If you have not accessed Grasshopper Coding yet, get on it. By no means am I a coder. After years of teaching coding concepts to elementary school students, I felt confident in the basics. When I wanted to make things with a Raspberry Pi, I learned Python, but only the elements I needed for each project. Much of coding still makes me pause, think, and Google answers.
Grasshopper Coding App says it is for beginners, but true beginners will get stuck quickly.
Things I love about the site:
- Lessons are quick. The user learns fundaments elements in short activities that build on each other.
- Due to the short activities, I feel successful frequently. Yay me!
- By signing in with Google, it saves your progress, so you don’t have to complete it all in one sitting.
- It is available across all platforms, including mobile devices.
- When you need help, you can visit the support forum on the bottom left to read through comments already made about the lesson or to get personal assistance by posting a comment of your own.
- The activities tell a story.
What I don’t love:
- Sometimes code is hidden to make the activities more manageable, but I find it made it more confusing.
- The directions are sometimes more confusing than helpful.
- It is not a text editor. The user is limited in their control over the text.
- They teach loops horribly. It is very out of order.
- When using Chrome, sometimes the preview windows on the right-hand side that show your code in action get stuck.
- The hints vary in helpfulness.
Give it a try if you want to learn coding fundamentals and grow to more. https://learn.grasshopper.app/
