Build Your Own Website: Create with Code by CoderDojo
| Build Your Own Website: Create with Code by CoderDojo | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: A brilliant introduction to the skills required to build your own website. Highly recommended by someone who has done it. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 96 | Date: July 2016 |
| Publisher: Egmont | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1405278737 | |
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The Nanonauts want a website for their band, and who better to build it for them than the CoderDojo network of free computing clubs for young people? In this handbook, created in conjunction with the CoderDojo Foundation, children of seven plus will learn how to build a website using HTML, CSS and Javascript. Don't worry too much if some of those words don't mean anything to you - all will be made clear as you read through the book. There's also information about how to start a CoderDojo Nano club with friends - which has great benefits in terms of harnessing creativity, learning how to code - and the benefits of teamwork.
I would have given a great deal to be able to do something like this when I was seven: now, at just about ten times that age I count learning how to code as one of my greatest and most useful practical achievements. I'm delighted to see that coding has now been added to the national curriculum in the UK in an attempt to address the skills gap between the number of jobs in the technology industry and those qualified to fill them. Build Your Own Website: Create With Code is the first in a series of handbooks for children and this first one is certainly full of top tips and clear guides to building your own website. I found it very easy to follow and, even knowing what I was doing, was quietly surprised to find explanations for things which I do but have not previously understood why. ('Well, it works' is an excuse, not a reason.)
There's a simple story - a band wanting a website - which kids will understand but which can be adapted to what a child wants to achieve - a site about their class, their family or their hobby: the possibilities are only limited by imagination.
I recently reviewed Get Coding!: Learn HTML, CSS & JavaScript & build a website, app & game by Young Rewired State and gave it an enthusiastic five stars. I'm giving the same rating to Create With Code and I would recommend either book to a child who wanted to learn how to code but if I had to make a choice I would choose Create With Code particularly if the child had no experience at all of coding. It's more painstaking in the early stages and more inclined to give full explanations of why and how. There's a slight disadvantage in that there are several pages full of HTML which might look daunting to a beginner but do quickly come to make sense. This is where a child might need some support, but the book impressed me in that you could give it to a child and let them get on with it to a large extent.
I was impressed and delighted to learn that this is the first in a series: if others are of the same standard they will be something to treasure. The books are aimed at children, but an adult wanting to learn the skills could do worse than start at the beginning and work their way through. If you're wanting to build a commercial site without learning how to code then you might find that Create Your Own Online Store (using WordPress) in a Weekend by Alannah Moore solves the problem. The same author has also written The Creative Person's Website Builder.
Build Your Own Website: Create with Code by CoderDojo is in the Top Ten Children's Non-Fiction Books of 2016.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Build Your Own Website: Create with Code by CoderDojo at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Build Your Own Website: Create with Code by CoderDojo at Amazon.com.
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