UPPER EAST SIDE — The Coding Space, an after-school program that teaches how to design and build computer programs, is hosting a free two-hour class on Saturday morning.
Students, both young and old, will learn the basics and skills needed to code — what computer programmers use to create phone apps, games and websites.
The class will touch on various skills including modeling, debugging, sequential thinking, top-down design and test-driven development, according to Eli Kariv, one of the co-founders of the The Coding Space.
When a student goes through a Coding Space course — which uses science, technology, engineering, art and math (or STEAM) — they eventually take home the ability to create their own projects. Any level of programmer is welcome.
"Our goal is to teach students critical thinking and problem solving and we focus on what is the best way to help them learn these skills," Kariv said. "Coding is becoming literacy. In the same way we learn math, science and reading, students are growing up and consuming technology their entire lives. Not being able to read or write in it and not knowing how it is created and what it does is a pretty crazy concept."
In the next year there will be 1.4 million jobs in computer science in the U.S. but only 400,000 computer science graduates, Kariv said. The number of women in the field is also "staggeringly low," he noted, so the company's goal is to encourage more girls to get involved so it can be a "more gender balanced field."
Typically The Coding Space, which started up in June this year, teaches students from age 6 to 17 either one on one or in small groups at the Macaulay Honors College on the Upper West Side and at the 92nd Street Y on Lexington Avenue.
Group classes normally cost $50 per hour and last two hours, but this class is free.
The workshop will be held at Regis High School, at 55 E. 84th St., from 10 a.m. to noon in room 503.
