Coding skills development initiative Coding 4 Youth has set a target to train 10 000 young people in coding, in February and March, through the Unplugged Coding project.
Coding 4 Youth is a Leva Foundation project run in partnership with the Nelson Mandela University. The aim of the project is to reach 10 000 local learners by the end of March, using three coding apps: Rangers, Boats and Tanks.
Each month, the Leva Foundation, a social upliftment organisation, partners with a registered non-profit organisation to focus on specific initiatives, enabling it to serve communities in all stages of life.
The organisation empowers teachers in disadvantaged communities with various “Unplugged Coding” tools to teach learners coding skills, without the use of computers. The coding games available in Tanks, Rangers and Boats apps have already been used to reach thousands of learners directly, while hundreds of schools have received the coding kits, according to Leva Foundation.
The approach is to use physical activities such as games, and pen-and-paper exercises to introduce learners to coding, instead of computers.
The initiative offers coding kits which interact with the Boats (Grade R to 3) and Tanks (Grade 4 and higher) coding apps, to impart skills to the young learners using tangible tokens and image recognition.
Tanks has 35 levels, whereby players need to get the tank to the destination in each level. The tank can only be moved when the player uses the physical puzzle pieces they are given to build the code. Once the code has been pieced together, learners use the smartphone’s camera to upload a picture and move the tank.
Going offline and teaching coding through hands-on games and learning activities is gaining momentum, with industry insiders saying unplugged coding can be just as effective as online learning, when the right approach is taken.
Professor Jean Greyling, HOD of the Department of Computing Sciences at Nelson Mandela University, describes the Unplugged Coding project as a “low-tech solution” for the skills needed in a “high-tech” digital economy.
“The 10 000 target will be reached as a team effort, with teachers, NGO workers and ‘coding evangelists’ presenting workshops which are held at schools, in libraries or in communities where NGOs operate. This is truly a solution from Africa for Africa,” explains Greyling.
“Our project makes use of customised tokens (puzzle pieces), image recognition and standard smartphones to introduce learners to coding concepts. We also develop offline lessons which interact with our apps to introduce not only coding and algorithms, but also digital design, computational thinking and digital citizenship to the lessons.”
The initiative is sponsored by AWS in Communities, a corporate social responsibility initiative by Amazon to help thousands of students worldwide gain access to science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics education opportunities in fun and imaginative ways.
The Rangers and Boats apps were developed by Byron Batteson, a computing sciences honours student at Nelson Mandela University, in 2017.
The project is now endorsed by the university as an important engagement project, winning various local, national and global accolades, including a plenary invite to Unesco’s Mobile Learning Week in Paris. Last year, it was a top winner in the Falling Walls awards, organised from Berlin, Germany.
The Unplugged Coding seeks to reach learners beyond the borders of SA, with other African countries being reached through partnerships in Botswana, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Burkina Faso.
It will culminate in various physical and virtual coding tournaments towards the end of March.
“For me what makes the Rangers and Boats apps so exciting is that it is not only genuinely fun and easy to learn, but that it bypasses the need for expensive technology in Africa,” says Ryan le Roux, CEO of Leva Foundation.
“The project happens within the context of the fourth industrial revolution and the desperate shortage of software developers in most of the world. The sharp move to more online activities because of COVID 19 has resulted in an even higher need for programmers and the learning experience is accessible and attractive to both learners and educators.”
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