Learn2Code wins Rep. Elaine Luria’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in Virginia’s Second District

When asked what inspired the creation of Learn2Code, the student said, ”I first learned to program in my 7th grade keyboarding through a Microsoft website called TouchDevelop. It provided step by step guides to programming games, in a language very similar to JavaScript if I remember correctly. Because I was told exactly what to do, I was able to create games easily while understanding how they worked, and that inspired me to start writing my own programs in their editor. Unfortunately, Microsoft replaced this website with a block programming website, and block coding, although useful for learning how basic programming logic works, is not effective at teaching real world languages in my opinion. The main problem is the fact that learners have no reason to switch to other languages after learning to block code. This was a problem with TouchDevelop as well, because they provided many libraries and shortcuts that would not be found in real code. The long term benefits of learning an actual language are traded for the short term benefits of simplicity. Learn2Code attempts to solve this problem by starting the user with real world HTML, JavaScript and CSS and telling them exactly what to write, in order to keep things simple. Gradually, they will begin to understand what they are writing and become inspired to write code themselves, or that is the intention at least.”