Code Avengers

Challenging puzzles teach with real code; best for more advanced kids

Learning rating

Community rating

Based on 6 reviews

Privacy rating

Expert evaluation by Common Sense

Grades

6–12

Subjects & Skills

Character & SEL, Critical Thinking, Math

Great for

Coding

Price: Free to try
Platforms: Web

Pros: The lessons are consistently rigorous and relevant and provide many different support options.

Cons: Students may be put off by the limited graphics, text-based directions, and sheer difficulty of some lessons.

Bottom Line: A superb programming tutor, well worth the effort to keep students going.

Code Avengers is definitely geared toward independent work. Nevertheless, teachers should encourage students to work together, especially if they're stuck on a difficult challenge (or they may drive the teacher crazy asking for help!). Keep in mind that it's important to balance this peer support with opportunities for students to struggle individually from time to time. While students need to be team players in life, they also need to be able to solve problems independently -- consider this as you plan any Code Avengers units. 

Also, even for teachers with coding experience, before assigning any work here, it's best to go through some of the lessons to get a feel for the program's structure. As you help students along, it will be good to know where to click for the different types of built-in supports.

Code Avengers (a website and an Android app) includes a free trial and paid courses in Web Development (HTML & CSS), JavaScript, and Python. Within each course, levels are quite substantial: Every lesson includes written directions that students will need to follow in order to complete coding challenges. Courses are divided into Jr and Pro and cover the basics of computational thinking through design and data representation.

While coding here doesn't necessarily motivate with cute characters or a story line, most students will find themselves intrinsically motivated through success with actual coding, though kids are bound to like collecting the program's badges and points along the way. Also, unlike with many other beginner coding platforms, students will actually write real code. Between some lessons, students also get short (sometimes relevant) game breaks, including simple shooting, typing, and clicking games. Teachers can monitor student progress through the teacher tools that allow for differentiation.

Impressively, Code Avengers keeps students focused on syntax as they progress through lessons and debugging tasks. Code Avengers' focus here is what makes it stand out from other similar programs. The debugging and syntax focus (even within the games) forces students to think critically and gives them a very realistic programming experience.

However, this focus can also make the lessons quite challenging. Students will have to grapple with errors in lines of code and figure out what the issue is -- sometimes with limited support. Students who are used to quitting when the going gets tough will need some extra support from teachers. For many students, some active training to think differently may help them in completing some levels. Furthermore, the directions are mostly text-based, which could add an additional level of difficulty for struggling readers.

Learning Rating

Overall Rating
Engagement

Badges and points help to make the challenging lessons more rewarding, but they may not be enough for some students to persevere through some of the more difficult lessons.

Pedagogy

Students will learn an incredible amount about programming, as lessons build on each other and consistently focus on debugging and syntax. Unlike with some other tutorials, students will learn by writing real code.

Support

Students have access to a reference guide, feedback for wrong answers, and actual answers for when they're completely stuck. Courses are available in 10 languages. More multimedia supports would make nice additions.

Common Sense reviewer

Community Rating

I wanna be a Code Avenger

My students love it. I love it. I recommend to anyone teaching coding to high school students.

It was so successful that I had several of my advanced students teach themselves JavaScript and Python.

I would place this on the Modification level of SAMR because of the significant functional change to the task of writing a we page in coding when compared to Notepad or Notepad-plus-plus.

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Privacy Rating

Data Safety How safe is this product?

  • Unclear whether this product supports interactions between trusted users.
  • Personal information can be displayed publicly.
  • Unclear whether user-created content is filtered for personal information before being made publicly visible.

Data Rights What rights do I have to the data?

  • Users can create or upload content.
  • Processes to access or review user data are available.
  • Processes to modify data are available for authorized users.

Ads & Tracking Are there advertisements or tracking?

  • Unclear whether personal information are shared for third-party marketing.
  • Traditional or contextual advertisements are not displayed.
  • Personalised advertising is not displayed.

Continue reading about this tool's privacy practices, including data collection, sharing, and security.

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