Parents of school-aged children along with young adults and experienced professionals are increasingly recognizing that the ability to code is as essential to being marketable in today’s technical society as are the abilities to read and write. Since coding courses are not commonly offered as part of mainstream literacy learning in compulsory education and are typically only offered to students enrolled in IT curricula in higher education, alternative providers of coding training are cropping up around the world. Offerings range from private tutoring lessons to intensive coding boot camps lasting for many weeks. The author provided some anecdotal evidence regarding the effectiveness, in terms of student success, of several examples including John Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth, New York’s Flatiron School, Minnesota’s CoderDojo, and General Assembly. However, the extent to which a potential niche market exists for an e-commerce startup seeking to compete profitably in this space would need to be fully analyzed.
A long time CPA turned online professor, Kathleen’s life was transformed upon completion of her dissertation An Investigation of the Factors that Influence Faculty and Student Acceptance of Mobile Learning in Online Higher Education.
Her statistical analyses was called ”pioneering” by her committee chair Dr. Marlyn K. Littman and brought Kathleen full circle back to her number-crunching roots inspiring her to earn a second master’s in Business Intelligence.
Kathleen plans to continue her studies of contemporary issues related to teaching, learning, and technology and loves to help undergrad and grad students achieve their academic and professional goals. As a lifelong learner she also plans on continuing her quest to understand the problems posed by mobile and micro learning formats and find innovative ways of helping people maximize the benefits these emerging technologies afford.