Codecademy, which offers online courses that feature interactive coding exercises, has added a variety of options for obtaining help from humans. New Codecademy Pro Intensive courses are coming on line with feedback from mentors and even one-to-one chats.

Codecademy was founded in 2011 by Zachary Sims who is now the company’s CEO as an online interactive platform offering completely free courses. Its model has been highly successful in terms of student numbers with the milestone of 45 million users recently reported. Some of its courses are targeted at novice programmers, see for example our reviews of Java For Beginners, while others, such as one on Angular JS are at Intermediate level for those with some experience. The range of programming languages has expanded over the years to include Python, Java, PHP, JavaScript, Ruby, SQL, and Sass, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS. Recent additions include courses on ReactJS  and the Watson API. 

Despite having raised $12.5 million, in 2015 Codecademy faced what  has been described as "an existential crisis that necessitated monetization" and it introduced Codecademy Pro.

As we reported last June Codecademy Pro has four elements:

The Learning Plan identifies the key skills you should master. The idea is that you’ll be able to track your progress against this plan. 

Quizzes provide a way to test that you are ready to move on to the next module and Projects to teach you how to apply what you’re learning in a hands-on, practical way. The fourth component is Advisors who can help via live chat from 8am to midnight EST when a student encounters problems. 

Now, at a time that has seen two prominent coding bootcamps close because they couldn’t make their business models work, Codecademy has announced new paid options that it hopes will make its business sustainable and increases the element of live contact to its otherwise remote online training in a three-tier set of paid offerings. The first level costs $20 per month and the human element is the ability to get a live person to answer questions by chat. 

The second option, Codecademy Pro Intensive costing about $200 per course, is to go through an 8- to 12-week course with a cohort, attend weekly live video seminars, have your code reviewed by mentors who provide feedback and get a certificate at the end,

The highest-price option, costing $500 per course, includes all this plus the opportunity to set up a weekly one-on-one 30-minute video chat with a mentor during the course.

The first two courses to be launched on this basis are  "Building Websites From Scratch,” and the second is “Building Front-End Web Apps.”

According to Sims:

Both of those really aim to give people basic skills they can use to apply technology on their jobs and be better at those jobs, hopefully get promotions, or be able to change into new jobs — all while kind of staying true to this same product ethos we’ve had from the beginning. Building something that’s engaging and super interactive, something that’s accessible and at a low price point, and something that’s flexible that fits into your life.

The company says all of the free resources will remain free and that what is on offer in the Pro Intensive offerings is extra help and support:

 It’s really about finding a way for people to get instantaneous help when they’re confused, extra content, a cohort of other people that they’re learning with.

More Information

Codecademy

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