3 Reasons Why You Should Pick Up Coding
It’s official: coding is all the rage today. We are living in a world where apps dominate every aspect of our lives and are disrupting the way we do things. And creating these apps require—you guessed it—coding know-how.
With the rising prominence of ‘superstar’ programmers such as Bill Gates and Sheryl Sandberg, coding has captured the attention and imagination of many youth, who are beginning to recognise its value. According to this Microsoft study, a resounding majority of students in Asia Pacific want to see coding as a core subject in school, believing it is instrumental to helping them acquire essential 21st century skills necessary to thrive in the fast-changing world of tomorrow.
While some may argue that being a programmer is not for everyone, we can all agree that coding has some life lessons that we can benefit from, especially children and young people. Here are three reasons why you should get started coding.
Coding Teaches Computational Thinking
What exactly is computational thinking? It’s a four-step approach which involves breaking down a complex problem into smaller, more manageable parts (decomposition); looking for similarities in problems previously solved (pattern recognition); focusing only on the important information and discarding those irrelevant (abstraction); and designing a step-by-step solution to the problem (algorithm). The ability to turn a difficult problem into one that is easily understood is an extremely useful skill that can be applied to almost any discipline, be it biology or music.
Coding Helps Make Sense of the Digital World
As we get more and more digitalised, it is important to learn the logic behind how apps and machines work, harness the power of computing, and use it to automate tasks to improve our lives. Having programming knowledge changes the way we interact with technology, from being passive users to active producers, and opens our eyes to the infinite possibilities of coding. It’s no wonder coding is being considered a basic literacy today, much like mathematics and language.
Coding Provides People with the Power to Create
Whether it is creating an immersive role-playing game or designing a new interface for an operating system, coding offers an avenue for people to get creative and start creating. Can’t find the perfect layout template for your online shop? Code it. With some coding know-how, you can turn from being consumers of technology to creators of technology, where the only thing that limits you is your imagination.
Visit https://hourofcode.com/ to get started on coding today!