Coding with CodeMonkey - Testimonial with Lee Hollman

[Music] I started learning coding myself in the 70s as a boy but I started teaching it when scratch from MIT was still in infancy and it wasn't bad I liked the block builder interface but I knew something was missing it wasn't really quite replicating what true cold looks like and I began a Google search just for fun to see what else I could have for one child was accelerated and I was here that I had the happy accident actually of discovering code monkey I started to play with it realized hey this looks like real script and in fact it is based on JavaScript just as if you were writing a sentence on a page you have to know in what order you're gonna put the work so it is with code monkey you have to actually subtract another word find your own eloquence find your own voice in terms of writing code instead of using pre formatted blocks I adore that and I can't help but argument yeah if a monkey is cute it really has a nice response it's very non-threatening I found it very approachable I like that code monkey also lays out the task at hand so that in a very gentle user friendly format you can start with the baby steps write out your code bit by bit so that you're building a foundation very strongly but make no mistake you're doing your own work anyone who writes coding knows that it's teaching discipline of thought and metacognition or thinking about thinking so you're not just learning a technical skill which is valuable but you're learning how to think you're learning how to order your thoughts so basically coding not only is teaching a skill that we need but it's enriching all academic disciplines not just the obvious STEM related ones there was one other thing to consider about code monkey and teaching coding to special needs students and that's never underestimate them I had one student who came from a deeply troubled background he's in high school now we helped ignite an interest in coding in him long before I even heard of code monkey as of now he's taught himself C++ programming he's brilliant at it and he's going to continue to move on why mention this coding feeds into the needs of a special need child the needs to order their thoughts the needs to see direct results of their work and it could lead to great things just as it did of that one boy who now knows more about object-oriented programming than I can teach you please know that our special needs kids have their own brilliance they're not to be underestimated and coding is giving them the discipline they need to excel in this area and another [Music]