Speaking in Code

by Koren Wetmore

Category: Alumni

Gretchen LeGrand, M.S. ’10

The idea came to 6-year-old Justice while walking the family dog: Wouldn’t it be cool to have a computer app that pulls together matching outfits from the contents of your wardrobe?

“First, you need to take pictures of all of your clothes, then you need an algorithm that finds matches so you don’t have to do it yourself,” she explained to her mother, Gretchen LeGrand, M.S. ’10, who just happened to know how to bring the idea to life.

Justice’s idea is no mere child’s fantasy; the app is now being developed by LeGrand and her daughter, who has been learning to code since last year.

LeGrand is the executive director of Code in the Schools, a local nonprofit—co-founded with her husband, Mike, a game developer—that teaches computer science to underserved and underrepresented kids from pre-kindergarten through high school.

“Kids have no preconceived notion about how things are supposed to be done, so they just try things until they get it,” LeGrand says. “As soon as they know how to use a tool, they start making stuff, solving problems and creating algorithms.”

It’s a scenario she’s seen countless times in classrooms across Baltimore since launching the organization in 2013 in response to parallel gaps the LeGrands noted in the job and education sectors. Employers need workers with coding skills, but few schools offer the kind of training that allows kids even to consider computer science as a career option. As a result, the industry lacks skilled workers.

What’s more, LeGrand says, “Women and minorities are hugely underrepresented.

“One of the biggest reasons for this is that computer science is not taught in the primary and secondary grades,” she continues. “So you’re not likely to be exposed to [it] unless a family member or someone in the industry introduces you to it.”

“We want to see [computer science] taught to every student and … help increase the industry’s diversity.”

The daughter of a network engineer, LeGrand grew up around information technology and, with her dad’s help, built her own computer prior to college. Later, Mike inspired her to learn how to code, and together they created video games for fun.

Now, LeGrand’s approach to teaching coding includes games, hands-on projects and coding blocks—drag-and-drop instructions that allow students to develop basic algorithms before having to write actual code.

Through partnerships with schools, libraries and recreation centers, LeGrand and her fellow instructors have established programs at 15 sites across Baltimore.

“We want to see [computer science] taught to every student and … help increase the industry’s diversity,” she says. “Most of all, we hope to see more of Baltimore’s youth employed in these awesome jobs.”