Move over maker movement. Step aside robotics club. There’s a new movement taking over the country one state at a time: hack club.

"A Hack Club starts like any robotics team or chess club, with most schools requiring a 'teacher sponsor' to donate a classroom after school, generally twice a week for 90 minutes,” said THEJournal.com.

And its influence is rapidly spreading across schools. Since its inception, hack clubs are in 69 schools in 16 states so far.

Created by one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 (Education Category, in 2016, 18-year-old Zach Latta is looking to let students take computer science into their own hands.

Born and raised in technology-rich Silicon Valley, Latta decided not to wait around for the latest initiatives aiming to get computer science courses in schools.

Instead, he designed hack clubs so that students with no prior technical knowledge could get started programming.

"'If you're a new club member, by the time you leave the first meeting, you have your first Web site online,' explained Latta” to THEJournal.com.

"'By the second meeting, you've built a Web site that can call and text your phone. By the time you've left the third meeting, you've built your first game, and it's online, and you can show your friends.’"

Latta said an average of 40 students attend the first meeting, further proving that the interest in learning computer science is there.

Want to start a Hack Club at your school? It’ s an easy process according to Latta.

"To start a Hack Club, you need a classroom, computer, and internet access. Generally clubs take place at computer labs or in a regular classroom with school provided computers, like Chromebooks (though sometimes club members are expected to bring their own laptops). All of our tools run in the Web browser on any computer, so you don't need to install anything special, and you can leave off where you want because it's all on the internet,” he told THEJournal.com.

Read the full story.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

2/25/2016