Camp K12 (start-ups sspecializing in educational technologies) aims to train the next generation in the creation of universes in augmented or virtual reality. At a time when sectors are investing in the metaverse, Nike with Nike Land, McDonald’s which intends to open its restaurants in the metaversethe army that is getting started, every sector seems to want to participate, including the one that interests us here: education.
Hatch Kids is a school metaverse designed to train kids ages 5-18 to create content AR/VR, paving the way for a next generation of creators. Although we are enthusiastic about training budding developers, the minimum age requirement seems somewhat exaggerated to us. A 5-year-old child will not have the cognitive abilities to create maps as well as a loop of gameplay solid, at least alone. He must be accompanied by an adult throughout the process, thus not allowing him to gain autonomy. Being autonomous and “learning to learn” are the cornerstones of any self-respecting programming. The risk with such an approach is quite simply to make the child dependent on the adult to carry out such and such a task, with a notion of permanent help and not a request for occasional help, which cannot be avoided. exercise until much later with a well-defined age (about 9 years old).
Hatch Kids therefore allows young learners, via a program called Hatch XR, to access design tools. Design, code and play: here are the 3 constituent pillars of the program. Importantly, the child has no no need to learn to master lines of code to make the elements on the screen interact: everything is done using visual programming (ex : scratch). In other words, you assemble blocks to perform this or that action on your environment.
The child is also not left in the wild, video and interactive tutorials (in English) allow him to appropriate the various tools made available to him. The kids can distribute their projects through a simple QR Code to flash and can create an account so that their games are saved automatically in the clouds. At last, schools with aging computer parks can use Hatch XR without the slightest concern, the technology (Open XR) not being very greedy, because it was designed to work on smartphones and VR headsets.
If visual programming has been around for a long time, it is often associated with animation, robotic programming or even the creation of 2D video games. The fact that our dear blond, dark or red heads can designing 3D worlds using programming blocks is a first ! It may also appeal to anyone who associates 2D with something old and dusty, and who asks to simulate 3D worlds, as they are used to through the exploration of sand box to the Roblox.
Anshul Bhag, CEO of Camp K12said in this regard:
There are over 100 million child coders today who use a variety of free coding platforms to learn to code by creating games and apps. These platforms are incredibly efficient and paved the way for the kids coding movement in 2007, but the vast majority of them are limited to creating 2D projects, designed for the era of smartphones and flat screens.
As technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality become more mainstream, we need to upgrade the tools children learn on, so educators can teach in ways that fit today’s content formats. We designed Hatch as a kids’ coding platform for the age of the metaverse.
Hatch kids is present in 25 countries including the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and India (France is probably not yet included in the system). Children have access to it through schools and educational and technological partners. And it is in India in particular that this program is experiencing dazzling growth, in particular thanks to the impetus of the Delhi government on programming and the effective partnership with code.orgwhich through the workshop Hour of Code attracts an ever-growing young audience.
And you? What do you think ? Simple opportunistic buzz or real educational added value? Do not hesitate to share your opinion with us in comments.
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