Technology Teaching Us

I have recently become a technophile meaning I have just started to find the immense advantages of technology, computer and other such means for our advancing future. However, the technophobia of looking stupid, embarrassing or just down right confused when trying to figure out how something on the internet works continues to cripple me. The internet is not meant to do that. If you are not sure of something there is always a means of looking it up or googling it.

For example, I know many of us in the English 340 class are having immense difficult with not knowing how to work html codes. I know I barely understand how to tie my shoes in the morning yet, I am expected to learn the extremely technical language of .html. Thankfully the internet has become my teacher.

Code Academy is “an education company. But not one in the way you might think.” Their statement is that many schools are planning on bringing computers into the class room (something which many colleges have already done) and expecting students to know about computers. Especially when students get into the workforce, how are they expected to know computer programming when it is not taught in schools?  “Education is broken. Come help us build the education the world deserves.” – A bold statement from a bold company.

So besides their very bold stance and very bold statements, Code Academy is quite helpful and very interactively fun. It is free to register, and you can register through facebook, g-mail or other social media, or give them your e-mail. After you register it allows you to edit your profile, and soon it asks you to choose a project.

There are two major options to get started:
Pick a Real Project:
Screen Shot 2014-02-26 at 11.41.55 AM

Or Pick a “Language” to learn:
Screen Shot 2014-02-26 at 11.42.17 AM

Either way you will learn code, in an easy to access way. I personally picked a project – the name color one to be exact.

When you get into the lesson part of the unit, they show you the finished project first:
Screen Shot 2014-02-26 at 11.42.48 AM
and then teach you from scratch step, by step, by step, by step. They have helpful hints, and they reward you with achievements. Different colors for different codes will be used and they tell you by status bar when you’ve gotten the code correct. The text in the black is the code, the text in white is what you are doing to an internet page. Its not the easiest but it makes it fairly simple to understand.  Eventually you will have a project of your own that you can post to a blog, or website or something goofy you want.

For me it was a bit confusing, and it still is. That is why I need to practice. This is why I need to ask questions. I believe in order to true push yourself, it helps to be insatiably curious while also being a little bit stubborn about learning. I blog, and learning this different style of computer language will ultimately be beneficial. Technophilia here I come!

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