Structure.
Our students are grouped into classes, with their peers, by there experience and their ability to absorb computer science principles. Students who would benefit from more visual aids and less typing will find the Junior Developer Track appealing. Students, with prior coding experience or who are curious about the power of tradition Java programing will match well with the Senior Developer Track. Many students will also enjoy the Developer Track; which tries to strike a balance between visual programing and traditional software development techniques. All of our developer tracks make use of the following development tools: Scratch, CodePen, PlayCanvas and the Java syntax. The difference between the our developer tracks are defined by the amount of time spent in each of these development environments. The graphs below illustrate the relative emphasis applied to each development environment for a given developer tack.
Junior Developer Track
This track focuses on the Scratch visual programming tool to illustrate fundamental software engineering concepts. Students will make games and interactive content by adding and adjusting logical blocks in the young-user-friendly Scratch interface. Students in this track will also be exposed to web development, 3d game authoring tools as well as the Java language syntax.
Developer Track
Although this track starts with some Scratch projects, it then transitions to focus on CodePen, for web development, and PlayCanvas, for 3D game development. Unlike the Scratch tool’s kid-friendly drag-and-drop interface, CodePen and PlayCanvas rely on a more traditional text-based keyboard coding environment. Students in this track will also be exposed to the Java language syntax.
Senior Developer Track
This track is similar to the Developer Track. It relies on CodePen, for web development, and PlayCanvas, for 3D game development. However, this track focuses a lot less on Scratch in exchange for more emphasis on the Java language syntax. Students who are independently motivated and/or who have had prior coding experience will thrive in this track.
