Code School – HTML5 Resource of the Day

I’m currently going through a bit of a learning process trying to get up to speed with the web world and HTML5. As someone who has dedicated most of my time the past few years on desktop and mobile platform development, there’s a lot to learn. Not only do I need to get the basics under my belt, but I also have to keep up with new things that seem to come out every day. It is a lot to keep track of and I’ve been developing a list of things that can help the process along. I want to share those with you so that we can all benefit from whatever I pick up during the process. The first resource I want to share with you is Code School.

Code School - Learn by doing

Code School is an amazing resource for learning new programming skills. They currently have courses that cover Ruby, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, and iOS as well as some assorted topics they call Electives.

Code School has a unique learning experience that couples high quality video content with step-by-step coding challenges that you complete in the browser. This is truly learning by doing. Each course is broken up into levels and you receive an achievement for completing each level.

The video production quality for the lessons are top-notch. The instructor will often appear alongside the slide material. Here’s an example screenshot from the Try jQuery course:

The coding challenges tie directly into the material that was presented for the lesson and walk you through the concepts. Each challenge will be a simple task and you will receive immediate results for each mini challenge. If you get the challenge incorrect, they will help guide you based on what exactly was incorrect in your answer. It is a very smart system that can catch common mistakes. This is a great way to learn. If you are stuck, they offer a few hints for each challenge as well. Here’s a screenshot from the “Traversing the DOM” section of the Try jQuery course:

Summary

Code School is a great way to learn and they have free courses to get you started. I would highly recommend checking out the Try jQuery course to get a feel for how this process works. For me, it has been the best way to learn jQuery. I look forward to trying some of their other courses soon.

Contact

If you have any questions or comments in the meantime, please feel free to email me at bschooley@infragistics.com or find me on Twitter @brentschooley.