Local Coding and Technology Groups
Image by Annie Mole on Flickr
Girls Who Code, CoderDojo, and other local groups are great places to learn how to program, meet people, and help others learn.
Learning how to code happens not only in a classroom, or online, but also in person on the job and at group events. Here are a few groups where you can participate as a coder and as a student. If you have programming experience, these groups also can use mentors and leaders. Whatever role you play, mostly learning coding and solving technology problems in groups is a lot of fun.
Girls Who Code
http://www.girlswhocode.com/
They work to educate, inspire, and equip young women 13-17 with the skills and resources needed to pursue academic and career opportunities in computer science. Started in the US in 2012, they have programs around the country. They also have a program to help start clubs in schools and organizations.
CoderDojo
http://coderdojo.com/
Started in Ireland, this is a global organization of clubs where parents and adults act as mentors to help kids meet to work on programming projects. It's free and open to anyone. Think Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts but geared towards programming and technology. Chances are there is a CoderDojo club near you. If there is not a local group, the recipe and ingredient list is fairly simply: a few kids + parents + a free weekend day (or half day) + a place to meet with power and internet access.
Random Hacks of Kindness
http://www.rhok.org/
Started as a joint initiative between Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, NASA, and the World Bank to bring together subject matter experts in disaster management with volunteer software developers and designers to identify opportunities where technology could make a difference. There's also a RHoK, Junior program for local communities and schools to work with local charities and non-profits. Their events happen all over the world.
THAT Camp
http://thatcamp.org/
A series of global events to connect humanists and technologists, of all skill levels, to learn and build stuff on the spot. Events are loosely organized and driven by the needs and interests of attendees.
A few of these listings, plus a few not listed, came from a terrific article by Rebecca Garcia, Why I Teach Kids to Code, also listed below.
Learn More
Girls Who Code
CoderDojo
Code Club
Currently 2000+ UK after school groups to teach coding to kids.
https://www.codeclub.org.uk/
Random Hacks of Kindness
http://www.rhok.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_Hacks_of_Kindness
THAT Camp
Why I Teach Kids to Code (Rebecca Garcia)
http://geekgirlweb.com/2012/09/04/why-i-teach-kids-to-code/
Meetup (Hacking tag)
Author
Also In The September 2013 Issue
1 and 0
Binary numbers, based on 1s and 0s, reflect the practical essence of computer hardware: electricity is either on or off. Learn how to write in binary numbers, and the (not so secret) code to transform English language letters into binary numbers and back again.
Simon Haughton Talks about Kids, Python, and Computer Science
Simon recently wrote a short ebook, A children's guide to Python programming, to teach kids ages 5-8 computer programming with Python..
Python
Named after Monty Python, this language is designed to be simple yet powerful, easy to code with lots of features.
Variables
In most or all software programming languages, variables work like containers to hold numbers, phrases, or other important stuff used in several places in your code. Here's how they work in several common languages.
Happy Numbers
Some numbers simply have a positive attitude. They're fun to play with.
Local Coding and Technology Groups
Girls Who Code, CoderDojo, and other local groups are great places to learn how to program, meet people, and help others learn.
How to Build a Computer
Building your own computer is a great way to not only save money, and get more processing power, but also to learn about the less obvious parts of software programming.
News Wire Stories for September 2013
Interesting stories about computer science, software programming, and technology for the month of August 2013.
Online Coding Schools
There are plenty of places online to learn one or more software programming languages. Here's a short list with some guidelines to evaluate all your options.
Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes, biology about microscopes, or chemistry about beakers and test tubes. Science is not about tools. It is about how we use them, and what we find out when we do.
Learn More Links for September 2013
Links from the bottom of all the September 2013 articles, collected in one place for you to print, share, or bookmark.
Claude Shannon
His work ties together two topics for this issue of the magazine: binary numbers and circuit design. Without Shannon, computers and computer science could have been very different.
