REVIEW: Kidcoder Web Series

My kids are amazingly tech-savvy. I shouldn't be surprised, since their father is a computer networking guru. I am not all that tech-savvy; I can use applications, and as long as they work as expected, everything is fine. As soon as something goes wrong, though, I call my in-house tech support.

Since I'm not able to teach much about computer stuff beyond the basics, I've been thrilled to see more and more homeschool-targeted resources becoming available, and I jumped at the chance to review Kidcoder Web Series from Homeschool Programming.

For the purpose of the review, I received an electronic copy of the Kidcoder: Beginning Web Design which included the student book and an installer program, which gave us all the pertinent documents. The program normally ships as a printed textbook and CD.

The KidCoder Web Series is a brand new product, released in May 2013. At the time of this review, only the first semester, Kidcoder: Beginning Web Design is available, but the second semester, Kidcoder: Advanced Web Design will be available in August. The Beginning program covers the basics of HTML, XHTML, and CSS. It's intended for students from 4th grade on through 12th grade with an interest in learning to build a website. It's expected that students will know the basics of using a computer; they should be able to select and open applications, use menus, and navigate the files on their computer (Windows Explorer on a PC; Finder on a Mac). They should have some experience with a text editor and an internet browser. The program uses software that comes free with your computer's operating system: TextEdit (Mac) or Notepad (PC) as a text editor, and Preview/iPhoto (Mac) or MS Paint (PC) for some photo editing. You do not have to purchase any special software to use this program.

Here is what my husband, our guest techie, had to say about Kidcoder: Beginning Web Design:                                                  

"We received the The KidCoder web design course electronically. The student book is a PDF, which worked beautifully for our family, as it went onto iPads and allowed for convenient access. There were included installers for Mac or Windows that would install the "Student Menu" and/or the "Solutions Menu" onto the computer; we have a laptop for the girls to use. The Student package includes all the html snippets to support the instructions in the book. These snippets were very helpful, saving typing and preventing a potentially large number of typos. The Solutions package contains some tests and answer keys, as well as solutions to the extra activities encouraged at the end of each chapter. Also included is the Solution Guide which helps get the teacher up to speed with the program and gives some very helpful hints.

We recently went through a different programming curriculum with the girls, and this was a good follow-up to that experience. I worked through the book with the girls, slowly building a "Raptors" website as we progressed through the class. The instruction style in the book is to fully explain a concept and show examples, and then have a closing activity for each section to put what was learned to use. This reinforced the concepts that were presented, and I was very pleased at the speed at which things were explained. There was a logical progression of the building blocks of HTML. It was even good for some of us who once dealt with HTML but have been away from it for a while. I learned that some of my old HTML tricks *might* work, but there is a correct, standard way. For example, I used to use "br" in arrow brackets for a line break; now, standard practice is to type it as a closed tag. Who knew?

For good reason, the program did not explain all versions of HTML, but stuck to HTML4, XHTML and HTML5, and was careful to point out what would work, versus a best practice to make sure your HTML would continue to function moving forward. And to prove you can teach old dogs new tricks I got to learn about CSS style sheets! I had seen them before, but never took the time to learn them. Now I have.

The girls were able to do most of their work on their own, or get help from each other. A little to my surprise, the eldest seemed to grasp the concepts more quickly, and helped the younger one out. This was the exact opposite of the Logo experience, so obviously the artistic part of HTML caught the interest of the elder daughter. Yeah! The use of a single example website, and continuing to add functionality and styling to it through out the class was helped with the continuity. The girls built each new lesson on previous work, which kept the concepts fresh in their minds, and sometimes required them to review a previous chapter. I found this class to be a very good basic intro into HTML. It can seem slow at times, but the in depth explanations do help in the long run!

************************** 

 

I decided to work through the program myself, because I learned some very basic HTML about 14 years ago, but haven't worked with it much since. There have been... a few changes. As Todd mentioned above, I learned the same tag for a line break he did, but now, the standard requires all tags to be closed. I also learned that all tags must be typed in lower case letters; I learned to type them in all caps, because it set them apart from the rest of the text in your HTML document. I thought that change was a serious bummer, actually.

The one thing I found difficult is there is a LOT of reading for this class. A 4th grade student would have to be very motivated, in my opinion, to read this much material. If I were working with a student that young, I would probably read it with them, and break it into small chunks. I learned a lot of great information: a little history of how the internet developed, how websites work, why it's good to know markup language rather than relying on design programs, etc. I breezed through the first 6 lessons, but when I got to chapter 7, we started digging into CSS, and I got very, very lost. I could not figure out what I was doing to save my life, so I didn't get any farther with my Raptors website. Just recently, the lovely folks at Homeschool Programming made the Instructional Videos available to reviewers, although they will not be ready for purchase until August - I found those to be extremely helpful, although I ran out of time to work on my website. I'm an audio-visual learner, and much prefer to learn while doing something. I would have liked more active things to do along the way, I think.

Conversely, my older daughter *loves* to read and did very well with reading the student book and doing the exercises at the end of each chapter. My younger girl is normally the more logical, programming-minded child, but she really doesn't like to read to learn. She ended up getting quite a lot of help from her sister, and was angry about that - she's used to being the one to give assistance.

Overall, I'm thrilled that my girls are learning how to build websites. I don't know that they will design web pages for a living, but you just never know when you might need to set up a website for something. Emma has a passion for photography; maybe she will create a website about that! Abbie is working on selling some scarves she's knitted, and now she could set up a site to showcase them. Also, I love the logical thinking that comes from learning things like this. I will not tell you how disastrous my college computer programming experience was, but let's just say it is not an area in which I excel. It's important for the girls to stretch their brains like this. (Well, I know it stretched my brain. They seemed to be having a good time.)

Quote from Lesson One: "Working on web sites can be a lot of fun, but it can get very frustrating if you are not organized." Why, yes, it can! I know that my struggles with this program came entirely from my own lack of patience and attention to detail. I need to slow down and go back over some of the material; everything I need to know *is* in the book. Also, they offer free, personalized technical support for their customers; why I didn't take advantage of that, I don't know! I know I need to learn more about current HTML standards and CSS; it would be so helpful with my blog.

Kidcoder: Beginning Web Design is available from Homeschool Programming for $70.00. The videos will be available in August, for $20 when ordered separately from the main program, or a package price of $85 for both. Right now, through July 31st, you can use the coupon code HSB4015 to save $15 off any KidCoder or TeenCoder courses. 

Homeschool Programming offers many different products. Click to read more reviews from the Schoolhouse Crew, on KidCoder: Beginning Web Design as well as several other courses!

REVIEW - Logo Adventures from Motherboard Books

Have you ever taken a computer programming class? I did once, in college. I had no idea what I was doing. It was not one of my more stellar moments, I confess.

When the opportunity arose through the Schoolhouse Crew to review Logo Adventures from Motherboard Books, I was intrigued - and a little anxious. I certainly did not feel qualified to teach any kind of programming. However, Phyllis Wheeler, the author of the program, is not only a mechanical engineer with programming experience, she is a fellow homeschool mom. She has developed products to fill a need for homeschoolers looking for computer curriculum. She made sure they were accessible to parents who might not have extensive (or any) background in computers.

Here is a great thing: when I received my copy of Logo Adventures, I found that it is written so students can work independently! Also, I have a computer-savvy husband, so he has been the teacher for the material these past few weeks. Here is what he had to say:

**************************

I was excited to have the opportunity to work with my girls on learning the basic skills of computer programming. I learned BASIC long ago on an Apple ][+, and have used those skills many times over in school and my job. I had never heard or used Logo before, so I was learning too!

Installing the included MicroWorlds EX Logo environment was smooth, and we were up and running quickly. It runs on Mac or Windows so everyone can enjoy the fun.

Logo Adventures does a great job of introducing Logo to new users. Logo is a neat first programming language due to the instant graphical feedback. It takes the concepts of programming, including sub-routines and if/then statements, and brings them to a graphical media that is fun to observe. The Logo interpreter provides instant feedback to the issued commands, making the language easy to learn and use.

The first few lessons went quickly, as the girls easily picked up the basics of Logo. The mix of graphics with the programming really kept the interest of both girls through the introduction. Also, the some of the well-placed questions in the lessons would lead them to some really cool patterns, which would then lead them to experiment further.

Here are some screen shots of the work they did:  

Abbie's practice drawing a triangle, with some variations:

My eldest likes to be colorful:

Each lesson was progressively more difficult. There are a couple of projects, each a couple of chapters long, completing the book. We did not finish the projects before this review, but I will certainly be continuing this until we do get through them.

Logo Adventures teaches the basics of computer programming, and introduces the logic needed to be successful at it. I have found the lessons enjoyable myself, and the girls have found them fun and challenging. There were days where the "Logo Laptop" was very heavily used at the expense of other subjects, to the dismay of my wife, who would have liked to see a little more work in some of their other subjects.

**************************

Well, there you have it - a review from someone who knows about computer programming! My girls really do enjoy working in Logo. It was hard to get them off the computer sometimes, and on to other things. My older girl is somewhat averse to anything that makes her think through things carefully, which Logo did - but she kept with it. I know what a difficult time I had with a very basic computer programming experience when I was in college, so I am thrilled that the girls have had this introduction. I believe it will ease their way into any other programming skills they decide to learn later on, because now they know they CAN do it and it's not excessively difficult. Also, they enjoyed it, which is not something I can say about my own programming experience. They were excited to share their work with their dad and me, and that means a lot.

The details:

Logo Adventures come as a spiral-bound book with the answer key in the back. We were instructed to tear out the answer before giving the book to the girls. Obviously, Ms. Wheeler has met my oldest child. :-) The book also comes with the MicroWorlds EX installation CD, which installed easily onto the little Apple laptop the girls used, as Todd mentioned above. The system requirements are Windows XP/Vista/7/8, and Mac OS X Version 10.4 or higher. 

This program is available from Motherboard Books for $129.99. It's intended for children ages 8-12, and works well for younger children because there are no variables used; however, my 13 year old daughter was engaged and challenged by the lessons, so if you have older children who've never been exposed to programming, I think it's a nice intro for them too. It's also an excellent introduction to reasoning, and is another reason I was excited to review the product. I didn't tell the girls they were going to learn good reasoning skills; they were excited to be doing something fun and connecting with their dad.

My family really enjoyed using Logo Adventures. If you're looking for computer programming curriculum that's easy to teach and fun for the students, look no further!

Click here to read more reviews from the Schoolhouse Crew!