“Open Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry” by Alan Levine is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 Retrieved here.
Activity #2 – Comment
Pick one resource from either “open trends” or “closed trends” and discuss it in terms of one of the options below.
Briefly discuss why you think it:
- A ) has the most disruptive potential for the future of code education [OR]
- B ) offers a strong value proposition for the future of code education [OR]
- C ) discuss it in terms of both A or B, adding any additional insights you might have to offer.
Post your response as a comment here on the bottom of this page. Be sure to include the name of the resource you chose! Feel free to contribute your own resource instead (remembering that we’re focused on post-secondary and professional code education), do indicate if it’s open/closed. Please discuss how/why you see the chosen resources as disruptive or as having a strong value proposition. Also try to provide any links/research/resources that may help us understand your perspective (we think it would be great if you could add value to our OER research). Also be sure to check back to engage in comments and questions that might be added to your responses.
You can return to our OER page by clicking here.
The open resource that I’ve chosen to review is edX. As edX is backed by large, prestigious universities with large endowments, it has been able to operate without the issues that come with being backed by venture capital and has made its Open edX platform publicly available. In turn, the Open edX platform is now being used by universities around the world who are looking to put their programs online.
I believe that edX has the most disruptive potential for the future of code education because, not only are the courses free for the end-users, the Open edX platform itself is open source and fully customizable by the universities (and to anyone who wants to create a course). Also, 3rd party tools can be integrated into it, which makes the platform more adaptable. Due to all of these factors, I believe that the Open edX platform will become the dominant MOOC platform through which edX’s partners can gain a market advantage.
Good thoughts, thanks for the response! There are still a number of questions regarding the possible sucess of MOOCS although it is an interesting movement. The release of The Edx platform on GitHub as open-source was exciting, but there are still a number of looming challenges in order for this horizon to be successful. These challenges make us unsure. This article presents aspects of these challenges from a venture standpoint: http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/04/harvards-edx-venture-growth-and-challenges. It talks about issues like reach, economics, infrastructure and changing roles of academics. We would be interested to hear your insights in response to these challenges.
Year of Code in the UK was the open resource I chose to review. It was really interesting to hear the viewpoints on their pitch presentation on their website. I believe that the Year of Code has disruptive potential in that is offers students of the U.K. somewhat of an advantage over other countries that do not have this education legislation. Basically, in September 2014, UK proposed education legislation for all students from the age of 5-16 to have timetabled within their classes time to learn and analyze code. Apparently, it will make the UK the 1st G20 economy to implement it on a national level. The company is non-profit so it has a huge backing from both large companies such as Google to small mom and pop stores. By offering this educational legislation, these students will have a market employment advantage in terms of being up to date with the current innovators. They will learn about coding but beyond that will not only be consumers of technology but the next possible innovators or creators of new technology (i.e. app creators once gaining the knowledge of coding).
Do you think that all countries should have educational legislation similar to the UK?
I think it would benefit our students nationally but it would also entail further professional development for current educators to learn how to teach their students. Going back to my previous comment in Activity #1, I do still think that the legislation if implemented later within Canada, should also include teaching elementary and adolescent learners additional “hard skills” not just coding in particular.
I chose to look at the Khan Academy Computing Programing as an Open Trend offering. This is incredible because it is free! There is not a huge offering of topics at this point, the focus is mainly JavaScript and drawing programs, the Khan Academy has become a real heavy weight in online learning, and because of its open nature, and the fact that anyone can contribute to the content, I have no doubt that it will progress to include many more topics.
I’m actually struggling with this concept. I understand that coding, and information is developing so quickly that it’s almost impossible for institutions to keep academic programs current. I love that anyone can upgrade their skill set for free – that’s amazing. But it makes me feel like a bit of a chump for paying my third university degree. I know that we can’t compare apples and oranges, but is that way higher education is going? Free online learning? Am I educating myself out of a job?
I picked the open source “Year of Code” website from the United Kingdom. The reason I chose this website is because (as I indicated in my first assignment for this week) I really think that coding should be learned in elementary school and previously did an assignment on code.org’s Hour of Code which was a North American initiative to get students learning how to code in school, but was not imbedded into the curriculum. This website on the other hand is about teaching teachers how to code which is the most crucial step before teaching students to code in schools. I certainly think that this is going to promote coding education for the future, and it makes me sad that Canada isn’t even talking about it yet. It is a very progressive move and it forces people to be proactive with their learning as it directs them to other open source website to learn. I think we will see it in professional development in the future where we are teaching teachers to learn code so that they can use it in their classrooms. It is so important I think, that people understand the basics of computers because they are integrated into our lives and they are only going to become more integrated. I think that simple steps like this website are great because they allow learners to take the first steps on their own in the comfort of their homes where it is safe to make mistakes. Hopefully they can then realize that it is not that difficult to take the first steps to do very basic coding.
As I mentioned before, if you are interesting code with your students, check out code.org, they have some really famous celebrity endorsements!
Hi,
I picked closed trends: B ) offers a strong value proposition for the future of code education [OR]… for Apple Developer.
I wanted to choose this because I work with software programmers, in the PC world, and it has been interesting talking with them about Mac. A lot of the feedback has been that Apple products are not accessible and easy to maneuver in terms of their “closed” nature. Over the years however, it seems that Apple reached a level of popularity and dissemination widespread that it is now worthwhile to invest funds and time to learn to code for Mac.
The Apple Developer does offer a strong value proposition for the future of code education because it provides varying levels of developer programming, and with varying objectives/intents in mind. It cannot be overlooked that having a level of digital literacy is highly valuable today, and with the internet, learning independently (through tutorials, self-teach) is becoming increasingly popular and learning for personal interest.
I’ve chosen open trend “Codeacademy” in terms of both its value and potential disruption.
I appreciate their attempt to change the field of education and make it more current and think there is value in providing a website to learn coding for free. They offer instruction on numerous types of coding and partnerships with schools as well.
I’m a bit hesitant about the credibility of the instructors of the course and the fact that they mention how “quick and easy” it is to become an instructor on their website. I do appreciate the idea of allowing someone the opportunity to build their reputation and that with free courses it becomes difficult to provide credible instructors. But part of me thinks this is paving the way for anyone to claim that they are credible enough to create courses and teach code.
Thanks for your good review.
The Year of Code is definitely an excellent initiative that should be followed worldwide. While preparing and researching that source, I myself was also excited about the Year of Code and its interesting and highly disruptive potential, as well as its quite visible long term benefits through the positive impact on those young generations of learners and future technology visionaries, developers, creators and coders. In my personal opinion, not only Canada, but other countries should follow, if they want to take an important part in carrying the next technological revolutionary phase – “feeding, development and managing IoT”.
Thanks for your review and rationale.
In my humble opinion, Apple did a right thing to finally open and allow developer access and contribution to development, their products and platform – for the benefits of all. It was almost last moment to do that, otherwise if they did not allow access, there would not be that huge success of the iOS platform supported by almost a million of apps developed by the army of developers and programmers that actually skyrocketed popularity and usability of their primarily iOS platform mobile devices.
That was a WIN-WIN deal, so other closed proprietary platforms, can learn from that, and follow.
Thanks for your choice and voicing your support.
My heart has been with Codecademy since its inception, though I am also bit concerned about the needed level of the credibility of their almost self-proclaimed course instructors, after that quick and easy recruitment process. I may be under the wrong assumption, but appears that the Codecademy management is more of having difficulties recruiting good an committed instructors, than having an edge and variety of choices in sourcing and filtering out the real talents from the recruited crowd.
Great discussion.
I thought I would talk about an open resource that was not on the list: Arduino. Arduino is open source physical computing. that allows people to invent and build a device, then write the computer program to make it work. I think this will cause a huge disruption because it allows anyone who has the ability to build gadgets and write code to create anything that they can think of: no degree required. People have used Arduino to develop products and then used Kickstarter to fund their startup.
This is also a great resource for learning code because you have access to experts from all over the world who are willing to share code that they have written and even help you learn to code yourself. Also, many people can collaborate on the same code to write better programs than they could write on their own. Here is a link to a ted talk by one of the creators of Arduino.
https://www.ted.com/talks/massimo_banzi_how_arduino_is_open_sourcing_imagination
I chose to review the Khan Academy. They have divided into 2 sections, computer science and computer programming. The programming part is more of an intro, but it is very extensive. They’ve chosen to ues JAVA for their platform, which fits with their philosophy of openness. I think Khan academy has the potential to really change the way programming is taught, because it can be used strictly to replace programming courses, or in a blended face to face situation. I believe that their math and science offerings at the Khan Academy are superb, and when used to augment a regular classroom, is almost revolutionary.
The main criticism of Khan Academy are their humanities offerings. Because none of the info is peer reviewed, there have been a number of complaints about the accuracy of some of the information.
Good point! That’s the issues that open education and MOOCs pose. Code instruction is such a good example to discuss on this point. When they start free accreditation more widely, your question will be emerging to be real for everyone.
I am reviewing the Open Trends: Open Learning Initiative. This is an interesting idea which, in principle, should make courses available to almost anyone online. By offering a platform that is accessible by potential educations and students, for free, this initiative represents a strong trend towards real democratization of education. Of course the limitations of this service are that you need a computer and access to the internet. While this is very common, it is not yet universal, even in parts of North America. That being said, the Initiative can be used to teach coding a new and innovative ways. What exciting is that you appear not to need recognized credentials in order to set up and start teaching course. Many of the best programmer’s i’ve met were entirely self taught; it would be amazing to harness the power of these individuals. This would increase the possibilities in teaching coding to an increasingly large community.
Best Wishes
Maxim
For Activity # 2 I decided to look at the open trend of Codecademy with the view that it offer a strong value proposition for the future of code education. Right away the power of a free resource that allows people to explore coding and aspects of what is involved in programming is a very powerful and useful tool. From my own professional context with regards to advising students interested in computer science for Post-Secondary education, I see this as a valuable introduction and starting point for them to test waters in this field. I decided to join Codecademy and try a couple of lessons before I completed this review to see how I would interpret the experience. I found the lessons to be very easy to follow and loved the summary of points and badges earned as another form of motivation. I would like to see more little theory and background to each of the lessons as a way to strengthen my understanding but overall I think this is a great starting point for future of attracting people to code.
Hi Bruno, great points! To anyone who is unfamiliar with the Khan Academy it is a nationally and internationally known non-profit educational e-learning venture website that offers anyone from any part of the world to learn anything in disciplines from healthcare, medicine, science, history to cosmology. It has thousands of educational resources, including a personalized learning dashboard, over 100,000 practice problems, micro-lectures via video tutorials. All resources are available for free to anyone around the world. Their content specialists have more experience in the science and math disciplines. Bruno have you used the website with your own students in math and science? I’m going to give some of the resources a try with some of my students and see what they think in both the sciences and languages.
I like the Khan’s academy’s use of badging as this enables a learner in an e-learning environment to know how successful they are as they move up in their learning of a specific concept or within a specific subject area. This relates to the gamification of learning to promote learning offering video game design elements. I think my high-school students would enjoy that component of it immensely. Within a blended learning environment, badging would also be beneficial to both students and educators from an assessment perspective. I’m excited to try it with my students, namely the coding and computer science aspects of it.
I agree that this resource has a strong disruptive potential. On a related note I stumbled upon this site http://code.org/ that has a number of resources for teachers and learners. I think free, accessible resources that don’t infringe on privacy have a huge potential in the K-12 market as resources can be so limited (time, money, expertise). Here is a little promo video for learning coding and checking out the site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKIu9yen5nc#t=256
The nature of how people have learned to code appears to be different from traditional education in subject areas like math or social studies. I’m an outsider but I do think that this history will likely make the learning of code in the future more flexible and responsive to change. Furthermore, the sharing, the openness and the resources (money, talent etc.) that appear to be available to fund different programs like code.org will continue to push the envelope.
That’s a very interesting and potentially disruptive idea Danielle that code might be integrated into PD, great thought on this. I’d be very interested to know the potential numbers behind how many teachers would support this potential or oppose it. It would make for an interesting survey…
What an interesting venture that is open on so many levels. Do you see this project as contributing to or disrupting code education?
Thanks Bruno, You make an interesting point that Khan academy might be used to blend code education. Blended learning is becoming more prevalent, so it would make sense that code education is doing the same. The benefit of course would be the increased likelihood that the Khan Academy resources are kept current. Would you agree?
I like your suggestion that Codeacademy could work with, rather than against, the post secondary market. I wonder is the highest value to the student, institution or the field of programming? More programmers essentially can mean more people contributing to open source code and quicker developments. Is Codeacademy changing the face of code education or changing face of code?
I was amazed by the iOS developer programs. I think they offer a strong value proposition for the future of code education for individuals, organizations and higher education. For just $99 a year, newbie developers who want to build their very own iOS apps can gain access to guides and tutorials that take them from designing to debugging. Many organizations have very specific needs and objectives, so the Enterprise Program for $299 a year is an excellent opportunity for developing proprietary apps. Best of all, it’s free for universities that want to teach developer programs. These developer programs are revolutionary. Anyone who has compelling ideas for an app can now gain the skills to develop it and opportunities to generate revenue or offer it for free in the App store.
Thanks for the kind words Milorad. It is certainly a fantastic initiative! We should also follow in the initiative but I hope that the initiative within Canada would include other necessary programming needs or skills to offer to students for the changing digitized employment market they will encounter in the years to come. It is my understanding reading other articles on places besides the UK having this educational initiative is that they are slowly coming on board too.
Thanks for sharing this new resource. It reminds me of a friend who is currently building drones and using it to film and take beautiful photographs. He was in the film industry but now has chosen to follow his creative passion on his own. Would you recommend this resource for young learners as well or only post secondary or one with the resources to build their own gadgets? It might have wonderful potential for high-school students seeking trades employment but with a technological edge. I love that it enables users who are building and coding to share collaboratively with experts in the field.
Hi Maxim, thank you for sharing your review. I think its quite surprising that you don’t need recognized credentials to teach the courses but a valid point since many of the best programmers are self taught. It would create for a fantastic new collaborative e-learning space for everyone to share, which I think is the point of e-learning. Great in that people can collaborate with experts globally. Hopefully in time, almost everyone will have access to a computer and the internet to benefit from this Initiative.
Reading that article and looking at how edX has planned their revenue structure, I am reminded of a reading I did in 511 regarding one conundrum of open-source software: that even though it doesn’t produce a profit itself, a lot of professional software development companies are willing to spend their time and efforts developing it. I can’t find the reading now, but the gist of it was that the companies contributed to open-source programming projects so that they could sell specific, related software applications or consulting services; if edX can sell a full-service MOOC solution to universities for $250,000 + $50,000/term, it is profitable for both edX and the affiliated university since the university can scale the class beyond what it would normally be able to.
I am reviewing Coursera from Open Trends. The specific course that I am looking at is ‘Programming for Everybody (Python). I think it has a strong value proposition for the future of code education. This is a great beginners’ course for coding, and helps to take the fear out of people regarding programming. A course like this may elicit more interest in computer programming. All materials are free and this makes the course accessible to everyone. The course offers a ‘verified certificate’ to students who complete the course successfully. However, while this is an initiative for students to finish the course, they may have the impression that obtaining this certificate means they can now program. It is very important for the course instructor to emphasize that this is only an introductory course and further courses are needed if students need practical programming skills for school or work.
Open Trend: Stack Overflow
I believe that the concept of Stack Overflow offers a strong value proposition for the future of code education because it allows programmers to openly ask questions and receive answers. However, I have a few concerns. First, anybody can answer the questions, making me wonder how many answers would be incorrect but since users can vote on the best answers, I am assuming that those responses would be utilized when someone is looking for a reasonable response. Yet it makes me wonder, when will a correct response arise in the conversation? Will someone post an incorrect response? Second, when I was scanning through the page it looks like there are many questions but very few answers. For Stack Overflow to be a success, it would require many users to actively participate in it. Overall, I like how Stack Overflow is free but there needs to be a lot of work done for it to be successful.
Great Kirsten! Opening up code will lead to greater development of tools and apps. What do you think the future of code education will be at the post-secondary level? What impact do you see this having on the technology industry and job potential?
Stack Overflow is essentially collaborative learning, much like we have experienced in the MET program. You are right in that it takes a community to buy in with their active participation in order for it to be successfull. How do you see this free open source improving and developing to full potential?
Thank you for your review. You bring up a valid point that one course certificate does not necessarily make a programmer. Then again, many self-taught programmers don’t even have that. How do you see code edcuation and the certification process evolving? Is the 4yr. computer enginering degree obsolete?
I think I might have that reading still from 511, thanks a bunch I’ll see if I can dig it up! That seems like a great way to approach funding which I’m sure is much needed given the scale of MOOC’s. It’s a really interesting avenue and the more I read the more I find conflicting opinions on it. : )
Thanks Laura, I hope there are more continued initiatives like this in the future (which is likely). As a teen I would have loved to be exposed to code in this way, although I know it is not for everyone. It could help with industry diversification.
That’s a fantastic addition Max, thanks for including it. I’ve worked with Arduino at the post-secondary level but it never occurred to me to include it in this resource. Arduino provides a really interesting way for coding knowledge to be situated and relevant to the user. It also helps illustrate that coding can be used on a snipet-by-snipet basis to achieve specific aims and that the process of learning can be gradual and modular. 🙂
Great review and excellent points, I suppose in this light StackOverflow is indeed disruptive to the traditional view of “expert.” In code there are often several different ways to accomplish the same aims rather than one right answer. Sometimes there may be one best, or one most recommended answer based on validation or best practice, but users have the power to decide which works best for them given their context, experience, and circumstance. Yes users may absolutely post wrong or inefficient answers. As a novice, I’ve used stackoverflow many times and have been grateful for all of the different posts received because each presents a different vantage point from which to assess a solution. There’s a wonderful variety of logic at play here and one perhaps learns to be more discerning with the pros/cons of each as time passes? I’ve also tried a number of solutions that have “broken” my code, but it can always be fixed, so the risk is rather low. I’d have to say that from a participation standpoint StackOverflow is highly successful as a collaborative environment, a quick look at the common tags reveals several hundred thousand posts on each popular tag http://stackoverflow.com/tags. For me this is a transactive memory or skill community online, and often peer knowledge is better than no knowledge in lieu of experts.
I am reviewing Code School from the Closed Trends section. I’m having a hard time picking option A or B from options above because I wouldn’t describe it as being disruptive or offering a strong value proposition for the future of code education. The number of apps and programs presented in both open and closed categories shows the level of competition in the market. Code School appears to be competing in the market by offering well produced video tutorials and user engaging coding practice sessions. One could make a case for the value of Code School because a lot learning strategy was put in to its courses to encourage its students to practice and make progress. Each of the four different course “paths” offer a free first level tutorial which demonstrates the method of learning code and the game-based strategies used to reward its users who have completed course levels. I can get behind the presentation of the material but for $30 a month the courses are still comparable to many of the free open programs offered and there is no apparent certification or credit earned by completing any of their courses.
I chose to review Hackbright Academy in the Closed Trends section. I believe Hackbright has a high value proposition for the future of code education. In my opinion a great deal of the open coding courses are male taught and male dominated. The concept behind Hackbright is an intensive 10 week course for women only, taught (except for one Dave) by women. Their goal is to help level the playing field and they do this by creating a welcoming community where women learn to code in a supportive environment. As someone who would like to learn to code I can’t see myself apply to an open source learning environment. One I’d be intimidated and two the programs are designed for guys.
The program is also hands on and personalized. You can be an absolute beginner or more experienced. They take a real constructivist approach with limited lectures and a well-structured curriculum based on what they see as the trends and “must learns” to work in the industry. Here’s what they teach in the 10 weeks:
Python
How to build a webapp
Pair programming
Git and source control
Interview skills
SQL and ORMs
Regex
HTML, CSS, Javascript, AJAX
Deploying to cloud services such as Heroku or Amazon EC2
Terminal shells, grep, and other *nix command-line fu
Computer Science data structures such as linked lists, dictionaries, and trees
How to work with APIs (such as Google Maps or Twitter)
Basic networking concepts / how the internet works
Other programming concepts and tools such as message queues, batch processing, distributed processing, NoSQL, and web sockets
Each student is assigned 3 mentors, software engineers who provide support over the 10 week course. Students participate in “pair programming” as a means to provide focus, support and problem solving. The idea of the lone programmer is ignored in favour of a more female friendly partnership approach.
Finally I think this concept has a high value proposition because they end the course with a Career day where graduates meet with partner companies including Partner companies include Facebook, Pinterest, SurveyMonkey and Eventbrite. They don’t guarantee a job but if you do land one they give you back $3000 of your $15000 tuition.
Currently and until women represent a larger percentage of programmers, I think this type of closed program offering provides the type of environment women will choose. Just like SkillsCrush, there is definitely a growing niche market that caters to women. I know I want to join!
Great review Kendra, very detailed. Thank you for your deligence. Certainly offering a ‘women only’ envrionment is unique and meeting the needs of a niche market that has been left widely unadressed. Are their requirements to get accepted? The $15,000 tuition is a steep price. Do you think this is the best option for you when there are so many open source options, and they are continuing to grow in number? Wouldn’t it be prudent to try free and open before committing so much money to a program? Just a few questions to ponder 😉
Thanks for a very honest review Brenden. Weighing cost versus benefits when choosing a program or a path of learning is a very important consideration. I suppose in this case it is a matter of learning style and choosing what works best for you and if you are willing to pay for courses that better meet your needs. The value of OER’s is that you can explore and try new things for free. Whether or not one moves in to more ‘closed’ learning depends on their own personal evaluation of what is best for their learning and professional journey.
The more I think about this Danielle, the more I think that integration of code education into PD could be added as a potential to our #6 point on the Horizons page. Thanks for the great share, we will add it there!
I have chosen to review treehouse from the list of closed trends. Treehouse is a portal which offers shot term online courses for front end web programming like HTML, CSS, javascript as well as Backend programming such as android development, ios devlopment, Python, Ruby, PHP etc.According to me it offers a strong value proposition for the future of code education. It is easily accessible, needs no prerequisites, is excellent for getting your basics right. The basic track is available for just 25$ a month and the Pro track for 49$. The video quality is great with high quality animations and overlays. Learning consists of three different types – Videos, Quizzes, and Challenges. The videos range from 3 to 12 min. The challenges are opportunities of writing your own code to solve a problem and testing it on the platform provided. The tracks under the umbrella of any technology are arranged into appropriate sequential levels.additionally the transcripts of the tracks are also made avilable. The best part about Treehouse is its resource library with over 1000 videos which is open to all enrolled students. additionally, there are forums to discuss difficulties. It also provides spaces for announcements by future employers.
Treehouse also seems to hold good disruptive potential in the sense that it challenges the conventional model of formal learning and certification. It is more convinient and flexible then enrolling into a class. You can pick and choose only what you want for much cheaper price.It is just right for anybody without a solid background who wants to learn code informally. The only point of concern for me is to see how Treehouse compares to MOOCs which provide almost all of the above with the exception of a library for free.
I would say that ClassCentral would have the most disruptive potential for the future of code education. It’s like an entrance to a candy factory where all the goods are on display and “almost free” to choose from. An aggregator feature provides an ability to have all the courses in one place for comparison purposes.
It is very much possible that getting “education” in the future will not be tied down to just one or few institutions, but inevitably many. The value proposition of this model is that learners are exposed to a variety of learning “environments” where they could learn how to adapt to. This open trend resembles today’s real world more authentically. “This institution is best for these programs” thinking will shift to “for this course”. The learner will have greater power in their educational decisions making and in “creating” their curriculum. The open market for courses will create, and I would hope, a greater push to delivery quality.
Also ClassCentral has a disruptive potential in terms of price of CS post-secondary education. This might be a more sustainable model than the existing “formal” one where costs are increasing steadily and almost making it more and more challenging for an average young learner to afford it. The current model of delivery is becoming a luxury, and the open one will provide a viable access to more learners.
I think the cutting edge horizon for the code education would look like a Venn diagram with Market Predictions and Code Education Predictions as its sets. But if I had to choose one prediction, I would go for the Market Prediction: 2. New Accreditation Programs, OERs & Initiatives for Code Education.
I think the existing “formal” model is no longer effective and the reform ought to be reflected in providing the above on all levels of education. Education must reflect industry realities and partnership must be forged (as suggested by #3 prediction). The new accreditation programs out to be reflective where and how we “learn today” (and with technology in general) as opposed to how it was done decades ago.
The prediction also needs to address existing barriers in place. For example, when I was taking CS courses in my undergrad, there were only 3-4 women in my classes. I wouldn’t’ be surprised to see this as a reality today as well. A proposed interesting read for this topic would be Women in Science by Phillip Greenspun. In my opinion, the cutting edge horizon for code education needs to include and address these realities as well in their programs. And I am not talking about the initiatives on “paper only”.
I chose to review Codecademy. I appreciate the opportunity to learn code interactively as an open course and there are many options available. For someone that has little experience with code and would like to become more familiar with this field without investing extensive time and money at the outset, I feel this is a good option. I agree with some of the concerns raised about the quality of instructors. For individuals looking to learn and apply their knowledge in a more formal way, this may not be a good option. In the job market, education from Codeacademy is not going to have the same credability as a formal institution such as a university.
Hi Sheljon. Codecademy is a very good example. They had thousands of students register for one of its courses. Professional programmers usually become skilled through experience and shared knowledge from code communities. It is usually rare that you find a ready to code university graduate.
Thanks for the great review Kendra, I hadn’t realized they give back a portion of tuition; there were so many wonderful resources contributed by different team mates that we haven’t had enough time to really dive into each one individually as of yet. This does seem like a wonderful resource to help provide opportunities for women, an important gap in the market. The mentor support system also seems like a great proposition over some of the self-driven programs with static help resources. Thanks for submitting this! : )
Great thought Ana, there certainly could be a number of overlapping areas in the future of education. We will perhaps play around with the idea of using a Venn diagram to illustrate our findings from the peer review this week. It also makes me think of illustrating these possibilities as different sized circles some overlapping some not on the same map so-to speak. It makes sense that many different avenues may emerge all at once, at different rates and some with common efforts. Anyway thanks again, this is why crowdsourcing is awesome! 😀
I have chosen to review Code Academy. This is an open trend that I think has a very strong value proposition for the future of code education because it allows users to learn coding in an interactive and dynamic way and, of course, it is free! In the introductory video on the site the featured Code Academy user, Tommy Nicholas says, ¨if you are able to take the things that are in your head and make them a reality you will be more likely to live the life that you actually want to live¨. I think this is very interesting and especially poignant because that seems to be the situation for people featured on the site. It provides a way for self-motivated people to teach themselves and then apply those skills to whatever they want. The idea is that being non-technical isn’t a permanent state, one has the opportunity to become technical using this site.
The site is also very well designed in terms of its educational design. For example, once you login, it asks you what you would like to do and the first option for beginners is to design the AirBnB landing page. This is a specific target that users are probably familiar with, and it tells them the specific skills they will learn from the course and how long it will take. Lots of potential here!
I definitely agree with your perception and value your feedback on your initial experience with Code Academy philosophy to attract learners to coding.
What I certainly appreciate there is the relatively easily earned sense of achievement after grasping every tiny step in the coding learning process, which has its high pedagogical value. In simple way, the user friendly design and infectious interactivity lessons and exercises make that complex coding learning proces, as simple and comprehensible as possible. That way, we as leraners are not intimidated by the syntax and logical complexity, but after every exercise step by step closer to mastering the coding process. As a suggestion, for deepening the interest of wide audience of coding learners, I would personaly like to see more dynamic libraries with a variety of quite usefull simple coding samples for games, simple apps utilities, etc. That way, everybody would find a sample for further coding development and personalization.
Regards,
Milorad
The Closed resource I chose was Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) because many of us are already using a Mircosoft product, whether it be our computer’s OS or another product such as MS Office. But very few of us (for various reasons) have been trained in using these programs to their vast potential. In addition MVA also offers a wide range of courses and events related to code education. Using cloud-based technology, it is free to join (I signed in using my own Mircosoft account) and allows you to select, study and complete courses at your own pace from anywhere in the world (with an Internet connection). Courses are also available in 11 different languages.
Whether you are a beginner (like myself) or an expert, individuals and groups can learn code as a hobby or to stay current with the ongoing technological changes at home or at their own workplace. Finding a course is easy, as one can browse by topic, such as Game, Cloud, Web, Mobile Development, etc. or by products such as MS Office, Azure, Exchange, etc. Courses have different difficulty (level) ratings and points available for completion of the course. The interface and experience aims to replicate a “virtual university experience” and includes a personal learning plan, and at the end of each course a self-assessment and certificate of completion.
With an established company such as Microsoft, it is extremely well supported, users should have an easy time navigating the online environment. Users can also connect with MVA via Facebook and Twitter. Last year (2013) registered users had increased from one million to 1.5 million and currently stand at 2,083,986.
I can see greater potential for any organization that encourages its employees or students to take advantage of this resource.
I chose to review Treehouse, which is a closed start-up that helps entrepreneurs, students, or anyone else learn how to code and create websites/apps. The website is very realistic. Many people have little or no knowledge about coding—myself included—and the premise of Treehouse simplifies complicated perceptions of the coding process by enabling customers to just pick a starting point. Customers pick either a basic or pro monthly packages and get started by choosing the track they want to learn (CSS, HTML, WordPress, etc.). A track consists of “bite-sized” courses that include code challenges, multimedia tutorials, quizzes, workshops and other resources. Treehouse offers a lot of value for the future of code education because it promotes customized, self-paced learning of understanding the existing pillars of code education. I am considering signing up for the basic package to learn JavaScript because the content that Treehouse delivers is well-organized and I can get help from coding professionals when I am sure to have a question about something in a members-only forum. Treehouse could be more valuable if it optimized its services for mobile as an app or mobile-friendly website because coding is not enough of a priority for me to spend time learning it at my desktop. I prefer to learn and practice coding in spare moments while on the go just as I do with a second language.
I don’t see much disruptive innovation value in Treehouse because it gives customers access to a shared-knowledge base of existing code technology and its goal is to train how to use coding tools, not use those tools to create new knowledge or technologies. Although I could be wrong about my perception of disruptive innovation in the coding market, perhaps customizing a course of study in code education is an indirect form of disruptive value. For instance, if an entrepreneur has an original idea and to realize it he or she needs to access a specific vein of coding knowledge then Treehouse could exhibit disruptive value.
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation