In the past, I have posted about some options for kids that are available to help them learn about programming: Â Codecademy and the iOS apps Cargo-Bot and Daisy the Dinosaur. Â I also briefly mentioned Gamestar Mechanic in one of my posts. Â Many of my 5th graders have been using Gamestar Mechanic, which you can find here, during their Genius Hour time. Â Another option would be programming robots, such as in the Lego Mindstorms program.
Since October, I have co-sponsored a “Code Academy” after school club, using the after-school program from Codecademy that I had read about earlier that year. Â It has definitely had its ups and downs. Â The Pros are: Â it is a very in-depth program that teaches web design and Java, it keeps track of your progress, and it offers badges when you reach certain benchmarks. Â The Cons are: Â it is not compatible with Internet Explorer (which keeps becoming the default browser on our lab computers despite all of my attempts to change it to Chrome), it sometimes does not explain a lesson well, students must provide an e-mail to create an account, and some of the lessons are very wordy (we have 3rd-5th graders in the club, and some of it is a bit difficult for the 3rd graders to comprehend).
For today’s meeting, I gave the students the option of continuing with Codecademy, or to try a new site called Code Monster that I had learned about from Richard Byrne’s blog. Â Once the students heard the word, “Monster”, I think they were sold. Â By the end of our club meeting, nearly every student in the club had switched to Code Monster.
Here are the Pros of Code Monster: visually attractive to kids, minimal words to teach each lesson, no login or email necessary. Â The Cons are: Â no tracking of progress and it also seems to be incompatible with IE (at least the version on our computers). Â The good news is that if you use the same computer each time you open Code Monster, you will return to the lesson where you stopped. Â You can also click on the link for “Lesson Sections” at the bottom of the page to choose a new lesson. Â I would emphasize to the students that they need to go in order, however, as the lessons build upon each other.
Code Monster seemed to work pretty well for our 3rd-5th graders. Â Crunchzilla also has a site called Code Maven, which is for teens and adults. Â I have not tried that one, yet.
I have embedded a TED video below, which is called “Let’s Teach Kids to Code.” Â Mitch Resnick is the speaker, and he is one of the creators of Scratch, another great (and free) option for learning how to program.
Kids learn so much from programming: logic, problem-solving, and persistence. Â It seems like there are more resources available every day – and you will find that the students are more than willing to try them.