Digital Corridor Expands CODEcamp Kids Program To Year-Round

The Charleston Digital Corridor is expanding its CODEcamp Kids summer pilot program to be offered year-round beginning November 7, 2015.

CODEcamp co-founder and Jack Russell Software Chief Technologist, Tom Wilson, will lead the program instruction held at the Digital Corridor’s Flagship2 tech incubator in Downtown Charleston.

CODEcamp Kids’ goal is to empower Charleston youth to explore creativity and innovation by learning the
 fundamentals of web development. The curriculum is targeted at children between the ages of 10-14 years and will span over four alternating Saturdays with each day-long session running from 9:30am until 3:30pm. The initial class size is limited to ten students.

The classes are designed to teach kids the essentials of building websites in coding languages like CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. They will also learn the basics of programming through fun projects such as publishing a digital journal, creating games, and building a robot. By the end of the program, they will publish their own responsive website to the Internet.

Topics covered include:
• HTML/CSS
• Using a text editor
• Reading/writing/editing files
• The basics of a repository
• Build your own website
• How to make a website responsive
• Animations and transitions
• Publish a website to the public internet
• JavaScript
• Intro to databases
• Intro to robotics
• NodeJS

“The CODEcamp Kids summer pilot program was an excellent extension of the CODEcamp curriculum provided by the Charleston Digital Corridor,” said Valerie Sessions. “My 8 and 10 year old children participated in the program and I was thrilled at the level of instruction – its amazing what children can learn and do when it comes to programming. These are professional level skills being taught at age 8 and 10!! Offering the expanded program year round will allow CODECcamp Kids to inspire a new generation in the Charleston area.”

The CODEcamp Kids summer program, which hosted 35 children, provided the Digital Corridor with interesting insight including an almost equal number of boys and girls, 51% and 49% respectively, and just over 10% were minority students.

“Our pilot program demonstrated what a diverse 21st century workforce could be like with a dedicated industry and community-supported effort”, said Digital Corridor Director, Ernest Andrade. “Our goal is to reserve 25% of the CODEcamp Kids seats for under-privileged children which we expect to be supported by local individuals and businesses through our ‘Level Up’ initiative.”

Photo by: Charleston Digital Corridor