I finished a few Codeacademy Courses and this is my feedback about this site.
In my oppinion the site dont really teach you to code it just give you a short insight into the languages and teach you the syntax. The main difference between learning coding in an university and here is that you dont have to use your brain here. The tasks are so simple and often already explained that you just have to copy from the left side.
This is not motivating, not fun and it wont teach you solving your own problems.
And problemsolving is the main skill that you need to practise if you want to code. Most of the time you dont do anything else then reading and then writing exactly the same stuff.
If you really want to teach someone coding you have to let people solve problems by them self. One of the better courses here is the Ruby course. Most of the chapters have some sort of summ-up-tasks where you have to remember what you learned and write this down out of your head.
Instead of showing exactly what the user has to write on the left side you should link a documentary page to teach the student to read and solve the problem like he would have to in the real world.
Dont get me wrong this site and it features are great but it could be alot more effective when you let the user more “room” to manage the tasks without holding his hand the whole time.
Have you done the python course? What did you think of the practice makes perfect track?
Codecademy tries to keep the entry bar as low as possible, to give people a good entry point.
Codecademy really focuses on teaching syntax, and for some people this is what they need to get started, there isn’t a one size fit all, you can clearly handle all of it, and might even need to be challenged more, but this will not apply to everyone.
Looking at what you have done, seems to be mostly ruby. The command line course is indeed walking you through each step, there your point really applies. I think its one of the weaker course. And you did the first track of python. Is that correct?
You are free to challenge yourself by coming up with additional challenges within the lessons? Sounds like a good idea for you, codecademy is a platform with pros and cons like everything else, the question is: how utilize the platform in the best way possible for you? Challenge yourself by playing with the concepts taught
Hey Henry, thanks for offering your feedback, we really appreciate when our learners reach out like this. It looks like you’ve chosen not to try our projects e.g. the tip calculator project in Python. You’re a Codecademy Pro Trial member, so you get projects for free, so why not give them a shot? That’s where you need to apply the syntax you’ve learned by building a real site or program. I’d be curious to hear what you think after you’ve tried out the full curriculum including projects, and not just our free lessons and a quiz or two.