Playing with CodeCombat

You know, it’s never been a better time to learn how to code.  Languages abound and applications to help learn them have just exploded.  The Hour of Code has been so good to push the issue and it’s great to see educators talking about it.

Unfortunately, the discussion isn’t coming from all areas.  Ontario hasn’t taken the lead and made it a part of the elementary school curriculum (yet).  So, in the meantime, well intentioned teachers are working to include it when they feel comfortable.  You see great pockets of discussion and ideas about its use in subject areas like mathematics and language.

There are still lots of students interested and learning on their own.  From the discussion at the recent ACSE Conference, I learned of another web application to help teach programming concepts.  CodeCombat is targeted at the little bit older student (it can get a little violent) with its castle theme but it’s just as engaging as any I’ve played.

The concept is to solve puzzles by creating code.  There’s a real twist in CodeCombat with different programming language options.

The default is Python and that’s where I’m putting together my code.

Like so many applications in this genre, I’m having just too much fun exploring and working my way through the levels.  The game is huge so you’ll want to create an account so that you can save your progress to continue later on.

Thanks to the folks from the ACSE Conference for sharing their learning.  It was well received here.