Meghan Ritter Code Monkey Review

Code Monkey:
My initial impression of Code Monkey was that it was a very organized and colorful website.
They don’t use obnoxious colors but enough color for a coding website to catch the eyes of
children. I played around with a couple of the different coding websites and by far, this one was
my favorite. I learned so much about coding in a very short period of time and it was wonderful.
The website is suitable for students age 7 and up, but I would even recommend it to students
who are in kindergarten through fifth grade. Code Monkey is a leading, fun, and intuitive
curriculum where students learn to code in real programming languages. Through game and
project-based courses, students as young as age seven use real programming languages to
solve puzzles and build games and apps. The majority of Code Monkey’s courses do not require
prior coding experience to teach. All courses are designed for school, extra-curricular and
home-use. Code Monkey is owned by Jonathan Schor and was founded in February 2014.

Ease of Use:
The Code Monkey application, overall, is super easy to use. It has a simple and straightforward
design, and there are no crazy ads or other distractions that will sidetrack the students. Each
lesson is broken down into different categories by grades. They have a description of what each
grade would be accomplishing if they were to use their grade course. They also have it
categorized by the different types of coding if you were to use Code Monkey outside of the
classroom. Such as, block-based coding, text-based coding, advanced coding & creation, and
digital literacy. Each level of every game is broken down into short segments, that get
increasingly harder and more independant.
Code Monkey’s different coding categories based on grade level.

Code Monkey’s coding pathway that involves the different coding courses.
One of the Coding Monkeys games that I played involved fundamental coding.

After every time you completed a fundamental coding task you completed the level.
After you completed the game you get rewarded with achievements that go straight to your
account, that shows your progress.

Help Features
An area that is lacking for Code Monkey is their help features. While there are helpful hints
given when you select the wrong answers, there is no other form of helping students if they do
not understand the material. Code Monkeys does have a help center on their website for
teachers, parents, or students if they have any questions to ask the site, or to see if their
questions have been answered by an expert on the site already. You can replay the games and
levels as many times as you want to refresh your memory on coding. But, there is no “Help Me
Solve This” button. I think that would be very helpful and handy for anyone using the site.

Here’s an example of the aid when a student gets an answer wrong.

Lesson Compatibility
Code Monkeys lesson plans are very well put together and easy for students to catch onto. The
lesson plans include access to individual lesson plans from the classroom dashboard if you
have a teacher account through the site. They also have a distinct mode for when you are
teaching and when students play. When you begin a lesson, student accounts go into
Lesson Mode, which means they cannot access any content. When you assign
challenges, student accounts go into Playtime, which means they can only play the
challenges relevant to the lesson you are on. This can help improve students’ focus and
attention during class time since they will not be distracted by other challenges or
activities. Finally, teachers can save their progress per class. Lessons keep track of
your progress in each class since it saves which lesson plans you already taught. Once
you end a lesson, it will automatically be marked as complete and will take you straight
to the next lesson so you never forget where you left off. Code Monkey would be an
independent activity for students unless you are teaching a computer class that has
multiple computers. Otherwise, this is an activity that only teachers could access if they
put it on a screen.

Hardware Compatibility
Code Monkey can be used on Apple or Android tablets, as well as an internet browser
on a computer.

Cost
This application has amazing resources for students to learn how to code. However,
one of the biggest cons to this site is the pricing. I had to sign up to create an account to
even just access games to play. They give you a free two-week trial but after those two
weeks are up they highly suggest you sign up for them with a billing option. They have
different options for your billing plans. They have two plans that they recommend you
get. 1.) Home plans and 2.) School plans and the different pricing that comes with those
two plans. If I were a parent I would not purchase a Code Monkey at home plan. I
personally think the prices are ridiculous for a coding website. If I were a teacher, I
would look into the quote of the school plans and see if it were to accommodate my
students needs for the school year.
Code Monkey’s home plans billing option.

Code Monkey’s school plans billing options.

Overall Review
My overall review of Code Monkey is three and a half out of five stars for me. For
engagement purposes they have cute cartoon graphics welcoming young, new
programmers with the carrot-on-a-stick metaphor replaced with bananas. The slowly but
steadily increasing level of puzzle difficulty keeps players focused. For pedagogy
purposes Code Monkey uses Clever programming puzzles for players to move through
each new concept using real CoffeeScript or Python code, providing just enough
difficulty to challenge without stumping. The bite-sized learning makes bigger concepts
easier to digest. Finally, for support purposes Code Monkey has excellent help guides
and lesson plans to support teachers, and players can either type or click buttons to
enter code. Those who don't find coding intuitive may need a little extra guidance,
though tips are included in-game. But, the pricing for this coding website is super
expensive. If I were a parent or teacher I would put my money to something better for
my children and students.

Decomposition:
Ultimately, decomposing a problem is the key to finding a reasonable and practical
solution, helping large, seemingly insurmountable challenges feel approachable. Code
Monkey teaches decomposition to its learners by breaking down every coding game
into a step-by-step process so that the student can achieve their coding goals. They do
that with the instructions to every game on Code Monkey as well.

Pattern Recognition:
Pattern Recognition is essentially the ability to look at each element of the
deconstructed problem to identify similarities, recurrent structures, and trends. Code
Monkey uses pattern recognition to help its learners by making each coding structure
for the games have practice rounds, videos on explaining the game before playing, and
even sometimes having a “your turn” round after the site helps you. They make the
learners practice the pattern multiple times so they can really understand it.

Abstraction:
Abstraction is about simplifying the problem and making it easier to visualize the
solution. Abstraction is the process of channeling the essential details, and
sifting out the irrelevancies. Essentially, discarding the irrelevant details helps us see
the solution more clearly. Code Monkey uses abstraction on their site to help its learners
by not using a lot of information in the instructions for their games. They focus more on
images instead of text. They also don't really use a lot of text on their website in general.
Simply, because they think having too much text on the website/during the game might
be too much on the kids and essentially overstimulate them when coding.