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Thursday, October 30, 2014

Best sites to learn coding

Best sites to learn coding
These four sites offer step-by-step tutorials that take very different approaches to programming instruction. One of them is perfect for your level of coding experience.
Not so long ago, typing was for secretaries, journalists, and would-be authors. Now we're all tapping away at keyboards and screens from morning until night.
The number of people who spend their workday coding continues to soar. In the not-too-distant future, writing code may be as commonplace as typing and other forms of text-keying are today.
Learning how to code has never been easier. Whether you're a programming newbie or an old hand looking to learn a new skill or two, these four free services have you covered. (Note that all but W3Schools.com requires that you register to use the service by providing an e-mail address and password.)
All four of the coding tutorials I tested have their positive attributes (ahem), but my favorite is LearnStreet's Ruby for Beginners, which was just my speed. The lessons prompt you to write and run the code for each step, and when you make a mistake -- which is key to learning how to program -- the correction hints are clear.
The video lessons in Khan Academy's Programming curriculum keep you engaged in the subject and are perfect for folks starting at square one. However, the complete program could easily take weeks to complete.
I made it through 24 percent of the Codecademy's Ruby tutorial before I hit a lesson that stopped me in my tracks: in the loops section, of course. If you've done a little coding in the past, you'll likely have better luck than I did with Codecademy's write-it-yourself approach.
The simplest of the coding tutorials I tried was W3Schools.com's JavaScript tutorial, which you can complete without having to register (unlike the other three services). Each of its dozens of lessons includes plenty of "Try it yourself" options for practicing the technique the step covers.
LearnStreet puts the focus on the code
The first thing you notice when you start the lessons on LearnStreet is the prominent code-entry screen on the right side of the window. Under the code is the run environment that demonstrates the code you write. The instructions are listed on the left side of the screen.
It took me about two hours to work my way through the first five lessons in LearnStreet's 12-lesson Ruby for Beginners. Once you finish the site's programming courses, you can turn your attention to the dozens of coding projects for JavaScript, Python, and Ruby. The projects can be sorted by level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) and by category (tools, games, and algorithms).
LearnStreet also offers free courseware for teachers who want to instruct their students in coding.

Khan Academy lays a solid programming foundation

The Khan Academy is famous for its ground-breaking video tutorials covering nearly every subject a student is likely to encounter. Rather than focus on a particular programming language, the Khan Academy's programming module uses JavaScript to illustrate concepts that apply to coding in general while also teaching some practical JavaScript skills.
The courses are divided into about a dozen categories, each of which has from three to 12 separate lessons. Each video lesson animates the coding technique in a window on the left and shows the result of the code running in a window on the right.
After you watch the coding in action, you're challenged to write code that duplicates the operation. When your code isn't quite right, the tutorial provides hints to help you spot and correct the problem.
It's easy to navigate the Khan Academy lessons and jump between them and the site's other features. A space is provided for creating your own programs, which you can save in your profile and share with the world. You can also browse the programs written by other students.
Like LearnStreet, teachers can sign up to be "coaches" for their students and manage their students' progress. You can monitor your own progress and set goals for yourself in your dashboard, which prominently displays the badges you've won and your "energy points."

Expand your programming horizons with Codecademy
As much as I appreciate Codecademy's polished interface and interactive tutorials, more than once I was stymied by the lack of help when the code I wrote failed to execute as expected.
Admittedly, my programming experience is limited to HTML and JavaScript. The lessons in Codecademy's Ruby tutorial had me backing up and restarting several individual steps, even with the hints that the lessons offer to us tyro programmers when something's not running as expected.
Most of the Codecademy lesson screen is taken up by the window in which you enter code. The instructions for the step are in the left pane. After you enter your code and click the Save & Submit Code button, the code runs in a pop-up window on the right side of the screen.
I was making fairly good progress through the Ruby tutorial until I reached the Loops & Iterators module. When I took a class years ago in C++ I recall struggling through the same subject. After about a half-dozen attempts, I threw in the towel. (As with most tutorials, you can't proceed to the next module until you complete the current one successfully.)

Keeping it simple pays off for W3Schools.com

At first glance, the JavaScript tutorial on W3Schools.com looked too basic to be useful. After I had stepped through the first half-dozen lessons, I found the pace of the lessons kept me interested without overwhelming me.
The site offers tutorials in HTML, CSS, XML, SQL, PHP, JQuery, and other Web technologies in addition to JavaScript. There are also demos for building a Web site, server technologies, and Web databases.
The lessons are at a slower pace than those of the other three tutorials I tried, and they entail lots of scrolling down the page. You read the instructions and are then shown the code. Click the Try It Yourself button to open a new browser window that lets you write and run the lesson's code.
The Basic section of W3Schools.com's JavaScript tutorial has 19 separate lessons, each of which will take most people 15 minutes to a half hour to complete. There are eight more Advanced lessons, as well as eight to 12 lessons for HTML DOM and Browser BOM. Another dozen or so modules provide libraries, examples, and references.

What a difference an hour makes

This is Computer Science Education Week, and Code.org is honoring the occasion by sponsoring theHour of Code program that encourages teachers to spend an hour teaching their students how to code. (My certificate of completion is shown at the top of this post.)
The Computer Science Education Week site has tutorials that let students as young as 6 years old write their first program in an Angry Birds-like environment. The site also has the Khan Academy's Introduction to JavaScript intended for students in middle school and up, in addition to other app-development resources for students of all ages, many of which are designed to be used offline.

Article credit goes to : CNET.com

Friday, October 10, 2014

Top 10 Websites To Learn Coding (Interactively) Online

Top 10 Websites To Learn Coding (Interactively) Online


Gone are the days when programming languages could only be mastered programmers like Bill Gates, who later got to dominate the world by storm. Now everyone holds the same potential, and the chance to learn and even master programming language easily. Today, we will show you 10 interactive websites that will help you do that.

That’s right, forget about complicated setups and black, cold command prompts that make you want to quit before you start, and say hi to 10 educational websites with instant and interactive lessons that teach you programming languages like HTMLCSS, PHP, Ruby and even iOS. Pick up tips, screencasts and even best practices from industry professionals.

Kickstart the beginning of your new path into programming today!

Khan Academy

Although Khan Academy’s courses are not as structured as CodeHS, it serves as an open playground for both novice and amateurs particularly interested in learning drawing, animation and user interaction with code. It does not preach any specific programming language, but the code pattern it adopts can be applied anywhere, as a majority of languages share the similar programming pattern.
You can first join the Programming Basics course to watch and learn basic concepts, then explore the given code after the video tutorial to validate your doubts. With Khan Academy, you can save your modification as a Spin-Off for everyone to enjoy and customize. There have been hundreds of spin-offs just from one lesson in one course, so imagine the community size, and the lesson’s effectiveness.

Codecademy

Codecademy is indisputably the most famous website to teach you to code interactively, thanks to its helpful interface and well-structured courses. Upon visiting the main page, you can already start tasting the programming right away, with its motivating on-screen console. Pick a course that Codecademy offers from Web Fundamentals, PHP, JavaScript, jQuery, Python, Ruby and APIs.
Inside each lesson is a panel that explains necessary code and instruction. Another panel allows you to get your hands dirty by writing acceptable code, then checking if you are doing the right thing. Don’t worry about making mistakes, as both instruction and code panels will warn you of errorsand provide hints. It is as if there’s a kind teacher right beside you.

Code Avengers

Code Avengers is designed to make you love programming. Though it only offers HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript course for now, each of the courses is carefully designed to truly entertain you while leveling your programming skills painlessly. At the end of each lesson you also get to play a mini game to release your cumulated stress, and keep you going for longer.
Code Avengers has a gradual approach to interactive learning. It does not explain too much knowledge that isn’t essential for beginners, just a bit of code and playful instruction, making things very easy to digest. You also get to play with the code, then see the impact of the changes immediately. It is carefully crafted with the beginner’s comfort in mind.

Code School

After you finished courses in Codecademy or Code Avengers, and you are ready to further expand your capabilities, Code School is the next quality website you should land on. Unlike most interactive learning sites, Code School offers more in-depth courses to train and turn you into an expert with the industry’s best practices.
Overall, the courses are categorized into 4 main paths, and they are
  • Ruby
  • JavaScript
  • HTML/CSS
  • iOS
Almost all courses are aggressively polished with impressive design and informative screencasts, though the challenges after the screencast might bit a bit hard for amateurs. Luckily, there are hints and answers to refer to. While most of the offered courses are free, certain ones will require you to spend $25/month to access the entire course including all screencasts and challenges, and also all other courses in Code School.

Treehouse

Treehouse courses are more project-oriented than language-oriented, so they are perfect fornovice programmer with a planned purpose, such as building a website, or an application. For example, the Websites course is all about building a responsive website, interactive website or even WordPress theme – a very practical and efficient way to master related languages. Nonetheless, they have released a plethora of foundation courses with a video-then-quiz approach.
For Treehouse, every course is divided into different stages or modules, and beyond every first stage the learner will be invited to pay a monthly subscription fee of $25 to access all courses with 650+ videos, and an exclusive Treehouse Members Forum as a bonus. If you are serious about your programming future, you could subscribe the $49 monthly plan to obtain in-depth interviews with leading industry pros and cutting-edge workshops.

LearnStreet

If you are that kind of personnel who do not fancy playful design and prefer to deal with cold hard codes, LearnStreet is probably your thing. It currently offers JavaScript, Python and Ruby courses at beginner level. With a click on the ‘Start Course’ button you will start the lesson with an exercise, a code interpreter and a glossary panel (for new programming terms).
LearnStreet adopts command prompt-styled code interpreters with human language to explain function and encourage you whenever possible, the kind of command prompt you want for your own local machine. However, the code interpreter could be as rude as standard command prompt, as most of the times it requires you to type in the absolute same code and content it asks for.
Other than that, it’s truly friendly and enjoyable, and most importantly, free.

CodeHS

At this point all websites you read here are mainly dedicated to web development and computer science, but CodeHS is one with simple and fun game programming lessons that involve problem solving, JavaScript, animation, data structures, game design and puzzle challenges.

The advantage of CodeHS is it teaches you to think, and solve a problem like a programmer with its first course, Programming with Karel. The lessons are fun as you will learn how to use the code to move the dog, Karel to complete given tasks and puzzles like picking up ball and building a towel. It plants a solid concept of programming and the way it solves the problem systematically in your mind. Other than the course mentioned above, you must sign up first with $25 per month to continue your learning journey, but it’s a perfect site to learn basic game programming effectively.

Scratch 2.0

Think CodeHS and Khan Academy are still too hardcore for your child, who has no comprehension beyond basic English? No worries, there is something even easier for your aspiring next-gen programmer, and it’s called Scratch. Previously an offline software that allow kids to create, upload and share their projects proudly, Scratch is now fully online with its 2.0 successor.
It’s not about programming though, but a combination of visual blocks of commands that tell assigned objects how to behave, such as telling the cat to move 10 steps, or yell ‘meow’ when it touches the owner’s leg. By using this visual programming method, the young programmers will form a habit of breaking a problem into smaller blocks, and solve them one by one logically.

SQLZOO

Structured Query Language (SQL) is just a language purely designed to store and retrieve data from a database, so imagine the boredom you will experience when programming a warehouse. Yet SQLZOO wants you to learn SQL happily with its interactive interface and smileys.
Since there is really nothing too deep to explain for a straightforward language like SQL, the site will only ask you to replace the variables like city names or population number, and raise the difficulty from that level. One huge let-down will be the shortage of hints, answers and forum, so you are probably doomed if you fail to solve any one of the quizzes, just like old times.

Comparison Chart

Here’s a comparison chart for you to get a bird’s eye view of all these awesome places to learn how to code.
WebsiteCourseFeaturePricingDifficulty
CodecademyHTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, Ruby, Python, API

Code Interpreter, Progress Saver, Project, ForumFreeEasy – Intermediate
Code AvengersHTML5, CSS3, JavaScript



Code Interpreter, Progress Saver, Project, NoteFreeEasy
Code School

HTML5, CSS, CSS3, jQuery, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, iOS


Code Interpreter, Screencast, Progress Saver, ForumFree, $25/monthIntermediate – Hard
TreehouseHTML, CSS, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, iOS, Android, UX, Database

Code Interpreter, Screencast, Progress Saver, Project, ForumFree, $25/month, $49/monthEasy – Hard
LearnStreetHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, RubyCode Interpreter, Progress Saver, Project, Forum

FreeEasy
UdacityWeb Development, HTML5, Python, Java, Computer Science, Algorithm, AI

Code Interpreter, Screencast, Progress Saver, ForumFreeIntermediate – Nightmare
CodeHSProblem Solving, JavaScript, Animation, Game Programming

Code Interpreter, Screencast, Progress SaverFree, $25/month, $75/monthEasy – Intermediate
Khan AcademyProgramming Basics, Canvas Drawing, Animation, User InteractionCode Interpreter, Screencast, Progress Saver, Project, Discussion

FreeEasy – Intermediate
Scratch 2.0Visual ProgrammingVisual Editor, Project, Forum

FreeEasy
SQLZOOSQLCode InterpreterFreeEasy – Hard

Have you studied at any website we showcased above? How’s the experience? Or have we missed certain interactive learning sites with rich assets for budding programmers? Let us share our experiences and resources to help and inspire each other then!
Article credit goes to : HONGKIAT.COM

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Motivational Seminar With Saunak Bhatta
Pokhara Session





We Inspire Nepal (WIN)
WIN “We Inspire Nepal” is a capacity building and leadership development organization that enhances personal development of teachers, students and other stakeholders. This institution believes in creating an impactful difference in the lives of people through its innovative empowerment modules. WIN has been working with hundreds of educational institution all around the nation.
We Inspire Nepal has outreached over forty thousand Nepalese over last few years and have successfully brought paradigm shift in behavior, attitude and pattern of life of thousands of people. WIN gives a guarantee of transforming and enhancing performance of anyone it works with.
We Inspire Nepal have been successfully organizing Leadership and Personal development programs throughout the country with guaranteed outcomes. We have already organized Motivational Workshop named “Personal Revolution” in Pokhara with the presence of 300 amazing participants in association with Pokhara Lincoln International College.
 Currently WIN-Pokhara chapter is going to organize Mega Motivational Seminar with Saunak Bhatta on September 13th2014 (Bhadra 28th) in the collaboration with Pokhara Lincoln International College and PEN Edutech Network Pvt. Ltd. So it’s a bigger opportunity for the pokhreli youths to join such a life changing seminar. Let’s make this event successful. 
For more details: www.facebook.com/viizon.drough
Contact: Pokhara Chapter Leader (Bhijan Subedi)
              9819163236
Venue: Pokhara Lincoln International College Conference Hall, Simalchaur-8 Pokhara.
Time: 2 PM 

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