Codecademy is a really popular tool used by reportedly 26 million students worldwide.

Courses are currently offered in 6 different languages: Python, PHP, jQuery, JavaScript, Ruby, and HTML & CSS. There are also courses available to learn different API’s. There are some nice courses under the Web Developer Skills section with real world scenarios and examples for creating something. After learning the 3 different sets of skills you should be able to create a website, make it interactive and store appropriate user data.

Codecademy is great for anyone looking to learn how to code or to upskill with a new programming language but they also have a dedicated area especially for education.

The schools version is available at http://www.codecademy.com/schools

There are 3 sections to the school area:

Teaching Resources  

Codecademy have worked with the Department for Education to create resources for teachers and students to provide schools what they need to teach computer science and coding. Teachers can use the free coding courses to get up to speed with different programming languages so they can feel more confident teaching. There are also lesson plans available for the new primary and secondary school curriculum. Pupil accounts can also be created, and their performance can be viewed.

 

 

 

DonorsChoose.org

Partnering with DonorsChoose.org Codecademy have created a 12 hour Javascript curriculum. In the U.S. for every student who completes the course a minimum of $100 of funding is provided to the school for use on technology resources in the classroom. This funding can be redeemed for technology resources such as tablets and 3D printers. At present this funding is U.S. only, but the course is available to anyone.

 

 

Hour of Code

The hour of code is an initiative by CSEdWeek and code.org. It teaches programming basics, and only takes an hour!

The course can be taken online here, or there’s an iOS app.

This could be a good way to get an introduction to coding and introduce it into your classroom.

 

Take a look at codecademy and see how it can help you.