Hopscotch is an app built by those who want to create things that they themselves wished existed when they were kids. The free beta release of the app teaches kids aged 8-12 the beginnings of simple coding. The iPad app uses bright, fun and highly visual cues to keep interest to foster inheriting programming concepts. Instead of the boring line by line tutorials and creating a “Hello World” type of page, Jocelyn Leavitt and Samantha John (Hopscotch founders) are hoping boys and especially girls will join the forces of programming at a young age with a youthful focused approach to teaching.
Boys seem to gravitate toward coding much more easily then girls possibly because of their devotion to video games, while girls get to play with dolls and fashion essentials. With Hopscotch’s bright and colorful interface the app attracts girls to use their building blocks of learning, without it being overly feminine to turn boys away. The interactive program lets kids drag blocks of code into a scripting area to develop their own projects. The female programming movement has been amazing over the past year at the same time childhood learning of circuits and programming has also been a topic with much news. A movement that we hope continues and possibly one day the number of female programmers is equal to that of their gender counterpart.
Why not test the app out with your daughter or son today? The beautiful design screams fun and entertainment – all while learning.