What is Coding?
Coding, or say programming, is a set of instructions written in a language that is understandable by the computer and guides it to perform various tasks. Coding helps to create different software, apps, games, as well as websites. Coding is not only about learning a programming language but also about creating logical and analytical thinking skills in today’s generation and make them future ready.
Why should we teach coding to children?
As digitalization is gaining more weightage than the traditional ways, techno literacy is something that is winning attention. With this new need for learning due to advancement, it has become essential to include the courses of education as per the change and introduce new subjects in the curriculum.
Coding has become another language that will not only be of great help to students in developing software skills but will also foster creativity, improve math skills, enhance academic performance as well as help students with problem-solving skills. Being one of the techno-savvy schools in Ahmedabad, Udgam School for Children has worked in a liaison of times, hence involved coding in its curriculum since 2006.
Importance of Coding
Coding provides students with a bucket full of skills. As mentioned above, coding helps to develop problem-solving and math skills as well as creativity among children. Additionally, there are yet other areas of development that coding helps. It renders young learners a challenge and supports them to improve resilience. Coding is a great way to put children into thinking while having fun. Moreover, as we can envisage a growing demand for skills in the techno-savvy future, coding is the best way to help children get used to future endeavours.
Coding has now become an essential subject to learn for individuals of all ages. Developing programming skills from a young age will help them enhance their skills better and have a successful future. Coding can also be said as a subject of basic literacy of the digital age.
Learning Coding at Udgam School
Acknowledging its importance, Udgam School for Children promotes coding skills right from primary level. In order to teach coding effectively, it is required to make the concepts built with algorithms and flowcharts. So, the teachers initiate the programming with problem-solving concepts, where a student brainstorms to solve it using a sequence of steps. As per the syntax of programming language provided, flowcharts are formed, and logical thinking is inculcated for lifelong learning.
The programs are then demonstrated on the screen by the teacher followed up by a series of assignment programs done by students on the systems.
Students have designed various Apps like Health buddy, Mathemagic, Safety Aid, as well as some self-care apps to reduce Depression amongst Youth as a part of a national-level coding competition.
Apart from the curriculum, we conduct pieces of training at National and Global-level championship in coding on Saturday special classes. One of our students, Freya Pranav Shah topped National Level Championship twice, where she was the finalist in Google India Code to Learn 2018 -19 National, and Winner in Google India Code to Learn 2019 -20 National.
Few students have also cleared their Microsoft Office Specialist at an early age and have reached the National level in MOS Championship for consecutive years. Their names are:
- Manit Shah – Microsoft Office Specialist India Finalist – Excel 2016
- Hiya Jarwani – Microsoft Office Specialist India Finalist I – Excel 2016
- Naisha Agrawal – Microsoft Office Specialist India Finalist – Word 2016
- Pratik Shah – Microsoft Office Specialist India Finalist – Word 2016
Hour of Code, Global event by the US-based company, code.org, is also celebrated during Computer Science Education Week at Udgam School for Children since the launching year 2013. The Hour of Code is endorsed by personalities such as Malala Yusufzai, Barack Obama, Shakira, NBA Star Chris Bosh, Musician William, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and many others. This event is a chance for all of us to know about computer science.
With a hope to spark interest in students to keep learning how to code and promote coding, Udgam school has actively participated in this global event. Students are further motivated to promote coding via Minecraft challenges, AI-based tutorials, and much more at each age group level across the schools. All the students get certification for the same.
How is coding taught in different sections?
Primary Section
- Programming Languages – Scratch, Logo, Flappy Code
- Classes Covered – I to V
Middle Section
- Programming Languages – Alice, Scratch, Python
- Classes Covered – VI to VIII
Secondary Section
- Programming Languages – Scratch/Python, HTML, CSS
- Classes Covered – IX, X
Higher Secondary Section
- Programming Languages – Python (Object Oriented Language), MySQL, Scratch
- Classes Covered – IX to XII
Programming is vital to automate, collect, manage, calculate, analyse the processing of data and information accurately. Programming is indispensable to create software and applications that help computer and mobile users in daily life.
At Secondary section and Sr. Secondary section level, projects provide an opportunity to the students to learn 21st-century learning design skills such as Creativity, Collaboration, Skilled Communication, Self-regulation, with a blend of appropriate technology. Also, most of the assigned projects focus on Real World Problem Solving, Data Analysis and organizing data which is the base of any programming.
In programming, the output depends on the input provided to the machine, so we prepare our students to understand data and all possible validations to be a better programmer and participate in National/Global level coding contests. It further helps them to build a strong portfolio at an early age.
