Google releases Grasshopper web app to teach basic coding

There are just so many courses, and YouYube channels around it's hard to know what's good and what's just plain bad. Luckily, Google have their own program to teach coding skills to first-time coders.

Grasshopper launched in 2018 and teaches coding skills on your mobile device. Up until recently, the application was available on iOS Android only.

In South African news, we've recently seen the story of Standard Bank looking to retrench thousands of employees as they change their focus toward online banking.

Now more than ever, it's critical that we develop skills that will be in demand in the future or that will make us self sufficient.

The vision behind the project was to allow users to learn coding skills on the move. Users would be able to use their commute or time between appointments to add skills.

What is Grasshopper?

Grasshopper is part of the larger Grow with Google initiative which aims to “create economic opportunity for everyone.” Since 2018, Google have had millions of users use their mobile devices to take part in Grasshoppers coding lessons.

While Grasshopper's portability was always it's most significant advantage if you've ever tried to do any serious work on your phone, you'll know the smaller screen is less than ideal for longer sessions.

In answer to this limitation, Google have now released a desktop version of Grasshopper that will allow users to continue their coding education on their computers and laptops when that is more convenient for them.

The introduction of the desktop program also makes teaching coding around more visual topics like a website design that much easier.

Additional classes added to the Grasshopper framework

In addition to making Grasshopper available on Desktop, the team at Google are also adding two new classes which have been designed specifically with the laptop or desktop user in mind: Using a Code Editor, and Intro to Webpages.

Intro to Webpages class is a project-based course which takes the user through building and designing a website from scratch. The course covers basic Javascript as well as all-new HTML and CSS coursework.

The aim of the class meant is to empower even a complete beginner to being able to build a simple webpage in just four courses.

With Grasshopper already having had close to two million users and that only expected to grow with the release of the desktop version of the program, this is a great time to go out and sign up.

Be part of the millions of people trying to make themselves more marketable. Learn more about Grasshopper here.