Test Scores VS Skills Set. What’s Better for Homeschoolers?

I was at lunch with our Founder and President, Seth Iorg a few months ago and we were speaking to a gentleman who works for a highly reputable online charter school. (I won’t mention the name). But he started to tell us about how this notion that “it’s all about test scores (i.e. ACT’s, highschool exams, SAT’s, etc. ) ” is coming to an end. That all these big wigs and prolific school board of directors, associations aren’t even mentioned schools exams anymore. But the phrase they use now is “College and Career Ready”. Helping kids of todays day and age become ready for college and know exactly what they want or need to study OR prepare them for the careers of the future.

This had quite the impact on both of us. We then decided to coin the phrase underneath our logo and it has now become our company motto! We want to provide a REAL coding (computer programming) PATHWAY for youth so by the time they turn 16-18 years of age, the child knows where to invest his/her time. Is it to pursue college? Is it to go directly into a career that may not require college. Whatever it may be… the parents will feel confident that their good money is not wasted.

Simply Coding, Inc. has been designed around this concept. We put kids in a real coding (html, css, javascript, java, python, etc.) and allow them to create THEIR on portfolios on github of their projects and games to show to future employers, internships, and so much more!

 

Top 5 Things Learned at Great Homeschool Convention

Just got back about a week ago from our first Great Homeschool Convention. It was a great time meeting all the wonderful parents there that passed by our booth and to see their passion they have for their kids. What great Great Homeschool Conventionchristian beliefs and friendly people. We learned a few things on our adventure:

  1. WE LEARNED parents want family discounts for our online coding pathways for youth. UPDATE: We have now implemented this and you can add family members to your regular monthly membership and you can always downgrade later if one of the kids don’t like the computer programming kind of thing.
  2. WE LEARNED that homeschool parents are awesome and really care about the skills that their children will learn.
  3. WE LEARNED that every child needs coding! The more and more we think about it, Level ONE is such a must-have for any type of job/career. We looked on monster.com and couldn’t believe the requirements of random jobs that want to see html, css, javascript on the resume!
  4.  WE LEARNED that age is not a great indicator of whether a child is ready to do computer programming or not, but that “typing” is the key component! If your child can Nitrotype 15 words per minute, then he/she will have a good experience learning coding. Usually this is around age 10 if that helps!
  5. WE LEARNED that Twix was the preferred chocolate at our booth, and Baby Ruth came in dead last!

To Your Child’s Success,

Dustin