Easy and Fun Way to Learn How to Code
Community Review for Code.org
My Take
I really enjoy using Code.org and I know my students do too. The website comes up with different themes every year based on what is popular with the kids. The videos that come with each level feature popular folks from all walks of life from actors to athletes to real programmers and even the president. I really like that it allows teachers to create their own classes which allow them to track the progress of their students. If I notice that a particular stage was difficult for the students, I could easily address it by looking at the progress. The teachers also have access to the solutions so that they can help their students with really challenging stages. For each course, there is also offline curriculum available to prepare students for the online tasks. I can't imagine starting a coding class with anything but Code.org.
How I Use It
When I first approached about teaching a coding class, I didn't know what to do. Thankfully, I found Code.org. I started my coding class with the curriculum available on the site. The site has so many different options to help kids learn how to code. Being able to use Blockly to program characters from popular games made it very fun for the students. As the students started to gain expertise on the code, the level of difficulty also increased with each stage and task. Students were able to work at their own pace and program with peers if they had trouble passing a level.