The experimental program of coding school gains fruitful success in Taipei Tech

The instructors and members of the Coding 365.
The instructors and members of the Coding 365.

Under the initiation of the Digital Innovation Program implemented by the Ministry of Education, Taipei Tech started their first coding school, “Coding 365”, assembling fifty high school and university students interested in the programming and coding, and reached the final goal of finishing a software project. 

Taipei Tech Coding 365 is similar to École 42 in France in terms of learning patterns. The members, regardless of their expertise and backgrounds, gather to learn and do programming and coding. The course begins with the basic knowledge of Python and Scrum Project Management for the first two months and ends with a final project for the members. Despite having different backgrounds and specialties, the members, with their resilience and perseverance, have managed to learn new knowledge in class or by peer-to-peer learning. Within one year, the members are capable of designing some product-ready software which can be applied to many fields. 

Mou, one of the Coding 365 members, is the student of Song Shan Senior High School. His team developed the Super Solution, which can increase the resolution of an image. It can be broadly used on the monitor screenshot image, astrological or medical image. 

Liao from Taipei Tech, Cheng from NCHU and their team created an analyzing bot to improve the media literacy of readers with AI word cloud analysis on the contexts and meanings of news articles. It can be used for financial prediction and data collection. 

“The industries nowadays rely more heavily on programming and coding,” said Shih Hsuan Yang, Dean of Taipei Tech Academic Affairs. “But many young people might not know where to start with.”

Therefore, such coding school as the Coding 365 was set up to provide an innovative environment with free tuition and lodging and scholarship for students, adults, or the underprivileged. Under the supports, resources and appropriate policies from the MOE, everything becomes possible. 

“It is also a challenge for the instructors,” said Chao Hsien Lee, the project overseer of the Coding 365. “They have to come up with something new to motivate the members, young or old, artistic or scientific, to understand and keep learning, since the program does not confer credits or degrees.” Here he also expressed thanks to the coding-experienced members who proactively reached out to those new to it. 

“Our goal is to acquaint the students with mathematical and digital logic,” said Po Chun Huang, the co-overseer of the Coding 365. “We want our students – regardless of their majors, ages, and backgrounds – to do self and cross-disciplinary learning.” 

According to Huang, the art stream and science stream are completely set apart in the scenario of Taiwan education. The art students might never get to tap into what the science students are learning, and vice versa. If students, however, ever try to stand astride to the other stream, there must be countless possibilities for them well-prepared for the next slash generation.