Kids Code Volunteering

Earlier this month I had the opportunity to volunteer as in instructor for Tech Talent South's Kids Code class. I have now volunteered for two of the classes and it's amazing how scary 8-year olds can be with their parents in the background. All kidding aside, I was really happy with the experience and even more surprised what one can learn when teaching others. I know everyone says it, but teaching a lesson to others (no matter what degree of difficulty) really helps you better understand the material yourself.

In the class we went over very basic code practices beginning with HTML and working our way up to basic Ruby. The kids seemed to respond well to Mike (our other volunteer instructor) and myself, and even though the material was aimed at early beginners, I still found things to learn. For example, while showing kids how to add an image to a web page, I stumbled to remember the exact syntax to do so (thanks Sublime). I can see how relying too much on text editors, even for simple things like adding an image in html, can be bad when that job interview comes around and asks you to get on a white board. TL;DR Learning never stops :)

-John