One of the fun parts of being on the Homeschool Crew is receiving supplemental products for school electives to review. It wasn't in my year-plan to teach my kids to build a web page, and I wouldn't have known how to teach them, either. Thankfully, we were able to review Web Design For Kids (... And Curious Grown-Ups!) ... and I didn't have to teach it myself.
Web Design For Kids (... And Curious Grown-ups!) is a DVD course created by Brian Richardson, the founder of Click Drag Solutions. In this DVD course, he teaches children (and curious adults) how to create a basic web page using HTML. An internet connection is not required for this class, although it can be helpful for finding images. The web page is built using Notepad and Internet Explorer ... no special software involved.
Brian teaches directly to the student, demonstrating on-screen each step in the process of building their own web page. He doesn't just tell them what to type ... he shows them what each line of code DOES on their web page. Brian also shows them what happens if they make errors in their HTML code, and how to fix the problem.
The DVD is recorded in a class-room setting, with Brian teaching two middle-school aged children how to build their web page. The children ask questions that our children may be wondering, and they make mistakes they have to find and correct. It's not full of complicated technical jargon, and it moves through the process slowly, one baby step at a time.
This DVD is simple to use and implement. My 12 year old daughter walked my 8 year old son through the course, helping him create his own web page. He told her what to type, and she typed it in for him. Then my 12 year old and 14 year old daughters took over, creating several web pages each. They enjoyed playing with the colors and content of their web page. They only asked me for help twice, and one of those times was in setting up their Web Design folder since we were using a different Windows product than the DVD showed.
I've been using HTML to edit my blog template for a couple years now. I've had to figure it out bit by bit, myself ... learning by trial and error largely. I enjoyed watching the DVD and learning some new HTML tricks, like marquees.
My daughters (12 and 14) thought the DVD was "talking down" to them at times -- but they did learn how to build a web page using HTML, and they enjoyed the process. They each built their web page in a couple hours, and then expanded on the lesson to create more web pages. I'd say that's a successful DVD course!
Since this DVD teaches directly to the children, it would be a perfect project to save for a day when Mom is under the weather ... she's present to offer help as needed, but with minimal effort from Mom. HTML lessons weren't on my school year plan, and they may not be on yours at the moment. But computer programming (or coding) is a skill that will be helpful for our children in the future.
Web Design For Kids ( ... And Curious Grown-Ups!) covers the following material:
- Ten Basic Lines of Code
- Sandwiches and Colors
- Making the Subject Stand Out
- Stand Alone Tags
- Downloading and Saving Images From the Internet
- Designing Backgrounds
- Fonts and Paragraphs
- Including Pictures in Your Web Page
- Bonus Segment: Managing Computer Files
This particular DVD does not cover how to upload your web page to the internet, but that information will be included in the second volume when it is released.
Web Design For Kids ( ... And Curious Grown-Ups!) is currently 50% off -- available for $19.99 + $3.99 shipping for a limited time. It also comes with a money back guarantee, and a portion of the sales are donated to five charities. Of course, since it is a DVD course, it is completely re-usable and can be used with each of your children.
Click the TOS Homeschool Crew banner at the top to read more reviews on this product by other Homeschool Crew members.
Trusting in Him,
April
