What Is Coding and Why Is It Good for Your Kids? xxiii2014–2015 Occupational Outlook Handbook that do not require
master’s or doctoral degrees are in the computer science or infor-
mation technology (IT) fields.
Mark Zuckerberg was a college student working from his dorm
room when he developed the first version of Facebook in 2004. Just
10 years later, 1.39 billion people were using Facebook every month
(source: http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/). Never before in
history had an idea, product, or service been able to engage a billion
people in under a decade. Facebook demonstrates the power of tech-
nology to reach more people, faster, than ever before.Where Can Kids Learn to Code?
This book is only the beginning. There are more places than ever
to learn programming; websites like Code.org, Codecademy (see
Figure 1), and countless others teach basic to advanced program-
ming in a variety of in-demand programming languages. Once
you’ve completed this book with your kids, your children can take
free courses through websites like EdX, Udacity, and Coursera to
extend their learning even further.Figure 1: Codecademy teaches you how to program step by step in a
variety of languages.“Coding clubs” are a great way to have fun learning with
friends. Getting a college degree in a relevant field is still one of
the best ways to prepare for a career, but even if college isn’t an
option at the moment, your kids can begin building a program-
ming portfolio and demonstrating their skills as a programmer
and problem-solver today.