Nidhi Jain had a goal nine years ago many parents share: keep young minds active when school’s out with something besides video games and Netflix. She wanted her kids to have a fun and educational summer. As a former software engineer at NCR, Jain thought something with computers and coding would be ideal. With kids ranging in ages from 4 to 9, there weren’t many options.
She stumbled upon a Georgia Tech summer activity that used a computer program called Scratch to teach kids coding. Scratch calls itself “a free programming language and an online community where children can program and share interactive media such as stories, games and animation with people all over the world.” Children using it learn to think creatively, work collaboratively, and reason systematically, according to designers the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab.
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Instead of driving from Gwinnett County to midtown Atlanta every day, Jain taught herself how to use the program and set up a neighborhood program for a few hours each week. Her husband set up a classroom in the basement complete with a projector.
“The experience was amazing for me,” said Jain. “I saw these 7- to 10-year-olds learning so much and they were having so much fun while doing it.”
She approached the principal at her 9-year-old son’s school and offered to run an after-school program at no cost for one semester. Jain grew her curriculum and perfected her style of teaching.
“At the end of the semester we invited parents to come and see the work, and the response was overwhelming,” she said.
The next semester, WhizLearning Kids was off and running. Besides coding, the company teaches young students programming, robotics and other STEM (science, technology, engineering and math)-related topics. Besides the after-school club, WLK also offers summer camps.
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In 2014, they started organizing an annual Scratch coding competition to encourage students to complete a project from start to finish while using the coding techniques they have been learning all through the year. The event has gotten bigger every year with keynote speakers from the technology industry coming to speak and inspire the students.
Ellis Johnson has been involved in the program for the past two years. Although he’s not sure he wants to pursue a career in computers, the Suwanee Elementary rising sixth-grader enjoyed the experience. Programming his own version of Super Mario Bros., he added components he wished appeared in the Nintendo version.
“It’s really cool to be able to add things and change it around,” he said. His older brother Owen and younger brother Maddox agreed that it was something they might like to try.
“It’s a fun way to learn new things,” said his father Lee Johnson.
Lily Mahan tried it out for the first time this year and is hooked.
“This is what I want to do when I grow up,” she said.
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The Woodward Mill rising sixth-grader was one of a handful of girls who competed in the Scratch contest, but she won’t let that ratio dampen her enthusiasm.
“Girls can do anything!” she exclaimed.
Barbara Ericson, director of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, has supported the venture since it started.
“This is a great opportunity to introduce students to computational thinking,” she said. “This is huge worldwide, and most industrialized countries are introducing it as young as kindergarten.”
Ericson added that she’s glad to see Jain so enthusiastic about including girls in her program.
“In the mid-80s the industry was 40 percent women and it dropped to about 20 percent,” she said. “It would be great to get the numbers back. There’s no reason why girls can’t be successful in this field.”
Although WLK is independent of the school system, Jain has partnered with seven Gwinnett County schools.
“We have a good relationship with Mrs. Jain,” said David Strickland, community school director of the North Gwinnett cluster. “Since she’s been working with us, our middle school teachers have had to work harder to challenge the students in computer science.”
Jain plans to continue growing the program.
"We are very passionate about what we do and are growing slowly as we do not want to dilute the quality of our product," she said. "The goal is to make learning fun, interactive and collaborative. We like to call our program disguised learning as the students don't even feel like they are learning — they think they are having fun!"
Learn more about WhizLearning Kids at: www.WhizLearningKids.com
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