It is to share with great pleasure that APU organized a free Computer Programming Session “KidoCode Hour of Code” for the children of APIIT Education Group staff who are at the age group of 6-11 years, in collaboration with KidoCode on Saturday, August 15, 2015. It was well attended with over 40 children and parents. It was a session of amusement and fun as the atmosphere was thick with love–love for Computer Science programming (full of logical thinking).
With the children’s hearts full of passion, the session kicked off with a presentation from Uncle Code (Mr Hossein Tohidi). Uncle Code started the session by showing video clips on “Hour of Code” and Thomas Suarez, a 12 years old boy who had developed mobile applications. He then talked about the importance of Computer Science for the children in the coming 10 years; as well as the impact of not having the knowledge of programming and how it would affect the whole nation.
The children were very excited when Uncle Code introduced “Cup Stack” – a technique where children learnt the concept of computer programming without the use of computer. This enhanced the children’s analytical skills and logical thinking skills. Even the parents enjoyed playing this as well!
They also had fun playing with Angry Birds, using Blockly (a project of Google which is a client-side JavaScript library for creating visual block programming editors) in which they found ways to reach the enemies with the use of programming. With teamwork comes success! Each of them were able to learn the logic behind programming and at the same time enjoyed the company of their new-found friends.
At the end, certificates were issued to all children who participated. He also shared his insights to overcome the common perception of parents in programming. Overall it was an awesome session for the parents and their children to get together and to attain new knowledge. Special thanks to the staff from School of Computing and Technology, Muhammad Ehsan Rana, Hema Latha Krishna Nair and Yogeswaran A/L Nathan for organising and facilitating the event. We look forward to our next KidoCode Hour of Code session with more children in the future!
