On January 23, the “China Collegiate WeChat Application Education Alliance”, jointly launched by the Advisory Committee of Software Engineering Specialty in Higher Education of the Ministry of Education and Advisory Committee of Computer Specialty in Higher Education of the Ministry of Education, Tencent WeChat, and the Online Education Research Center of the Ministry of Education, was officially established in Beijing. Ten directors including Tsinghua University, Peking University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Zhejiang University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology participated in the launching ceremony. The alliance aims to meet the requirements of computer software engineering talents training in the new economic period. With WeChat open platform and application development technology as the carrier, it carries out school-enterprise cooperation to build curriculum and develop tutorials, build laboratories and training bases, cooperate to cultivate training teachers and carry out research etc. It establishes a campus WeChat technology environment to support collegiate students’ innovation and entrepreneurship training, deepen the professional connotation and teaching reform of new engineering construction, and promote the close combination of talent cultivation and industrial demand.
“Cultivation of young developers is just to create the future.” WeChat team said, “Mini program is a long-term product business form of Tencent, and young developers are the backbone of the popularity of mini program in the future. Nowadays, young developers begin to pay attention to the mini program ecology, so we shall give support and expect them to really join in the team of mini program developers.”
“Talent training must keep up with the pace of the times. Driven by new engineering construction, we must think about how to change the traditional education method so that education in the field of information technology can be lifted to a higher level.” Sun Jiaguang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, founder of software engineering discipline and also Chairman of the Alliance, pointed out that, “One-third of college graduates each year are students majoring in information science. WeChat applies good models and concepts to higher education, which is of great significance to the cultivation of talents in colleges and universities.”
With the official establishment of the Alliance, the mini program ecology will also officially enter Chinese colleges and universities and more young mini program developers and high-quality mini programs will emerge in teaching reform + offline contest. College mini-program education will officially open the era with mini program as the emerging Internet ecology, which has already attracted the attention of young developers. According to official data released by WeChat, among developers of mini programs, developers under the age of 20 accounted for 5.5%. In order to better help young developers to give full play to their creativity, next, China Collegiate WeChat Application Alliance will further develop college education of mini programs from six aspects, respectively curriculum design, online curriculum, innovation training, practical contest, teacher training and scientific research support, break through the traditional teaching model, and help the development and education of mini program included in the teaching program of colleges and universities.
Curriculum design is the foundation of learning. The Alliance will provide the teaching contents of basic technology and application development of mini programs in more than 800 member schools of college alliance. The official of the mini program will offer technical guidance and training resources, and the school and the enterprise will jointly build practice bases to let students understand the complete mini program development ecosystem and consolidate their theoretical foundation for mini program development.
Meanwhile, with Tencent Classroom, School Online, Chinese University MOOC and other MOOC platforms as the core, the Alliance encourages teachers to develop high-quality original online curriculum around WeChat official platforms and mini programs, so that college students can continue to deepen their learning outside the classroom and gain a deeper understanding of knowledge related to mini program development.
In addition to opening up the online and offline innovative teaching model, the China Collegiate WeChat Application Alliance will also promote learning with contest in a form of practical contest. From March of this year, Tencent business group will organize mini program development contest jointly with the Ministry of Education, allowing students to carry out innovative development and design based on the application scenarios of mini programs. Winners will receive not only funds and honors, but also internship opportunities and green channel for recruitment.
In order to better encourage mini program collegiate development ecology, innovative training, teacher training, scientific research support and other projects will also be carried out simultaneously.
Since its launch, mini programs have covered all walks of life, and the developer ecology of mini programs has become more and more prosperous. According to the official data released by WeChat, the number of active users of mini programs reached 170 million, and 580,000 mini programs have been launched, covering 1 million developers and 2,300 third-party platforms. Calculated by the ratio of 5.5%, the number of mini program developers under the age of 20 has reached 55,000. As a new force in the field of computer, college students have great potential for prospering mini program developers’ ecology.
At present, Tencent WeChat has provided developers with a variety of ecologies, including WeChat open class, WeChat developer training class, online community and offline industry forums and salons, as well as channels for close communication and training for developers. This time, WeChat, together with the Ministry of Education, jointly established the China Collegiate WeChat Application Education Alliance. From the perspective of collegiate education, it provides a mini program learning platform for collegiate developers, and at the same time, injects new strength into the mini program developers’ ecology.
Online curriculum provides online tutorials and mini program development contest provides practical exercises. The China Collegiate WeChat Application Alliance will further promote the integration of collegiate computer education with emerging computer technologies. As more and more student developers join in the developer team of mini programs, an emerging developer ecosystem is forming.