Code.org announced the launch of its new Code Studio today – an open source product designed to make it easy for kids — as young as kindergarten age — to pick up the building blocks and skills it takes to learn computer science. The studio includes courses on broad programming topics like loops and conditionals, as well as more general topics like how the Internet works. Code Studio’s Play Lab also includes functionality that allows students to message a link to apps or animations that they’ve built directly to a smartphone, through a partnership Code.org has with Twilio.
Alongside the new software, Code.org is also hosting workshops in more than 60 cities across the U.S. for educators interested in using Code Studio as a teaching tool in their classrooms. Those workshops are designed to provide guidance about how to work Code Studio lessons into their regular classroom routine. Educators interested in signing up can do so here.
“We believe passionately that every child who has an opportunity to discover the world around them through a smartphone should also be given the learning capabilities and tools to build their own app,” said Code.org founder Hadi Partovi in a blog post. “Code Studio enables even our youngest students to learn to build a basic animation or app in elementary school, and then share it to a friend’s phone within minutes.
