Coding in the Classroom: My List of Resources

Its the start of school and now is best time to get your students motivated to learn about coding.  Whether you have a computer, tablet, cell phone or nothing at all you can help your kids to really get interested in and wanting to learn more about coding.

Here is my list of websites and apps that you and your students can use in or out of your classroom to learn about coding.  Who knows one of your students could end up being the next great app inventor or program writer.  

Now this list by all means is not complete and you may have your own sites or apps that you use and I would encourage you to add them in the comments so that I can keep updated this list for future use.

Coding Websites:

Code.org	I guess I had to start somewhere and that is at Code.org which seems to be the one you hear about the most. The site offers Hour of Code resources as well as links to other coding resources & sites.
Codecademy	The site allows you to learn to code for free. You can choose your what you want to learn and how far you want to go. My reccomendation is for use with Middle School Students
Scratch	From the Media Lab at MIT a great block/object code creator for students in a kid friendly format
Code Combat	Learn to code by playing a game, you can setup classes as a teacher for your students to learn or let them just play and learn as they go
Codemoji	A great way to learn to code using what is familiar for your students "EMOJI's"
Hackety Hack	Learn how to code in the Ruby programming language. Has a downloadable installer for your computer. Site offers many resources to get you and your students started.
Code Avengers	Learn at your own pace what you want and go as far as you can with this site. Whether you want to create a website, a game or an app you can learn how in this site.
Trinket:Hour of Python	Another graphical learning tool that gives you blocks of code that allow you to learn the basics of the Python coding language
Khan Academy	Yes thats right, the site that brings you all those other great learning tools for math and science also helps you learn how to code too.
Alice	Take your coding skills to even higher levels with this downloadable software that provides you with a 3 dimensional environment

Coding Apps

Daisy the Dinosaur	Great tool for younger learners allows them to drag and drop blocks to make the character move around. iOS only
Hopscotch	Be as creative as you want with this coding app available iOS devices. does have in-app purchases
Cargo Bot	Learn how to code with this game that has you moving items around on the screen. For iOS devices
The Foos Coding 5+	Fun learning to code for younger students with this character based and graphical block environment to get your students excited about learning to code. Available for iOS, Android and Kindle also Web
Scratch Jr	Similar to Scratch from the above list but made into an app for iOS and Android
Tickle	Learn to program all of those fun interactive Toys on the market directly from your mobile device. iOS and Android
Codeable Crafts	Be Creative with this app that allows you to create your avatars and then use them as you learn to code. So its coding with a twist to bring your designs to life.

So even though I have listed out a few websites and apps that you can to help your students learn to code there is always a chance that you do not have access to a computer or mobile device.  Let me tell you this, that is perfectly OK.  There is nothing out there that says you have to have technology to teach coding to your students.   You can teach students to code using verbal and/or written prompts to help them to understand the concepts behind how coding works.  Conditional statements can be used, If you do something Then another thing will occur.  Movement patterns can be created using pieces of paper with one student talking another student through the pattern, and so on.

All in all its the perfect time of the year to introduce coding to your students and hopefully some of these suggested resources can help you out.