Code.Org: What Most Schools Don't Teach

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKIu9yen5nc

I saw this post being reshared on my Facebook feed today and I decided to check it out. I was blown away immediately. It's amazing to see all these great people in the industry (in one video!) telling their reason on when they first started and why they think people need to learn to code. To see the likes of Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Gabe Newell (Valve), Drew Houston (Dropbox) in one video along with Chris Bosh (Miami Heat) and Will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas) is crazy.

What is Code.Org?

"Code.org is a non-profit foundation dedicated to growing computer programming education...Our vision is that every student in every school has the opportunity to learn how to code.  We believe computer science and computer programming should be part of the core curriculum in education..."
The above sums it up pretty well and I agree with them. I do think that programming and IT would be very useful to a lot of people. I think it's more important now seeing as each person now has multiple computers (smartphones, laptops, etc) with them all the time. At home, even our appliances and vehicles have deep software integration (aka "smart" TVs, etc). Though I really don't know why you would want your fridge to have a tweeting capability...nonetheless it's great to see that we are closer and closer to "sci-fi" films of just a few years ago.

Where do I go to study Coding and Computer Science?

I'm glad you hypothetically asked! In the recent years, people have made sites dedicated to free education. Studying can be boring to some so a lot of the resources that people make available aren't even books. There are videos and interactive sites that range from having everything on the browser itself (no more installing stuff!) to making learning coding more like games and building lego blocks. I wish I had sites like this back then!

Code.org's learn page here already has great links to great resources. You can also try Coursera (www.coursera.org) or Satndford's online classes (http://online.stanford.edu/courses/) and of course the famous Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org). Be sure to flex your Googling skills and discover a lot more !