Finding My NEW Drug of Choice
After my first experience with CodeAcademy (CA), I knew that I was hooked. Literally, addicted. I’m a learner AND an achiever, and so the format of CodeAcademy was the perfect way for me to begin learning HTML and CSS.
Yes, correctly completing a lesson, getting a green check and moving on to the next lesson was like taking a hit from [insert your favorite addictive substance].
I’ve done a lot of schooling, and loved it, but this was the most fun I’d had learning in a while.
In these lessons, CA teaches you what you need to know, taking you from nothing to how to build a static HTML based webpage: your online resume.
There are very helpful forums and moderators are quick to respond on these forums. If I was ever stuck banging my head against the wall, I knew I wasn’t the only one with a headache. The community and comradery aspect of CA surprised me.
The final addictive part of CA was that they let you know how many days in a row you’ve signed in and completed a lesson. In the top right corner of your account, they show your days-in-a-row streak count.
Addictive and competitive. Nice!
While I’ve only ever gotten to 62 days in a row, I’m sure others have blown past me.
At the end of the Web Fundamentals course, you have static HTML page that you can upload to any site you like (www.yourname.me, for example).
Questions After the Course
Two questions I had after this were:
- Where can I found out how to do this outside of CodeAcademy? (found this to help, thanks John!)
- Is there a free code editor that I can use to edit code outside CodeAcademy’s editor? (found this programย (NotePad++) and helpful configurations here).
I’ve embedded the videos below.
After completing this, what was next?
On to the next courses: jQuery and JavaScript.
Let’s do this…
Estimated hours of learning and practice: 18
I was now 20 hours ahead of where I was before.
Helpful Videos on HTML/CSS and NotePad++