schools in Singapore. At the Early Coders Academy, teenagers aged 12 to 18 can take web development courses, for complete beginners, that cover HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other programming languages. The academy also has mobile-app development classes where students are taught basic user-experience design and interface design, and learn how to create an app and upload it to Google Play. The First Code Academy, for its part, has two programmes for teenagers. The First Code Creator programme, for ages 12 and up, spans foundational lessons in computer science concepts, and applied ones in developing apps. In the more challenging First Code Entrepreneur course, for those 15 and older, students design and code solutions for local non-government organisations. The school has partnered with the Fair Employment Agency and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in the past. The SG Code Campus offers two types of coding classes for those aged 13 to 18. One is for teenagers who want to learn Python, while the other, more advanced option is to prepare students who are going to take computer science as part of their International Baccalaureate syllabus. At the Computhink school, the popular Minecraft game is used to teach students 11 and older how to program using Python. You can also take classes at the Coding Lab, where the curriculum is divided into three phases: a foundational one that covers programming languages; an applied one where students develop algorithms and create the basic building blocks of applications; and an elective one where they can choose from modules that include game programming, data processing, computer modelling and simulations, and artificial intelligence.
If you don’t know how to code yet, it’s time to learn.
Code in the Community
To ensure that underprivileged teenagers have an opportunity to learn coding too, technology giant Google has sponsored an initiative called Code in the Community to bring free coding classes to 3,000 young Singaporeans, aged 8 to 15, from lower-income families. Visit www.codeinthecommunitysg.com to find out more. With so many ways to equip yourself with coding skills, there’s no better time to start than now.
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Point(s) to Ponder Why is learning how to code important?
Sources / Further Reading 1. Top 5 Programming Course For People With No Coding Experience | 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
NTUC Learning Hub, www.ntuclearninghub.com/top-5-programmingcourses-people-no-coding-experience/ Early Coders Academy, www.earlycoders.com First Code Academy, www.firstcodeacademy.com/en/city SG Code Campus, www.sgcodecampus.com/ Computhink, www.computhink.com.sg/ Coding Lab, www.codinglab.com.sg/ Code in the Community, www.codeinthecommunitysg.com
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