You’ve heard me mention CodeMontana before. It’s a free statewide program where Montana high-school students can access an engaging, self-paced online curriculum that teaches computer programming. When the program was founded in September of last year, we had a goal of reaching 1,000 students within the first year. Seven months into it we had surpassed that goal, and it just keeps getting better! We are expanding the program to include Montana middle school students, so now all middle and high school students in Montana, regardless of the type of school they attend, are eligible for the program.
Needless to say, I’m thrilled with the success CodeMontana has seen. It has become a rallying point for efforts statewide to increase computer science education, including:
- $160,000 in scholarships at Montana Tech for Montana students who complete CodeMontana.org to pursue computer science degrees. http://cs.mtech.edu/codemt
- Montana Tech’s applications for enrollment in CS for the fall of 2014 are up 3x over last year.
- Over $90,000 in scholarships at the University of Montana for Montana students wishing to study computer science. http://www.cs.umt.edu/scholarships/
- Montana State University Computer Science Department representatives are visiting 50 Montana high schools this year with an engaging robotics program to interest kids in pursuing computer science degrees in college. http://www.looneytherobot.com
- A new class entitled The Joy and Beauty of Computing was taught this semester at Bozeman High School and will be offered to STEM teachers statewide via a MSU summer training program in June.
- High school teachers and administrators across the state have encouraged their students to participate in CodeMontana.org and in some cases incorporated the curriculum into their classrooms. These are just a few examples:
- In Bozeman, CodeMontana.org is used in a class of about 20 students 5 days per week as the primary curriculum.
- In Reed Point, all of the high school students were encouraged to sign up for CodeMontana.org if they had interest.
- In Eureka, CodeMontana.org was introduced to about 450 middle school and high school students via a general assembly.
Montana Programmers (www.montanaprogrammers.org) and the Montana Web Developers and Designers (http://www.mtwda.org/) continue to volunteer their time to coach CodeMontana participants and have graded over 60,000 assignments completed so far by students. These self-organized and totally bootstrapped grassroots organizations consist of hundreds of computer programmers and web developers statewide that make their living doing software development.
The number one comment from high-tech business owners in Montana is, “It is hard to find well-trained employees.” 9 out of 10 high schools nationally (and most high schools in Montana) do not even offer computer-programming classes. CodeMontana.org has over 1,200 participants from every corner of the state with more than 140 separate communities represented, and we continue to move closer to our new goal of 5,000 students participating by the spring of 2015. With CodeMontana we hope to prepare more of our young people for high-wage careers in high-tech right here in Montana.
June 14, 2014 @ 7:56 pm
I am happy to hear that Middle School students will now be able to join the program. I have had several people that Home School their children ask if this program is available to them as well. Could you let me know? Many thanks!
June 22, 2014 @ 4:36 pm
Gloria,
This program is certainly open to home-schooled children also. Any Montana student in a middle-school grade or higher is welcome to participate. Thanks for asking!