I’m excited to announce our Country Quest page for the 2015 Hour of Code is live! The stats only update once a day right now, but I might be able to get a better data feed, especially during the awesome upcoming Hour of Code December 7 - 13th. I’ve been so crazy busy trying to make last minute updates to the app, like the Certificates feature, as well as enhancements to our front end website, etc. The Country Quest was something I really wanted to do, because I think it tells an incredible story about what is happening with students in other countries right now, and the effect Code.org is having in the world around us. While I know their primary objective has been to promote awareness about the need for Computer Science curriculum in U.S. schools, the Hour of Code has become a global movement for young people to better their lives through education, and specifically through the benefits that Computer Science can bring to them. I was really touched when I read the Thanksgiving blog post by Hadi Partovi, the co-founder of Code.org, where he mentioned that one group of girls in a Middle Eastern country is doing their Hour of Code in secret, so they don’t suffer reprisals. I mean think about that for a moment. What an amazing, amazing thing this man and his organization have done - to hear stories like that, and realize it is all because of the work they have done. To know you are really making change in people’s lives across the globe must be an amazing feeling!
While here at Monster Coding we’re just a tiny piece of this huge movement, we’re keeping a sharp eye on how we can write lessons that will best serve different groups of people, and especially how we can use this event to make connections with people from far away places, both to see what they think of what we’ve put together, as well as to gather fresh ideas for the upcoming year. To say I’m excited about all of this is a huge understatement! I’ve adjusted the Country Quest scores to account for the population of each country, and eliminated the U.S.A. altogether as it didn’t seem necessary to include the country hosting the event, and our own country, where we obviously get most of our traffic from. I was delighted to see that Portugal is currently in the lead! All of those students I saw online from Porto must have made the difference there :) We have a lot of other cool things in the works right now, as well as our upcoming trips to NYC and Seattle, so I’ll try to post again soon.
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