4,300 German-Speaking Pupils Learn Programming - via MOOC

POTSDAM, Germany and BERLIN, September 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Pupils in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland are gaining increasing access to in-depth programming knowledge - as reflected in the first open, online course for pupils that has started on Monday (September 22). With already roughly 4,300 participants registered at https://open.hpi.de, the interactive educational platform of Hasso Plattner Institute, young people and adult Internet users can immerse themselves in the world of software for four weeks. The free, Internet course is titled, "The Fun Way to Learning Programming" ("Spielend programmieren lernen").

Federal Minister of Education and Research, Prof. Johanna Wanka praised the project: "Whoever wants to help shape the digital society must understand its programming language. This is a language that is gaining importance worldwide. It is crucial for Germany as a high-tech center and also supports a career in the field of mathematics, computer science, natural science and technology. I welcome Hasso Plattner Institute's new offer and am delighted that so many young people have already signed up to take part," Wanka said.

No special prior knowledge or software is required for the online course. "Pupils can program directly in their own browser and chat in the forum with other participants about their results," said HPI director Prof. Christoph Meinel. Participants see the result of their live programming on their monitor immediately upon entering the command. This is enabled by the high performance computers at Hasso Plattner Institute and Python, the programming language. Python is a language that can be learned and implemented quickly and is often used for Internet applications such as YouTube and Dropbox. The course will be taught by Prof. Martin von Löwis, one of the developers of Python.

Press contact: Hans-Joachim Allgaier, Spokesman, Tel.: +49(0)331-5509-119 or -175, Mail: presse@hpi.de.