Community reviews for CodeMonkey

I love the lessons that I can teach the kids! I can see who is going ahead and who is behind. I can stop them if they are getting too far ahead! It makes life easier for the teacher and the kids. There are lots of add ons and this is also part of hour of code.

This is a great learning tool for students interested in coding or wanting to see if the coding field is something that would interest them. It gives them the basic tools and can allow them go deeper if they wish to do so.

I liked it. I think if you were to do this lesson with a young group of students, it would help them to find if they like this type of work and would prepare them for when they are older and decide to take a computer programming class in high school. Set up was easy and the students were engaged.

I love the gap that CodeMonkey fills between block and scripted coding. It allows students to begin with blocks and see how those translate into scripted commands. However, I cannot depend on it because of the price-point. With all of the free options out there, I just keep looking, hoping to find an equivalent, while still understanding the need for paid products. I love that they offer a free trial, though. Thanks, CodeMonkey, for giving me a taste of something great!

Code Monkey is fun. I love how it helps children learn the basic concepts of coding. The work mat area is great. Code monkey makes it easy for the younger kids that are learning how to read or my struggling readers to still be successful in building codes. It's fun watching kids pretend they are the monkey so they know which direction to move. I like that the levels build up in difficulty. For teachers the site provides lesson plans and the codes. Support has always answered me as well. Twitter is another fun way to stay connected to others using Code Monkey. If they had an option in the future where the directions were read aloud, that would be great. After I introduce kids to this site, they revisit it on their own and at home. Overall, I love integrating Code Monkey into my schools.

Overall this is a great product and addition to the coding for kids sites that are being create and released. I like that it uses more than just drag and drop programming for the students, showing them that spelling and syntax matter in coding just like in writing.

Since I use a number of coding games and activities with my programming-shy students, I can compare CodeMonkey to those other experiences. What I like best about CodeMonkey is its engagement level, fun graphics and music, and most importantly the realistic coding students do in a text-based editor. They can also use shortcut buttons to fill in pieces of the code they've learned. This means students can choose to use the buttons or type, whichever is preferable for each student. Once I got the kids started, they didn't really need me much anymore. They taught themselves, and the game-like quality made them willing to take risks and persevere. I challenged them to always earn all the possible stars, which sometimes meant they had to try multiple times, but it also meant they achieved great satisfaction from their accomplishments. When they did ask me for help, I was able to drop hints, for example, suggesting "moon walking" when they had not thought of having a monkey walk backwards rather than take extra steps to turn around and walk forward.