My Profile on Codecademy

So I finished the new web fundamentals section of Codeacademy - there’s a series of lessons called “HTML Fundamentals” and one project based on those lessons. 

I don’t recommend these yet for someone who’s never been introduced to HTML (stick with HTMLdog and School of Webcraft) but I would recommend these as extra practice drills for writing code by hand.

Some of the concepts the Codeacademy lessons teach I do not agree with - we shouldn’t be teaching beginners to force a link to open in a new window or to use the align attribute to position an image.

I would second that notion pretty strongly, with the provision that “programming” be broadly interpreted as any sort of creative act that gets a computer to function in a way that is not totally obvious or already part of its built-in feature set. Under that interpretation, “programming” could include activities like writing a technical document in LATEX, writing a simple web page in HTML, writing an Excel macro, and so on. There’s no reason why every student in a university cannot or should not learn skills like this. And if you want to think and act freely (hence the term “liberal” in the liberal arts), and not be a slave to the technology you use, there is certainly an argument to be made that all students need to learn about computing on a non-superficial level.

Programming for all? - Casting Out Nines - The Chronicle of Higher Education

A response to the previous article I posted. I’m in full agreement with both gentlemen: basic coding is a literacy we should foster and expect of all graduating college students. I would also emphasize HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

Source: chronicle.com

Technologist Douglas Rushkoff has argued that it’s “program or be programmed.” In a high tech world, it’s not the combustion engine that (pardon the pun) drives our future. And according to Rushkoff, if you don’t have at least a basic understanding of the technological building blocks, you are set to be an uninformed citizen, uninformed consumer, and unskilled worker — three things incongruous with a university educated person. No matter what you major in or what job you eventually take, you’ll use a computer at work. You’ll use a computer at home. Almost all your communications will be digital.
Should All Majors, Not Just Computer Science Majors, Learn to Code? | Inside Higher Ed

Source: insidehighered.com