My Take
I have been using codeSpark for the last year and a half at my school and at home with my kids (4 and 8 years old). Every time when there is an update, so many new tools and challenge. Great for critical thinking and introducing basic computer science concepts in a fun and educational way.
The cons of CodeSpark is the expensive PD courses for educators, it would be great to have at least a basic introduction course for free.
How I Use It
We use CodeSpark for our coding classes in the ICT lab. After doing a few unplugged lessons we move to coding with computers and then we introduce robots like Bee-Bot and spheros for more coding concepts. CodeSpark works excellent with young students (from 4 years old in our school).
More community reviews for codeSpark Academy
Mrs. T.
Forest Glen International Elementary School
Indianapolis, IN
May 26, 2020
codeSpark Academy is great for helping my students learn to code! But it displays the students' info publicly, so I had to create one account for my whole class. And it doesn't provide any further or more advanced learning. But my 2nd graders loved it!
I love the learning, but there could be more. When they learn a lot, they want to learn more!
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Mrs. N.
Propel Charter School - McKeesport (District)
Pittsburgh, PA
November 4, 2019
Love the lock/unlock app ability and individual student progress tracking.
I like the puzzles and coding. I wanted to use the digital storytelling portion more but it is not intuitive. One student had trees eating animals and people eating people.
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Nicole G.
Teacher
Macarthur K 8 Academy
Lathrup Village, MI
May 15, 2019
Fun, gamified learning of coding and computational thinking!
I have used this project with my kids and my students. I think it is a great tool to teach coding. One caveat: if you are using Codespark on Chromebooks or older desktops, it can take a while to load.
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