One of our four children became interested in coding. Since we our children decide what they want to learn (along with the three R’s: reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic), we looked for computer coding lessons. Naturally, we hoped to find them for free. And we did! We found free computer science, coding, programming courses for free!
Code.org filled our requirements:
- easy to self-learn (ie. I didn’t want to teach it)
- progresses through the skills (he can keep learning harder concepts)
- inexpensive (it’s free!)
- he can pick up where he left off (stopping and starting is possible)
How a Student will Access the Free Computer Science Curriculum:
An account is not needed; your student may just dive right in! But if you’d like to save her progress, you’ll have your student create an account with Code.org. Your student will access Code.org through the Learn page.
How a Teacher Can Keep Up:
There are teacher guides and other helps for teachers at the Code.org Teach page. You can browse by grade or look through the entire computer course catalog.
Want to learn Computer Science for Only One Hour?
Hour of Code was created to introduce students to computer coding. In just one hour, your student may work through coding projects such as: Minecraft, creating an app, or coding with Star Wars or Frozen characters.
Our teenage coder suggests Hour of Code as a great place to begin. Check out the Hour of Code selections here, and look at the other Hour of Code activities here.
Khan Academy also has an Hour of Code, made up of videos. They offer:
- Javascript in the Hour of Drawing with Code program
- HTML/CSS in the Hour of Webpages program
- SQL in the Hour of Databases program
Each of these programs is free!
Other Places to Learn Computer Science
I highlighted a free beginner-level college course Intro to Computer Programming. At the bottom of that post, I linked to several other choices (or look at the computer category for the full list).
Leave a Reply