Learning web design at a young age is beneficial for enthusiastic web designers. However, with the intricacies associated with web design and coding in general, most parents hesitate before allowing their kids to venture into the tech world. Unfortunately, with technology becoming crucial in the future, most programs have introduced web design into childhood education. The guide below provides insightful tips to parents and teachers with kids who want to learn to code.
Condition Your Kids
Like any other early-childhood subject, conditioning your kids is an important step to get their attention in this field. This involves exposing them to computers, web designer offices, and web pages. This familiarizes them with where they are and what web design entails. If you are a professional web designer, show them samples of graphic designs you have created and alleviate their concerns.
Kids are curious by nature, and exposing them leads to great interests. With some exposure, allow the kids to design their favorite items. For instance, you can allow children with great interest in STEM to design robot mocks. As they do this, inform them of every design element and functionalities. You can also generally discuss a lot about web design to capture their interests.
Equip
It is certainly implausible for kids to learn to code and web design without the necessary tools. Computers, for instance, are a must-have for any parent looking to impart web design skills to their kids. It is a comic to start teaching your kids these skills from books. Besides a computer, you should avail other tools, such as installing basic coding games, downloading web design resources from online coding schools, such as the coder school, and other tools to make learning fun.
Some apps and games that can help in teaching your kid how to code include;
– Kodable – this is a free app for kids aged five and above. It engages the kids in self-directed coding games, which helps them understand various concepts underlying the game.
– Daisy the dinosaur – is also a free app that suits kids aged 6 and 7 years. It is an iPad-based app with simple drag and drop commands. It sparks your kids’ imagination and interests.
– Tynker – the app offers several kids’ online courses. Though it isn’t free, the tutorials and tests are a good way to introduce your child to coding and similar concepts.
– Scratch – this is a popular kid’s program that helps kids aged eight and above learn collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving skills. It also has an online community where kids share ideas and benefit from direct feedback on their projects.
Proceed Slowly
Most experienced web designers experience difficulties when teaching beginners. However, such problems arise because high-level designers subconsciously know a lot of information. Therefore, it takes time before kids grasp file management, syntax, and styling sheet concepts. That said, you should understand that learning for kids is a process. Begin with web design basics before advancing to other web design elements, essential tools, codes, and more.
Introducing your kids to advanced web design stuff will make them disinterested within the first few months of learning. Also, remember that kids have a short attention span. After introducing kids to the basics, proceed with other concepts, such as coding with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, designing web layout, and content creation.
You should also teach few codes at a time, slowly advancing the complexity of examples. Don’t introduce many items to kids at once. For instance, after introducing CSS, begin by writing HTML tag styles. Teach them how styling key body tags affects the background color, size, and font of the entire web page.
Another good learning tip is to keep asking questions during the learning process. Encourage kids to find solutions to several challenges encountered when designing a web page. If they can explain solutions conceptually, coding becomes easy. A good example is asking them what they can do to keep the main reading of a web page red after styling the entire web page blue.
Keep Your Kid Safe Online
There are many intrigues associated with web designing. If your child surpasses all, their new website will definitely go public. While this is a win, it exposes your kids to several dangers lingering online. To lock strangers completely out, ensure that you protect their websites with passwords. Such safety measures require visitors to provide usernames and passwords before accessing any pages on your kids’ site.
Similarly, you should follow some fundamental internet safety guides to protect the websites. Also, encourage kids to avoid using their names, location and avoid publishing their real images on the website.
Bottom Line
Web design is an exciting hobby that can lead to a good future career. Therefore, introducing your kid to this field is a good idea, as it exposes them to what they might be interested in someday. Other tips include orienting them to various editors, basic programming languages, and the best browsers to use.
