract concepts at an early age. It gives them the ability to apply math to real-world situations and make this discipline more fun and creative. Coding is also significant for your minds as it provides logical thinking. Kids who learn coding understand how to plan and organize thoughts. They will be able to formulate a step-by-step procedure to produce the desired outcomes. This significantly leads to better writing skills that can be built upon as coding skills develop over time.

Students can become good decision-makers by learning coding that helps them develop critical thinking skills. They can improve their results or themselves upon what they have already done without worrying about failing.

While this stream can help children to understand and prepare for the ever-growing technology landscape, governments around the world realize the potential of teaching coding at a young age. Putting efforts towards this, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 introduced Coding for the students from Class 6th onwards to enhance the exposure to technology and create a path to a new world of innovation and creativity.

Coding Tools for Elementary

There is a broad range of tools and resources available helping kids to learn coding by targeting the foundations of programming, such as problem-solving, logic, and critical thinking. However, choosing the best will make difference in learning.

Here are some top platforms that teach students how to code.

Scratch

Scratch is one of the best coding platforms that teaches students to code their own interactive stories, animations, and games. Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It teaches young minds to learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively. It is provided free of charge.

Tynker

Tynker, a coding platform for kids, provides everything needed to learn computer programming in a fun way. It powers the creativity of over 60 million kids and serves thousands of schools and educators worldwide. Designed to help kids learn to make anything from Web apps to custom games and actual hardware, Tynker is a great interactive resource that teaches kids to code.

Microsoft MakeCode

This coding platform makes computer science more fun projects. It creates engaging computer science learning experiences that support a progression path into real-world programming. Microsoft MakeCode involves the diverse application of computer coding. Simulator, for instance, provides students with immediate feedback on how their program is running and makes it easy to test and debug their code.

WhiteHat Jr

WhiteHat Jr is an online coding class for kids from Grade 1-12. In this online class, students will learn fundamentals of coding-logic, structure, sequence, and algorithmic thinking to generate creative outcomes like animations and apps. The courses offered by WhiteHat Jr. are designed to teach kids to code with core programming skills, and then improve the proficiency of the kids coding languages.