The Fiero Code Blog
Stories and insights from the Fiero team on topics surrounding coding education.
Best tech toys for learning coding in 2016
It was a bright, sunny morning in Chandler AZ, and hundreds of kids were walking up to the Infusionsoft headquarters. They carried laptops and sleeping bags, and wore sleepy but determined looks on their faces. Even though they came from...
Interesting is something you do
It's now late summer, and the complaints of boredom are starting to register. Despite the strict "no complaining about being bored" policy at our house, my kids have played all the games, built everything they could think of out of blocks...
Shattering glass boxes with coding
Imagine a life inside a glass box. On the one hand, you would be safe and comfortable, immune to the dangers of the outside world. But you would also be limited in your reach and potential impact. You can see, but not touch, and after a...
What Andrew Carnegie would be doing if he were alive today
In 1901, Andrew Carnegie sold his steel business to J.P. Morgan for $480 million. As a fraction of GDP, that corresponds to $370 billion today! He was the wealthiest person in the world, and as such, he felt a heavy responsibility to make...
A Coding Program So Easy, Anyone Can Do It
It’s not professional basketball. It’s not astrophysics. Not even Shakespeare. It’s coding. In a recent survey of library directors and children’s librarians, the number one reason for not hosting computer coding clubs was a lack of...
From Crackpot Experiment to Statewide Phenomenon: the Code Club Story
Most people think I'm crazy. (They're right.) But that doesn't stop me from sharing my vision: millions of kids learning computer programming for free at the public libraries. When they find out that we are already reaching thousands of...
That moment when a conversation about kids and coding turns to the FBI Most Wanted list
It happens all the time. I meet someone new at a local coffee shop (today it was Giant Coffee in downtown Phoenix), and we share our excitement about technology. They talk about the efforts they are making to train a local workforce,...
Why coding programs are exactly what libraries need in 2016
“If I had a nickel for every snarky comment about libraries being irrelevant since the internet…”
It’s probably not a surprise that libraries are under pressure. Sure, the cocktail party comments are annoying. But if the politicians with the purse strings think of the library as a repository for dusty books that everyone has already downloaded to their Kindles, then we have a problem.
Creativity is a beautiful thing.
Have you ever watched a child draw a picture? I find it beautiful. Like, sunset over the ocean beautiful. Planet Earth from space beautiful. It's the creation process. One moment there is a kid holding a crayon, looking at a blank sheet...
One reason to choose libraries instead of schools
Every time I share my vision of free computer programming for kids and teens, I get the same question: "why are you focusing on libraries instead of schools?" It's tough to answer, because there are 78 million kids at school all day, a...