Ennovar, a program specializing in hands-on technology, is advancing how Innovation Campus operates.

It launched a coding academy at the start of this year.

“We show them how to build basic websites,” web developer Christian Taylor said.  

Taylor is not an instructor nor a student at WSU. He is a web developer in the Wichita area hired by the program director at Ennovar to teach.

“Design is my background,” said Garrett Fresh, a student in the coding class. Fresh is a Shocker alumnus and associate creative and design director at Brothers and Company. “I’m here learning a little bit about what my team does,” Fresh said.

According to the program’s Web page, the new coding academy teaches people of all skill levels the basics of software coding and expands the student’s technology ability.  

Instruction within the class covers HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Version Control with Git, the Bootstrap CSS Framework, jQuery JavaScript Framework and Meteor.js.

“The demand of developers is just going to grow,” Taylor said. “(Coding) is the new literacy now.”

Students do not get academic credit for the coding class, but many have still found the course worth their money to take.

Senior Simon Nguyen is a management information systems major at WSU and said he signed up for the Ennovar classes because WSU doesn’t have a class like it.

“You can be pretty creative,” Nguyen said. “There is no ceiling on it.”

Taylor said the goal of this class is to give students the skills to qualify for a junior developer position. He also said none of the students have coding experience when they start the class.

The class lasts eight weeks and meets for four hours each Saturday.  During the class, the instructor shows the students how to build a specific aspect of a Web page. This last week, students learned how to position boarders, text and headers within a webpage.

Taylor said most of their work is done at home. He shows them how to do it, whatever “it” is for the first time. Then, they go home and practice building multiple pages.

“Pretty much any field is looking for people who know how to design websites,” said Caroline Ragatz, Andale High School senior. “It’ll just be an extra skill to add to my resume.”

Taylor said this is the second course that Ennovar has offered, and they already have a waiting list with more than 40 people on it.

Ennovar classes are open for registration to anyone in the Wichita area. The next class is at capacity but to learn more or to be put on the waiting list, visit www.wichita.edu/Ennovar.