Why Do Hard Things Make People Happy & a Story of Advanced JavaScript Games for African Public Schools

Jonathan Novotny
2 min readApr 25, 2022
Teens in Diepsloot learn to write JavaScript Games with CodeJIKA.com and the Code for Change team in South Africa.
Teens in Diepsloot go wild with JavaScript Games on the first day of introducing and testing the new curriculum | CodeJIKA.com and the Code for Change team in South Africa.

Seeing this photo taken today ( by Given makananiso,) it was SOOO clear we are on the right path.

After years of pushing the “Basics” of #webdev, we’re transitioning intermediate #JavaScript — Here’s Day 1 of testing our first JS Games #curriculum in #diepsloot #johannesburg #southafrica

We’re looking for the most cost-effective, advanced and scalable model for teens to demystify tech, learn #code, gain confidence and rapidly advance their careers.

Great moment.

Why is this important?

Because so many programs just scratch the surface of learning and harvest the stats. “100,000 youth trained by [insert tech company or gov agency name]” — That’s the most common headline in education in Africa these days. But are these kids or teens actually getting anything that will amplify their potential?

It’s time to push for advanced training, multi-year or multi-month advanced and intensive classes, and we can’t wait to be part of this new immersive and truly transformative movement.

Our JS Games curriculum (in development) is a flurry of interactive, simple to intermediate programs which are constructed from line 1 with text code editors — We usually skip the long explanations and leave kids on a “Need-to-know” basis to get the fundamental logic behind what their code is doing. Why, because it’s DOING that matters. “Fun or die” is our motto.

Chat soon.

Jon

#coding #schools #hourofcode #africa #learncs #teachCS #CSTA #CSED #ISTE #edtech
CodeJIKA.com
Code for Change
CodeTribe.com
Thanks Dell Technologies and Verifone for your support.

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Jonathan Novotny

RUN TO THE ROAR. Social entrepreneur & edu-activist. Founder CodeJIKA.com, Code for Change & CodeTribe.com