Tools for Learning Web Programming from an Early Age

Rogelio Valdés

May 23, 2021

See the Web Development Course at robinacademy.com/web

Have your children ever told you they want to build websites? I completely understand that. When I was a child, I wanted to create a video game news site and another one focused specifically on Pokémon news. In another video I already talked about that first programming experience and how something like that can grow into a much bigger project. Today I want to explain in more detail how the world of web development works, what students need to learn, and how to get started in a simple way.

Web design

The first thing to understand is that websites usually pass through three hands, or three different people who each focus on something different. The first person involved is a designer. This is the person responsible for visualizing and shaping all the elements of the site.

They often begin with drawings on paper and then move into digital prototyping with tools such as Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD. Their job is to make sure the website is easy to understand, that users can figure out how the buttons work, and that nobody feels lost. It sounds simple, but it is actually difficult to anticipate how people will think when they interact with your page.

The important thing here is not necessarily knowing how to draw beautifully, even though many people assume that is what design is about. It does not really matter if the sketch on paper is a little crooked, because everything will eventually be built digitally. The real skills a designer needs are observation, empathy, and effective communication.

Front-end developer

Once the designer finishes outlining how the website should look and defining its elements, they pass that prototype to a front-end developer. This is where the programming side starts, but what does “front-end” actually mean?

A website is usually divided into two parts: the code that controls how the page looks and the code that controls how the page works. You can think of it as the body and the brain. The front-end developer writes the code that controls the visible part of the site, the body, so to speak.

Here we use tools such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which you have probably heard of already, and we work inside a special text editor built for writing code. It is like Word or Google Docs, but smarter. Just as Word can detect spelling errors, code editors can recognize how code is supposed to be written and help you notice if something is missing.

Back-end developer

Once the front-end developer has written the code that controls how the site looks, the back-end developer writes the code that controls how it functions. That includes things like a button that sends an email, a place to upload files, user accounts and passwords, securely storing information, and more.

If you have heard people talk about servers, those are like the brains of websites. Back-end developers write the code that runs on those servers, using languages such as Python, Ruby, or sometimes JavaScript as well.

So how can a child start building websites from scratch? I usually recommend starting with several small projects rather than one giant project. That way they can learn faster and cover more concepts. In the Web Development Course we offer, students learn everything from Adobe XD to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. We begin with small pages so they can practice and then move into more complex projects over time.

If you want to learn more about how children can start creating websites, I invite you to sign up for the course at robinacademy.com/web.

This is honestly a very valuable skill that can stay with them for life. Today everything needs a website, whether it is a restaurant, a business idea, a hair salon, a personal blog, or almost anything else. Whatever you want to create now needs some kind of presence on the internet, and this is only the beginning.

See the Web Development Course at robinacademy.com/web