Coding is quickly becoming a digital foreign language, so learning the basic code at a young age will be a huge advantage for future generations. Ensure you have a clear understanding of what coding is and how it can help your classroom curriculum.
Learning how to code is essential for the future of our youth. More and more jobs are requiring more technical skills, even for careers that were non-technical before, like doctors. The problem with learning how to code is the steep learning curve, but it’s not impossible! It can be done by high school students through classes or online programs.
Code.org
Code.org is a non-profit company that aims to make programming a part of the mainstream education curriculum.
While the course catalog is primarily for K-12 school students, we find them suitable for beginners of any age. The teaching method mainly uses a block system where users can drag and drop code to the editing interface, which can be less overwhelming for newcomers.
We recommend starting with the grade 6-12 category as they come with introductory programming lessons.
Like Khan Academy, Code.org also has an Hour of Code – quick coding tutorials for building websites, apps, and games.
Codewars
Codewars is one of the most popular coding websites among developers. Run by a tech assessment company, this platform offers code challenges called kata to sharpen your programming skills.
What makes Codewars unique is its community engagement. Participants can see how they rank against other members, check what their peers’ answers look like, and create their own kata for others to try.
Moreover, participants can join discussions on GitHub or Discord platforms for live interaction.
To get started, users need to choose a language. Then Codewars will present them with a challenge to prove their skills and determine the difficulty level of their first challenge. As you progress through each kata, the assignments will get tougher.
Some programming languages you can learn are JavaScript, PHP, Java, C#, Python, Ruby, and SQL.
Udemy
Udemy is an online education portal with 130,000+ online courses. While most of them are paid, there are tons of free options as well.
The development category alone has 2,000+ classes, including programming languages, game development, data science, WordPress theme development, and more. Feel free to filter the options by duration, subtitles, course features, or subcategories.
With so many choices, it’s best to start with courses that have a high star rating and plenty of reviews. Also, check the instructor’s credentials and the number of students to see their reputability.
Note that with free online courses, you will only be able to watch the video content. Getting a certificate or interacting directly with the instructor won’t be possible.
Dash by General Assembly
Dash is a website developed by General Assembly, a coding bootcamp and digital learning platform. With this site, users can learn to code for free by creating basic online projects on their web browser.
No need for any programming experience to get started. Simply sign up with an email address and pick your first project – making a personal website. Each assignment will walk you through the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
As with previous platforms, Dash comes with a code editor for students to try the tutorials. Next to it is the front-end interface where they can see how their site looks in real-time.
To get assistance, feel free to join their Facebook group and ask questions in their feed.
freeCodeCamp
With a 3,000-hour curriculum and 40,000+ graduates, freeCodeCamp is one of the most trusted platforms to learn to code for free. Its alumni have secured jobs at distinguished companies like Google, Apple, and Spotify.
After signing up, users will see a set of courses, ordered from a beginner to advanced level. That way, they can begin their coding lessons right away instead of spending hours looking for a suitable class to start with.
Furthermore, students will get a free certification after completing a course.
Another standout feature is that the freeCodeCamp learning and code editing interface is responsive, so you can learn how to code from a mobile device.
After finishing all the available modules, consider giving the challenges a try to hone your coding skills.
Should you require assistance, there’s a community forum to discuss assignments and ask for feedback from fellow learners.
Code Conquest
If you’re looking to start a coding career without any programming experience, Code Conquest can point you in the right direction.
This free online guide offers various resources to become a professional coder. Everything from how to master a new programming language, starting a project, and finding a coding mentor.
Aside from that, there are basic programming tutorials for languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails, SQL, Swift, and jQuery. Make sure to try their coding quizzes to test your knowledge.
Code Conquest also publishes coding training reviews and recommendations should you need more resources to advance your studies.
MIT OpenCourseWare
The OpenCourseWare Initiative allows free access to MIT’s undergraduate and graduate courses, including the ones from the computer science program.
Novices can start with the Introductory Programming Courses. There, they can learn fundamental theories to develop programming skills, like computational thinking, and basics to languages like Java, Python, C, and C++.
The learning materials come in video lectures, online textbooks, assignments, exams, and self-assessments. However, OpenCourseWare doesn’t offer certifications or degrees.
The Odin Project
When you’re trying to learn how to code for free, choosing the right course or tutorial may be confusing.
The Odin Project solves this guesswork by collecting all free online resources and creating a beginner-friendly curriculum based on them. It’s organized to make participants employable as developers by the end of the program.
Complete beginners can start with the Foundations coding course, which will walk you through setting up a development environment and learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
From there, they can take the full-stack Ruby on Rails or JavaScript course. Both paths include a section on how to get hired as developers, covering topics like finding the right opportunity and succeeding in interviews.
Most sections include several assignments to practice the learning materials. Students can submit them to the website to show off their work and provide pointers for new members.
Should you need assistance, the platform has a Discord community where students can ask questions and connect with other learners in chat rooms.
W3Schools
As the largest web developer site on the market, W3Schools come equipped with coding tutorials, quizzes, and practices to help those learning to code.
Covering everything from HTML to Python, it’s also a useful reference resource for developers to build their projects.
What’s great about W3Schools is the website has a built-in Google Translate function. That way, non-English speakers can learn to code using their native language.
Start by choosing the programming language to learn and read the introductory materials. This website also has a code editor to test the references and see what they look like on the user’s end.
Alternatively, take the quizzes and exercises to determine your knowledge level and decide which topic to learn next.
Hackr.io
With so many programming courses and coding tutorials on the market, you may not know which ones are most worth it. Hackr.io solves this problem by featuring only the best resources voted by the developer community.
To begin, enter the programming language you want to learn on the search engine and select it. The page will show a list of the most popular and trending courses.
Using the filtering tool, make sure to pick only free courses. Aside from that, it’s possible to narrow down the results by skill level, medium, subcategory, and exercise type.
Each course recommendation comes with testimonials from fellow members, which can help with your decision.
Other than that, we suggest checking out the Hackr.io Roadmaps, which are community-recommended learning paths for becoming developers or designers. Their blog is also full of tutorials on how to learn coding.
Bento
Bento is another website that curates free coding classes and tutorials and turns them into easy-to-follow curriculums. The founder believes that everyone should be able to learn to code no matter their background.
Users can choose a learning track for mastering a programming language or subject. Each one comes with beginner, intermediate, and advanced-level tutorials. That way, they can start learning to code as a complete beginner and finish the track like a pro.
The coding languages covered are HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, and Python. Additionally, there are courses on using Sublime Text, GitHub, and Shell to help navigate the command line.
Once finished with a track, members can check out the Related Topics section to continue their studies.
Code Avengers
Code Avengers is a primarily paid platform, but it also offers free courses for learning to code. They mostly come in the form of quick and interactive tutorials for practicing programming languages and concepts.
Upon signing up, choose between the Junior and Create programs. The first one is mainly for children aged from five to 14. Here, the free coding classes revolve around the basics of programming, computational thinking, and data representation.
On the other hand, the Create path is for beginners of 15 years or older. It includes free demonstrative lessons for using JavaScript, Python, HTML, and CSS.
To maximize your learning experience at Code Avengers, consider investing in the paid version, which costs $29/month. It comes with unlimited access to all 500+ tutorials and guided assignments.
There is also a 10-day free trial, and users don’t have to enter their credit card information beforehand.
Sololearn
If you want to learn how to code at your own pace, Sololearn is one of the best platforms to do so. This website has helped 44 million+ users start a career in web development, data science, and machine learning.
Sololearn uses bite-sized learning, where each section only centers on one topic rather than tackling multiple subjects. This format makes for a much more digestible studying experience, especially for beginners. The quizzes and practices also help retain users’ knowledge.
Other than that, learners can save the code from previous lessons to review them further.
Members can use the discussion forums to ask questions and connect with fellow students. Or, head over to the Code Playground page to share the latest project and have people collaborate on it.
The website comes in a mobile app, so you can learn to code wherever you like.
After finishing a course, users can earn a certificate to increase their employability.
Sololearn is free, but users can upgrade to the Pro version to remove ads and access more practices to sharpen their coding skills. The price is $5.83/month on an annual subscription and comes with a 14-day free trial.
Conclusion
Coding is a language that computers can understand. It’s also what IT professionals and software engineers use every day to create the software and apps you use. Coding started out as a hobby for techies, but now kids as young as 8 years old are learning how to code because of its popularity in computer science programs and for kids’ after school and summer activities.