jkeesh

CodeHS: Software Engineer in San Francisco

CodeHS is a site that helps teach computer science to beginners with a focus on working with high schools. We work with students and schools all over the US and all over the world. Make a big impact on a small team in an exciting space.

See more at http://codehs.com/jobs

We are a company with a social mission, and we believe that we can help make computer science more fun and accessible to high school students. If you are a programmer, but also consider yourself a teacher--or if you love coming up with creative ways to explain things--or if you want to work on a meaningful project instead of programming widgets at the widget factory--then send us an email. You can email me at jkeesh@codehs.com

We're a small team of 6 with funding and a business model and soon to be a lot bigger. We have a monthly team hackathon (and recently had one for 150 students and teachers at Facebook http://facebook.com/codehs ), and are always thinking of ways to make working more fun.

See what students and teachers say about CodeHS: http://codehs.com/testimonials

How We Start Teaching:

We start teaching programming with "Karel the Dog," a dog that lives in a grid world and only knows four commands: move, turnLeft, putBall and takeBall. We use karel to teach that computer science is about problem solving. We start in JavaScript, but use a thin teaching library because we believe in teaching concepts over syntax.

Try it out and let us know what you think at codehs.com.

Our site is built in python, django, JavaScript, and we're on ec2.

CodeHS was recently a winner at NBC's Education Nation and has been featured on the Today Show and a number of other places.

Thanks! Jeremy

http://blog.codehs.com/

CodeHS: Software Engineer in San Francisco

CodeHS is a site that helps teach computer science to beginners with a focus on working with high schools. We work with students and schools all over the US and all over the world. Make a big impact on a small team in an exciting space.

See more at http://codehs.com/jobs

We are a company with a social mission, and we believe that we can help make computer science more fun and accessible to high school students. If you are a programmer, but also consider yourself a teacher--or if you love coming up with creative ways to explain things--or if you want to work on a meaningful project instead of programming widgets at the widget factory--then send us an email. You can email me at jkeesh@codehs.com

We're a small team of 4 with funding and a business model and soon to be a lot bigger. We have a monthly team hackathon (and recently had one for 150 students and teachers at Facebook http://facebook.com/codehs ), and are always thinking of ways to make working more fun.

See what students and teachers say about CodeHS: http://codehs.com/testimonials

How We Start Teaching:

We start teaching programming with "Karel the Dog," a dog that lives in a grid world and only knows four commands: move, turnLeft, putBall and takeBall. We use karel to teach that computer science is about problem solving. We start in JavaScript, but use a thin teaching library because we believe in teaching concepts over syntax.

Try it out and let us know what you think at codehs.com.

Our site is built in python, django, JavaScript, and we're on ec2.

CodeHS was recently a winner at NBC's Education Nation and has been featured on the Today Show and a number of other places.

Thanks, and happy new year! Jeremy

http://blog.codehs.com/

This looks fantastic. I just have a question for the author (+ Mozilla). Since this is a hosted service, I'm a bit reluctant to integrate it, because I'm not sure what we should expect from Mozilla on this project. Is this a cool open source project that will get support for a little and then fade away? Is this something that a team is really behind and is going to continue to support and extend? Is it expected that most people will just host their own version? (doesnt seem that hard to do, but there is a lot of appeal in not managing the server for this at all)

If this was from a startup I would expect a free trial and then a pricing page that told me what happened if I had X # of users or Y # of requests, but without that info, it seems there is a lot of missing information. Does Mozilla just plan to keep it hosted indefinitely? Or how do you plan to handle users of different sizes? Our use case now is small, but in choosing to go with this tool (vs. Firebase or something else), the switching costs down the road are relevant.

I'm planning to try it out in a small test either way, I'm just curious about more details on the mozilla-hosted version.

CodeHS is hiring in San Francisco, CA!

CodeHS is the best way for beginners to learn how to program. We focus on working with schools, and work with hundreds of schools and thousands of students all over the world. CodeHS focuses on making online education about the community, as you work through the program, you get help from real people.

http://codehs.com/jobs

===== Head of Sales, Business Development ===== Description We’re looking for someone to run our sales efforts. You’ll be in charge of keeping on top of our pipeline, emailing and calling teachers and principals, and closing deals. You should be passionate about education and excited about helping educate students in computer science all over the world.

Responsibilities Respond to inquiries from teachers, principals, and superintendents Qualify leads and prioritize your time Work with a team and individually Explain the features and benefits of CodeHS

===== Tutor Experience/Community Manager ===== Description CodeHS has a global network of tutors helping students learn to program all over the world. You will be in charge of managing the tutors and tutor recruitment process, helping maintain tutor quality, and making the tutoring experience fun and rewarding.

Programming experience required, or ability and desire to pick up programming quickly!

Responsibilities Manage current tutors on site Review tutor performance Find College CS Majors to hire as remote tutors Communicate between students, schools, and tutors to see how tutor feedback is working

===== Lead Content/Curriculum Developer ===== Description CodeHS is always looking to expand and improve our content. Help lead efforts to teach new concepts, new languages, and new tools to students all over the world. Significant programming epxerience required, and experience teaching computer science at the high school or college level is a signifiant bonus.

Details of Role Degree in computer science Excited about learning and teaching programming Wants to be creative about making learning progamming fun and engaging Taught computer science at high school or college level, or significant experience creating learning materials or tutorials

===== Short Term Sales Job ===== Description

This job pays hourly. Help us sell CodeHS to schools. Respond to inquiries from teachers, principals, and superintendents Qualify leads and prioritize your time Work with a team and individually Explain the features and benefits of CodeHS

===== CodeHS Tutor ===== PART TIME Description Help out students all over the world who are learning to program. You will be a member of the CodeHS tutoring community, and help answer questions, give feedback, and do grading. This job is open to college computer science students, and in limited cases high school students or other programmers.

Details of Role Current computer science student at a university Fluent in English Excited about learning and teaching programming Get paid to help others Flexible hours, remote working

I recently sent an email to linode support, and got a very murky response. I used my debit card on linode, and it was recently used on transactions I didn't make in random parts of the world that I'm not in, so I had to cancel it. My first guess was that it was linode, and all of the posts here make it more likely.

Essentially: I am a linode customer. My cc details were somehow leaked. Adds a data point here.

Andrew--

We use Django and South in our projects, and really appreciate the work you have done. I just contributed, and am excited about this project.

My one suggestion/request: Please make it an emphasis to create awesome documentation. I am familiar with South now at this point but often find myself wishing more use cases and more examples were documented. I can usually "figure it out," but great documentation saves everyone time. This seems like a great project, so make the documentation great too!

Thanks for sharing this link. As it related to HN, I think you have to applaud all of the people who go out on a limb and share their work-in-progress side project, new startup, or anything else that they've created---knowing that half of the community will "point out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better."

I still am a relative beginner to the space, and I do find it frustrating when people dismissively point out such "obvious" problems with our project, or things we should be doing, but I think it comes with the territory.

Thanks for the feedback. These are all things on our to-do list.

Ah, that's a problem. Thanks for letting us know about that.

Thank you Hacker News reader for the very Hacker-News-esque constructive criticism. We are trying to improve our site, so if you have specific constructive feedback for us, we would appreciate it.

Thanks! :)

The point you make here (and one made by many others) is a straw man/reductio ad absurdum argument.

People who advocate that everyone should learn to code (like myself) to not advocate the absurd conclusions that are used by others to refute this standpoint.

I do think people should learn to code. This does not mean I think: 1. Everyone should be a professional programmer. 2. "Everyone should be the same"

You can make similar arguments to a person who says "everyone should learn to read," but then you misunderstand the spirit of the discussion.

haha yes, you make a good point. I do think that including several ways to try to connect with beginners is important, and that is what we hope to do. I really like the logo the turtle approach as well.

I think my main concern with the previous comment is that the dominant method for introducing programming is too syntax-heavy, math-heavy, starting with a language with a lot of overhead for beginners, so ours is an alternative.

Not everyone will like our intro, as you note. But I think it has a very different feel than the way many students are introduced to programming in school (see AP Java class).

You make a lot of assumptions about how kids have to be taught coding.

> I tried everything possible. Every other trick in the trade. Even tried to start with Python first and not C.

> They struggle to understand where or why should you use an if/else/switch statement, or a for/do/while loop. Its difficult for them to map solution patterns to a code pattern. Its not their fault. Its ours. Better luck trying to explain a kid why they are being asked to write a program find greatest of three numbers, find factorials, or sort numbers. To them it very clearly looks math in a different language. Its that boring math thing all over again.

There are so many other ways to introduce students to programming. This is the main part of the problem. So many people think this is how you have to teach programming. I am in full agreement that you need to teach problem solving, and you can do that with programming.

We start teaching with a simplified language called "karel"--where you have a dog who can only turn left, move, and put down and pick up tennis balls. That's it. There is no overhead of python or C or java. It's just a few commands and a dog. And there is no question on why you should do it.... people do this because it is immediately fun. Printing "hello world" for most people (especially younger kids) is not immediately fun.

Try our demo on the code.org page http://www.code.org/learn/codehs

I have started thousands of students in person with our karel the dog demo. Everyone can do it. Almost everyone finds it to be really fun. Because karel is a simplified language, it is all about problem solving. How do you get a dog to find the midpoint of his world when he cant store variables, but can only ask questions about the state and put down tennis balls?

I contend that you can teach problem solving to students through programming--but it is so crucial how you make that initial experience feel.

There is no

    public static void main(String[] args)

Try this out at http://codehs.com. We have schools using it all over the country, and young students can get if/else, and for/while.

> Beyond all this it needs to fun, which it very clearly isn't.

Find a student who didnt like programming, and have them try our karel the dog starter for 10 minutes. Let us know what they say. I bet they think it's fun.

Make sure to check out CodeHS. We are the little demo shown in the video using "Karel the dog." We work on making it fun and accessible to beginners, mostly in high schools and middle schools, but also have all ages of students. More than other "learn to code" sites, we focus on problem solving rather than syntax, and also provide help from real people to students along the way. http://codehs.com

It's exciting to see a video like this highlight the real need and current lack of computer science education in high schools. That is exactly what we are working on, and have high schools all around the country! If this is an issue you are interested, in please contact as at team@codehs.com

We develop our site in django and just bought the book. Excited to read it!

We are making CodeHS to be as accessible as possible. We've had students of all ages, and it would be great to get feedback from everyone.

Older people can use it as well. Weve had students as young as 5, 9, 10, and as old as 80. Right now we are focusing on HS, but any beginner can try.

Stephen--

It would be great to hear your thoughts on CodeHS.

>but with lab/office hours -- where people can work at their own pace but in the same space as others at their same level, and people with more advanced skills, who can give advice and mentor

This is literally a description of what we are trying to build at CodeHS.

>With Codecademy, it's easy to get discouraged because of the lack of people around -- you can go onto the forums, but there are no humans in proximity to commiserate or discuss hard problems.

Yup. And every beginner gets stuck. If you like our approach, contact us at team@codehs.com!

> I've spent a few years working with the most incompetent people who were cooks, business graduates, poured concrete 2 months prior (you name it) and then decided to become programmers because they coded a formula in a spreadsheet.

If we make CS education accessible earlier, you could imagine that more people would actually be more prepared to enter the field.

> Don't get me wrong, i think programming IS essential and I DO believe it should be taught, but i just don't see how this benefits anyone at this point in time.

A few immediate benefits: Giving job opportunities to students who would have never had them before. Allowing students to complement their other subjects with knowledge of programming. Demystifying the use of computers. Creating their own projects.

Those seem like benefits to lots of people at this time.

We've also found people are less likely to give up if they get help at the right time. Many people at the beginning get stuck on simple bugs, but don't even know the right question to ask.

Thanks for your comment.

> So in order to bring things that're only in your imagination into reality, you learn to code better, and learn about what you're trying to code (say, history, or science, or Tarot decks if you're into that).

I think this is one of the most powerful aspects of learning to code for students. They can create something that is important to them. They can build something that complements their learning in other areas.

... and if this comes to schools... they can directly apply things they learn in school.

> Basically, what impact does this have on the world?

That is a big question, but I think the answer is that this helps teach critical thinking, and prepare digital citizens. I think another think allowed by teaching programming is helping students be able to create ideas they have. I wrote more about this here: http://blog.codehs.com/post/33113754964/the-factors-of-knowl...

Hey teach! Thanks for your support. As a teacher, but also a programmer, I think you can agree that not everything can be automated.

Even when people are just getting started, there are lots of ways to get stuck.

> "… most people can’t learn to program: between 30% and 60% of every university computer science department’s intake fail the first programming course."

You say "most people can't learn to program" because 30-60% fail a university computer science class. But can you really jump to that conclusion?

There are many other more feasible explanations. What if the class was taught poorly? What is students had no interest? What if the students never put in any time? What if the class wasn't fun? What if the students saw no potential gain from learning this material? What if there are too many barriers to even getting started and writing your first program?

I can tell you that we have a 5 year old, 9-10 year olds, high schoolers, and 80 year old grandpas on CodeHS, and all of them are able to learn. This speaks to the importance of introducing concepts in the right way, and making it fun and rewarding.

> On the other hand it will also yield alot of low quality programmers, because the higher quality learn to code out of their own interest anyway. So in the end i am not convinced that its a good thing to have even more Rails programmers working for 15$ an hour.

Very few people would argue that by teaching everyone to write, the job of being a professional writer is degraded. What we are saying is that coding is a form of literacy now. We are not advocating that everyone become a professional programmer; and similarly, teaching people to write is not advocating that everyone become a professional writer.

In many jobs knowledge of computational thinking will be important.

> Secondly, a world where EVERYONE has a job where computing is of central importance is one I personally would never strive towards. We should ask ourselves if we really want to stick all of society behind a computer.

This is not really what we are advocating. Our claim with "Read Write Code" is that these are now essential skills, even if that is not what you spend all of your time doing. Few become professional readers or writers, but many find reading and writing useful skills. Computers are used in many parts of daily life--even if you don't become a programmer, a knowledge of problem solving with computers will be useful.

Yup---after having helped to teach lots of students how to program, I've seen so many ways where people get stopped before they get started. Making it easy to get started, and very accessible are the key. I've written more about that earlier here: http://blog.codehs.com/post/31912193554/getting-stopped-befo...

Thanks for the comment. I think the few places where high school CS is done well is 100% due to having a great teacher. However, for CS in high schools... that is extremely rare.

Like Zach mentioned, Khan's CS is a great tool and they have a great team. Our approach is a bit different. Right from the beginning we start with "Karel the dog," which allows you to focus much more on problem solving than on syntax. The dog only knows four commands: move, turnLeft, putBall, and takeBall, so the world is greatly simplified. In this way we are really giving comments on how you take a big problem and break it down.

We've found that starting right with graphics (even though very fun to tinker with) is too large a barrier for many students, since there are too many new concepts at once.

Hey HN --

We are launching a crowdfunding campaign to teach 1,000 high school students to code over the next six months.

We focus on providing help from real people along the way--because when you are learning to program, everyone gets stuck, and needs debugging help and feedback.

We are also making a site to collect 30-second videos from people across all fields saying "why you should learn to code." It would be great to get some help from HN supporting this cause.