In-Person Classes
Full-day schedules will vary based on the class, but are roughly scheduled as follows:
MORNING |
|
NOON |
|
AFTERNOON |
|
Class sizes are capped to follow all health guidelines set by Alberta Health — this is constantly changing, but is usually capped at 10 students and up to 2 instructors.
No, students will need to bring their own lunch or snacks, based on the length of
the program. Please avoid bringing any nut or peanut products.
- Awesome energy and enthusiasm to learn!
Headphones
Water bottle, lunch, and snacks (peanut/nut-free please!)
Appropriate clothes for outdoor play (location and weather permitting)
- Masks and hand sanitizer
No! Our classrooms are fully equipped with laptops, desktops, iPads and any other needed educational technology. However, we do NOT provide headphones for sanitary reasons.
At Discover Coding, the health and safety of our students and instructors is always our top priority. Detailed information about how we are following all applicable health and safety guidelines can be found here.
Online Classes
Students will join a private Zoom meeting with a live instructor and other students.
Students will also log into the Discover Coding Learning Portal to access course materials, submit work, and track their progress. The username and password for the learning portal will be provided via email. Class instructors will also be able to help students log in on the first day.
More information about online classes and student expectations can be found here.
Check out our tips for a great online learning experience.
Online classes are run by the same team of awesome instructors as in-person classes. Online classes are limited to 16 students, although most will have less than 10 students. Larger classes will have assistant instructors to provide additional help with breakout rooms as needed.
In-School Classes
Code Explorers has 30 lessons that we circulate through. We will focus on the same level of concepts, outlined in the progress report, but engaging kids in new and different projects keeps them motivated. They will continue to practice applying the concepts at their level.
As much as we would like to offer all of our programs at the convenience of your kids schools, a lot of the decisions are dependent on:
- Metro Continuing Education and your administration
- Resources such as classrooms and devices
- Having enough students eligible to enroll in more advanced levels
As demand and needs grow, we do hope to expand programs in your school. Keep providing feedback to us and your administration and we will do our best to serve this community.
Here are a few options to help continue to nurture your child’s coding journey:
- Join our Coding Academy Program (click link for more info). This is a drop-in coding program where your child/youth will work at their own pace through our coding progression at our facility. They can continue from Code Builders, plus get to do weekly STEAM theme stations from building computers, coding and building circuits on raspberry pi’s and breadboards, and more. This is perfect for the coding and technology enthusiast in the family.
- Join Code Explorers week summer camp. We offer our programs in a full week camp format. Check our website for more information.
- Join Code Explorers again. We have built 30 lessons of Code Explorers, so each semester is a different set of lessons and projects focusing on the same concepts. They will continue to benefit from gaining practice and there are always ways to level up the challenges that are built into the lesson or suggestions from the instructors. We have many kids repeat this level and still continue to grow their coding skills. They have more room to be creative and challenge themselves to extend their projects.
They will be able to continue from a level they left off at to continue to practice the concepts. We will focus on the same level of concepts, outlined in the progress report, but engaging kids in new and different projects keeps them motivated. They will continue to practice applying the concepts at their level.
Please give us at least 48 hours to collect the progress reports from our instructors. We will email it to you.
Course Enrollment
Discover Coding has multiple levelled programs to challenge and grow with your student. We focus on computer science, computational thinking, and problem-solving with technology. We avoid generic, follow-along lessons, but instead believe in hands-on discovery-based learning and experimentation, so that your child creates their projects they can call their own, and not the result of a following a fixed tutorial.
There are hundreds of different programming languages, so we teach the building blocks that can be used for any other language as they become more advanced.
We teach coding concepts such as:
- Decomposition: taking complex problems and breaking them into smaller steps.
- Abstraction: turning specific problems into generic ideas.
- Algorithms: creating a sequence of instructions to solve a problem.
- Pattern recognition: identifying common properties in data
- Data representation: how to organize and analyze data
- Problem solving strategies
These concepts and skills can be used in many programming languages.
Our goal for our learners is to:
- Develop confidence in problem solving
- Be creative
- Collaborate
- Be empowered
- Have fun!
Our program descriptions can be found here, here’s a quick summary:
Code Discoverers is for our youngest students to introduce them to solve problems using logic with a variety of games, tools, and programming activities.
Code Explorers is our entry point for students age 8 to 12. They learn to plan programs with flowcharts, and create amazingly cool games and projects on their own. We want our students to DISCOVER CODING for themselves – we do NOT just give them code to copy. Students may take this program multiple times to ensure they have a solid based before moving to more complex programs.
Code Builders is for students who have successfully completed Code Explorers and understand all types of Scratch blocks. Students will be able to tackle more complex problems and build more advanced programs.
If you are still uncertain which program your child should attend, please contact us and we can help you determine.
Coding requires thinking about many different ideas, including the complex rules on how to type out a program (its syntax). We use Scratch® so students can focus on coding concepts instead of worrying about typing. We also use “unplugged” activities to keep students engaged without a screen.
Students with a mastery of Scratch and exposure to Python should start at our Python Discoverers course.
The founders and lead instructors at Discover Coding are passionate educators and technologists. More information about their background and profile can be found here. All of our instructors are thoroughly vetted for teaching qualifications, technology knowledge, and enthusiasm for working with young coders.
If you need to cancel or change your registration, please simply notify us by email at contact@discovercoding.ca. A full refund will be issued if changes/cancellations are requested at least 14 days prior to the start of the course. Requests with less than 14 days notice may be transferred to another student.
Visit our course catalog to find a class that fits your student, and then follow the instructions to create an account, submit student information, and make a payment by credit card. Our instructors will send out an email with any additional details closer to the date of the class.
Yes, absolutely! Connections to our website are encrypted and authenticated using a strong protocol (TLS 1.2), a strong key exchange (ECDHE_RSA with P-256), and a strong cipher (AES_128_GCM). Our registration system uses best-in-class security tools and practices to maintain PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) audited certifications. Full details of the security and privacy policy can be found here. We DO NOT COLLECT, PROCESS, OR STORE your credit card and billing information.
