Codecademy Review: Is It Free & Good?
What is Codecademy?
Let us begin this review by providing some basic information about the company. It's probably a good idea to learn about the people behind Codecademy and the project as a whole before diving into their services, right?
Codecademy was founded in 2011 by two friends who wanted to learn coding but were dissatisfied with the available resources. This New York-based MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) company begins with no prior knowledge and allows you to work through small exercises that gradually increase in complexity.
It's free in the spirit of the company, and some of the exercises are created by volunteers. If you want more advanced learning resources and live support, you can upgrade to one of its paid plans.
According to the company's founders, Codecademy serves approximately 45 million learners worldwide, primarily between the ages of 18 and 35. Most students want to learn a new skill or advance in their careers, but the content could be appropriate for students as young as 14.
Codecademy has also collaborated with governments on unemployment programmes and k-12 computer science programmes in the United Kingdom, the United States, Argentina, and Brazil.
Codecademy ease of use
When it comes to an e-learning platform, the factor of how easy it is to use and navigate one site is critical. If a website is confusing and clumsy, visitors are unlikely to progress past the main landing page.
In fact, when it comes to educational platform landing pages, Codecademy is fairly generic. There's a signup form, a video describing how unique the company is, some testimonials, and a short list of reasons why you should use Codecademy as your online code-learning platform.
You can get to the full catalogue page from the main page, which is refreshing because it doesn't try to stuff a lot of information down your throat. It contains only the most important information - no popups, no unnecessary nonsense, none of that.
Overall, we have to say that Codecademy's user interface is both simple to navigate and use, as well as aesthetically pleasing. That's pretty cool!
Codecademy curriculum
Codecademy provides a plethora of courses, projects, and practise opportunities. While you can take these in any order you like, the main structure of Codecademy is based on their Career and Skill Paths.
Career & Skills Paths
Codecademy offers four career paths and fifteen skill paths.
Career Paths, such as Code Foundations, Computer Science, Data Science, and Web Development, teach you in-depth foundational knowledge to help you jumpstart your career.
Meanwhile, Skill Paths show you practical and specific skills that you can use right away on the job. They are made up of sections of other courses as well as original content curated to help you quickly hone your skills in a specific area.
Codecademy estimates the time required to complete each path, so you can easily see how long it will take you to complete the training. The duration varies depending on the track, as does the number of courses within it.
Programming languages
Catering to beginners, Codecademy offers 14 distinct coding tracks, including:
- HTML & CSS
- Python
- JavaScript
- Java
- SQL
- Bash/ Shell
- Ruby
- C++
- R
- C#
- PHP
- Go
- Swift
- Kotlin
These offerings are free, but you can upgrade to the Pro plan for tailored lessons, tutorials, and live tutoring. To access the website’s features, you just need to create a learner profile and then begin your track in one of the above languages.
Courses
Codecademy offers a diverse range of courses in a variety of technologies. It currently offers 71 different courses at the time of writing.
Codecademy's course landing page displays the number of people who have taken the course, the number of hours required to complete it, and the prerequisites.
It is divided into two sections: overview and syllabus. The overview section addresses issues such as why learn the course, take-away skills, what's next, what you'll learn and create, and how you'll master. The syllabus section includes a table of the course curriculum that includes the content for each lesson. By clicking on it, students can access any section of the session.
The syllabus indicates that the content includes interactive lessons, freeform projects, and multiple-choice quizzes. The main content of the interactive lesson can be an article, and the next button allows learners to continue with the course.
Codecademy offers in-depth explanations of various concepts covered in courses. A drop-down arrow allows you to select the type of category for the articles. However, while Codecademy does an excellent job of creating content, it falls short of teaching students how to develop the proper mindset.
Coders are usually rational thinkers who can solve problems. They must examine the entire problem, investigate the solution, and then logically apply it in a programming language that computers can understand.
Projects and Quizzes
Because all of the courses are about coding, Codecademy includes exercises in which students can write and edit codes to achieve the desired results. In addition, Codecademy includes quizzes and graded multiple-choice questions to assess learners' knowledge.
Projects ensure that students have hands-on learning opportunities. They must attend to each task, mark it as completed, and then move on to the next one. The bottom panel shows the total number of tasks as well as the number of tasks that have been completed. You can go to the Get Help section, which includes project walkthroughs, FAQs, bugs, and general questions.
The learning style of Codecademy
The learning style at Codecademy is based on examples and practise.
Learners read through examples before being given exercises to try the same work on their own. When they check their code, they will receive immediate feedback. They could correct and resubmit if they got it wrong. A small hint will be given to point them in the right direction. They will have concept reviews as they progress through the topics, which they may find useful.
Each lesson also includes a link to the community forum to help students learn more about the topic or get assistance if they are having difficulty understanding it.
Codecademy's community of support
When it comes to e-learning, we understand the importance of community spirit.
Students are solely responsible for their own performance, which can be tedious. Furthermore, thousands of students have enrolled in the online course. As a result, the instructor may find it difficult to respond to every question.
This is why the support community was established. It can bridge such gaps by providing a sense of belonging as well as a forum for problem-solving and discussion.
Everything support-related on Codecademy is located on their community page website. The company has a variety of forums, ranging from beginner welcome boards to specific programming language lessons. You can gain access to community information without logging in; however, if you want specific answers, you must create an account and pay for the lesson programme.
The Codecademy community page's navigation is a little difficult to follow, as broad categories are all grouped together with little explanation as to their function. However, its support community is generally useful and convenient for students to share, discuss, and advance in their learning.
Is Codecademy right for you?
Before we answer this question, we'd like to remind you of the first release of the film Avatar. Everyone was awestruck by the impressive digital effects and 3D modelling at the time.
Since then, numerous inventions have sprouted up like mushrooms. Consider self-driving cars, virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR), robotics, and other innovative ideas that make use of programming/coding. That is why we are heavily promoting this skill.
To be honest, whether you're completely committed to learning to code for a future career or simply want to start a new hobby, Codecademy is a good place to start. You can start with its free plan and enjoy all of Codecademy's outstanding features right away!