CoderDojo’s first-ever book primed for July release

4 Apr 2016

CoderDojo is bringing out a book this summer as its growing, positive influence on the coding education of youngsters around the world continues unabated.

Paper. Isn’t. Dead. The wonderful children’s coding initiative – and now global movement – CoderDojo is publishing the first of three planned ‘Nano’ books this July – initial pricing is £9.99 (around €12.50).

Called CoderDojo: My First Website, the book is designed to help children (or adults) learn the basics of web design, picking up skills like HTML, CSS and JavaScript, which, as many probably know, are a trio of tools the next generation of workers would do well to learn early.

In this handbook, readers will find clear, step-by-step instructions, followed up by open-ended prompts and challenges that encourage the reader to take the initiative.

Bill Liao, co-founder of CoderDojo, writes the introduction to what is part one in a series of three books that will be released over the course of one year.

Egmont Publishing – which is behind a Minecraft book series – has partnered up with CoderDojo to get the first edition onto the shelves, with the entire set supporting children as they take their first steps to creating their own website, learning to code using Java and modding games.

CoderDojo’s growth has been remarkable. Beginning back in 2011 with a modest school project and, back in January, growing big enough to make a celebrity-endorsed impact at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The organisation has grown to more than 900 separate dojos around the world, in 63 different countries, taking in the likes of Uganda, Uzbekistan and Madagascar as three of the newer locations. Madagascar, by the way, has a CoderDojo bus that drives around, stacked with working laptops, so children can learn to code in different parts of the country.

But the July publication is the next major move by the group and, if I was one to judge a book by its cover, then one like this would get the thumbs up.

CoderDojo

Disclosure: Bill Liao is an investor with SOSV Partners, which is an investor in Silicon Republic

Gordon Hunt
By Gordon Hunt

Gordon Hunt joined Silicon Republic in October 2014 as a journalist. He spends most of his time avoiding conversations about music, appreciating even the least creative pun and rueing the day he panicked when meeting Paul McGrath. His favourite thing on the internet is the ‘Random Article’ link on Wikipedia.

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