Where Can My Teen Learn to Code?
“Don’t just play on your phone, program it.” If you quote President Obama’s challenge to your teenager, chances are you’ll just get an eye roll while they keep texting. After all, texting is the preferred mode of communication among teens, according to a study by the Pew Research Center.
But there might be another way to spark your teen’s interest in computer science. Would they like to win a trip to San Francisco? Try sending them a link to this year’s Google Code-in.
The 2014 Google Code-in online contest introduces students ages thirteen to seventeen to open source development. Open from December 1, 2014, to January 19, 2015, students can pick tasks created by twelve open source organizations and work on projects such as disaster relief, gaming, medical record systems for developing countries, 3D solid modeling computer-aided design, operating systems, and more. Tasks include bug fixes, writing code, user experience research, and writing documentation.
“Because open source is a collaborative effort, the contest is designed as a streamlined entry point for students into software development by having mentors assigned to each task that a student works on during the contest,” said Stephanie Taylor, open source program manager, on the Google Developers Blog. “Students don’t have to be coders to participate; as with any software project, there are many ways to contribute to the project. Students will be able to choose from documentation, outreach, research, training, user interface and quality assurance tasks in addition to coding tasks.”
Over the last four years there have been 1575 students from 78 countries that participated in the online contest. Prizes range from t-shirts to a grand prize trip to Google’s USA Headquarters in Mountain View, California USA.
And if your teen does get the coding bug, there’s more open source projects to come next summer—Google Summer of Code 2015.
