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Code.org Launches U.S. Teacher Training Program in Diverse Areas

Code.org Launches U.S. Teacher Training Program in Diverse Areas

This year, Code.org will be training teachers in 60 different school districts across the U.S. in order to bring more coding programs to schools.

Districts such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago "account for some of the lowest-income and highest diversity populations in the country," said an article on TechCrunch.com.

According to the article, "other programs such as Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code and Black Boys Code work towards similar measures to incorporate minorities, but they do so at a smaller scale and through partner organizations rather than through the classroom."

"Code.org has reached into the homes of nearly 100 million people, including the White House," the article said. "The U.S. government acknowledged Code.org’s efforts to reach students with the Hour of Code and President Obama became one of the 60 million to try coding through the program this past year."

According to TechCrunch.com, "Code.org co-founder Hadi Partovi believes working through the public school system, particularly in inner city school districts, is the best way to make an impact on the lack of diversity in computer engineering."

“These are not tranquil, upper class suburban areas we’re going into,” he said.

A fairly new product, Code Studio, "is a deeper, 20+ hour coding course that takes students through the basics of how the Internet works to actually creating their own games and apps," the article said.

"Students get training with fun programs like Disney’s Anna and Elsa, Angry Birds and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg," said the article. "The program reached a milestone training over 1 million girls and 1 million black and Hispanic students recently. While everyone in the program won’t necessarily go on to careers in computer science, Partovi points out that the goal is simply to expose more and younger kids to take away some of the stigma. The average age of those in the program is 12."

According to Code.org's most recent blog post, the organization's team believes that "every child deserves to learn the foundational basics of how software and the Internet are changing their world. But we also know that solving the diversity problem in CS education will dramatically address diversity in the tech industry as well."

Read the full story and comment below. 

Article by Kassondra Granata, Education World Contributor

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