FOUR entertainment personalities were part of a private coding session held during Computer Science Education Week 2017 at the offices of Esirom on West Kings House Road in St Andrew recently.

The session was part of Seprod Foundation’s annual Hour of Code initiative. The occasion was sponsored by the foundation, with training provided by Halls of Learning, an educational services company.

Protoje, DJ Bambino, Emprezz Golding, and Ingrid Riley had lessons in coding using the Swift Playgrounds app from Halls of Learning, each of which was recorded and placed on Seprod Foundation’s social media platforms.

Coding is creating a set of instructions for the computer to follow by entering commands. Most games, apps and software are created by coding.

“Any skill outside of the norm is good. Something like this that makes stuff happen is extremely useful for people to understand that technology is rapidly moving forward. We don’t want our Jamaican youngsters to get left behind when they are ready for high school or university. So this is a good initiative, as the youth need different ways to learn. Coding requires reading and understanding, so learning can be achieved through coding. Unfortunately, some people don’t follow instructions, but it is an essential part of learning,” said Protoje.

DJ Bambino shared his take on the session.

“In today’s world coding is the operational force behind all the machinery we use in our industry. So, it is important for somebody to do it right, so when I go to access my playlist on my laptop, all the songs are in the correct order,” said Bambino.

Hour of Code is an international project introduced by code.org, a non-profit dedicated to expanding access to computer science and increasing participation by women and under-represented minorities. Code.org’s vision is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science, just like biology, chemistry and algebra.

Recently, the Seprod Foundation and Halls of Learning, gave free one-hour lessons to a total of 400 students at five primarily schools in Kingston.