ICT+Information

What if I want to learn to code? Where can I get started?

I'm sure there are other more comprehensive lists somewhere but I haven't found them...I recently updated this based on a bunch of tools recommended by Chris Betcher in his video at []. This video is from 2013 but at the end of 2016 it is still looking quite accurate.

In this list I am language agnostic, I am trying to simply list them very roughly in increasing order of difficulty. Coding concepts: Sequencing, branching, repetition
 * [|code.org] because this site has lots of excellent activities that need no preparation and work right down to around the K-2 age.
 * We love Code Studio Course 3 at https://studio.code.org/s/course3 for year 5/6 students
 * BeeBots - physical robots that are great for teaching sequencing, or the iPad app version of the same robots
 * Daisy the Dinosaur - an iPad app that is similar to the BeeBots concept
 * Kodable app which has a sequence of challenges and has additional coding concepts like branching and looping (also seen on code.org)
 * [|Scratch] - drag and drop code blocks with a lot of flexibility. Programming with Scratch can be quite sophisticated.
 * [|tynker.com] - Similar to Scratch, not free but with tools to monitor student progress
 * Hopscotch - similar block oriented programming, with access to accelerometer in iPad
 * Blockly - block oriented programming from Google
 * StarLogo - builds on the concept of Turtle Logo
 * Alice - create instruction sets to control 3D models
 * Kodu - a bit similar to Alice, from Microsoft
 * Game Salad introduces object-oriented programming
 * Android App Inventor if you have access to Android devices
 * Lego Mindstorms Robolab
 * [|codeacademy.com] - probably requires registration for an account to get the best use of this site, and it is a "[|freemium]" model.
 * [|w3schools.com] (excellent for reference and experimenting with HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and others)
 * [|Khan Academy]
 * Swift Playgrounds

In the non-free category, there are lots of inexpensive online courses you can enrol in, for instance, [|udemy.com] often has $10 courses.

In our Friday electronics and coding club, we are exploring some new technologies and need to make sure they will work in the school environment. We are using the Friday STEM page to collate questions and information.