Former Apple Exec Creates High-Tech Building Blocks To Teach Kids Programming - PSFK

The Boulder, Colorado-based Seamless Toy Company has created a set of modular, high-tech building blocks called ATOMS. Founded by Michael Rosenblatt, who has worked at MIT and Apple, the company aims to help teach kids programming by creating toys that can do all sorts of exciting things.

Former Apple Exec Creates High-Tech Building Blocks To Teach Kids Programming

Gigaom reports that Rosenblatt wanted to make something that encourages kids to interact with electronics, even if they don’t have tech-savvy parents. ATOMS don’t require any electronics skills or programming experience. The company is currently seeking funds on Kickstarter, and will introduce a selection of different sets at launch.

Former Apple Exec Creates High-Tech Building Blocks To Teach Kids Programming

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Codecademy Becomes A Platform: Now Anyone Can Write Programming Tutorials | TechCrunch One of the most buzzed-about startups over the last few months has been Codecademy — a site that looks to make programming accessible to just about anyone, with a variety of interactive, web-based courses that have users writing their first lines of code within a few seconds. The site’s ‘Code Year’ program, which invites users to receive one programming lesson each week, racked up a whopping 100,000 signups in only 48 hours — and it even has the White House on board. But, as anyone who has spent much time on the site can attest to, Codecademy has had one big problem: there just aren’t that many lessons available. And the ones that are on there sometimes seem to be moving too quickly, without many practice exercises to explore and reinforce what you’ve just learned. Today, the company is launching a feature that will go a long way toward fixing that. Meet the Codecademy Course Creator.

Codecademy Becomes A Platform: Now Anyone Can Write Programming Tutorials | TechCrunch

One of the most buzzed-about startups over the last few months has been Codecademy — a site that looks to make programming accessible to just about anyone, with a variety of interactive, web-based courses that have users writing their first lines of code within a few seconds. The site’s ‘Code Year’ program, which invites users to receive one programming lesson each week, racked up a whopping 100,000 signups in only 48 hours — and it even has the White House on board.

But, as anyone who has spent much time on the site can attest to, Codecademy has had one big problem: there just aren’t that many lessons available. And the ones that are on there sometimes seem to be moving too quickly, without many practice exercises to explore and reinforce what you’ve just learned.

Today, the company is launching a feature that will go a long way toward fixing that. Meet the Codecademy Course Creator.

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A Lot of People Sure Are Interested in Learning How to Code - Technology - The Atlantic Wire

The well-loved education startup Codecademy is tapping into what appears to be a watershed moment for the inevitable spike in demand for computer science skills. Mashable’s Sarah Kessler offers some impressive statistics about the very recent explosion in interest:

Codeacademy, a startup that uses interactive online lessons to turn anyone into a computer programmer, has signed up 97,000 students in less than 48 hours for its New Year’s resolution class Code Year. That’s more than twice as many students as were enrolled in the 150 U.S. computer science undergraduate programs that the Computer Research Association surveyed last year. … All Codeacademy users already have access to these free lessons, which turn learning JavaScript into a game and will soon expand to other programming languages. The class emails will serve as reminders and guidance, putting individual lessons together in a cohesive curriculum.

Minutes after Kessley published her post, the student count broke the six-figure threshold and was nearing 101,000 at the time of this posting.

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