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Tech & Business

8.27.2019

In Jordan, young people learn to code by playing

Jordanian start-up Hello World Kids (HWK) has developed a computer coding training program that is all the rage in schools. Its secret to shine among young people? An adapted web language, called SmoothY.

How can we make learning the code (a skill that is already in high demand, and which should continue to be democratized) more attractive to young people? This is the question that the Jordanian start-up Hello World Kids (HWK) asked itself, and which led it to create a separate computer language. 

 

This language, called SmoothY, is taught in more than a hundred schools in the hope that their students will then be perfectly comfortable with computer development. This bet on the digital dimension of the future is enough to give ideas to schools in many other regions, as computer languages are becoming popular skills. 

 

A fun method

 

In addition to the original choice of discipline, it is the method that speaks to the youngest. The start-up is based on a playful approach, playing on “gamification”, developing levels, and solving problems in order to obtain points and rewards. 

Credits : Hello World Kids

Hanan Khader, the founder of the start-up, programmer and, incidentally, mother of 4 children, explains that, even for children who are not moving towards a future in IT jobs, “coding teaches children to solve problems, develop their analytical skills, reasoning and critical thinking skills. We do not teach it as a skill as such, but in a way that is applied to real-world problems. 

 

This approach is clearly working, as more than 35,000 students have now completed their learning via the online interactive platform – accessible in English and Arabic, anywhere in the world – HelloCode. 

See also

In the United Arab Emirates, children are kings

Published on 27 August 2019

#Education