Common Questions - FAQ

FAQs
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Who is Vidcode?
Vidcode is a social impact company founded by three women - an engineer, an educator, and an artist. We are now a global team that supports schools, libraries, and parents in leveraging our 300+ hours of online coding tutorials.

What is Vidcode?
Vidcode is a coding platform for 4th grade and up! We provide free curriculum, highly visual coding platform and teacher support. The curricular approach enables students to create video filters, simulations, augmented reality, and other creative projects – all while learning the fundamentals of computer science & web programming.

So what do students make?
Students code video filters, video games, special effects, celebrity name generators, haunted houses, simulations and more! Check out examples of student work.

What’s included in the program?
Over 300 open-ended, online coding tutorials paired with standards-aligned lesson plans, practices, discussions, assessments and project ideas.

Is Vidcode effective?
Yes! Vidcode is research-backed. Vidcode is supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR). We are partnered with West Education. In our most recent study, Vidcode improved middle school students’ comprehension of core computer programming principles after just 10 hours on Vidcode.

What is the programming language taught?
Vidcode teaches K-12 computer science principles through a drag and drop environment that quickly moves into text-based programming with JavaScript.

Are you Standards Aligned?
Vidcode was ranked #1 by the Education Alliance of Finland for our global computer science standards alignments. Our coding tutorials are aligned with CSTA, K-12 pathway, Common Core Math, TEKS, AP Computer Science Principles, ISTE, and NGSS standards.

Can I use Vidcode with other coding programs?
Vidcode can be used as a standalone cross-disciplinary coding course, Computational Media course, Intro to Programming course and AP CS prep course. We also offer curriculum that can be integrated into non-coding courses and maker spaces.

Is this student-led?
All of the tutorials are student-led, but there are also tools for teachers to lead discussions, presentations and unplugged activities outside of the tutorials.

There isn’t a computer science teacher at my school to teach this course.
That’s totally fine! Our teacher tools are created for non-technical teachers to use to run a coding course and assess work.

What courses do you offer?
Cross-disciplinary coding units, middle school computational media courses, high school intro to programming courses and AP computer science principles course prep. Get a course breakdown here.

Do I need to download a program to use Vidcode?
No downloads are necessary as the program is accessible through a website.

What do I need to run Vidcode?
Desktop or laptop, web browser (Chrome recommended), and an internet connection.

Can Vidcode run on a Chromebook?
Yes!

How about a tablet?
Also yes!

Is Vidcode LTI-compliant?
Yes! Vidcode can be integrated into your LMS, and has built-in integrations with Google Classroom and Microsoft.

Do I need to know coding to teach Vidcode?
No prior knowledge of coding is necessary to use Vidcode. In fact, we often work with educators who are teaching code for the first time.

Do you have free materials?
We have 10 hours of free activities available when you create an account. Sign up at https://app.vidcode.com/signup

Wait, I still have questions!
No problem, you can request a time to speak with our team here.

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Just to add on here, some FAQs answered for educators who are ready to get started!

How can I successfully implement Vidcode?

  • We believe successful teachers, administrators, and students embody a ​growth mindset
  • We believe that all students can learn how to code
  • Your role is to encourage students, ensure they’re moving through Vidcode modules, and help them if they get stuck

What does Vidcode look like in the classroom?
In an in-person classroom
Teacher circulates, asks questions, conferences with students, and helps debug
Students can work 1:1 or share a computer in ​pair programming

In a virtual class
Teacher checks in with student periodically to inspire, debug and assess

How are other schools, programs & districts using Vidcode?
Districts, schools, libraries and other programs are using Vidcode around the world to empower students to code. Here are a few examples:

What technology do I need to have?

  • Any desktop, laptop or Chromebook computer installed with one of the following modern browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge
  • One computer per one to two students. We encourage pair programming, which is two students to a device
  • Stable internet connection
  • Videos can be uploaded in MP4, MOV, or MPEG form–we recommend that they are under <15 seconds. The file size can be no greater than 100MB.

How do I add students to classroom?

  • Click ‘My Classes’ in the top right navigation bar, if you’re not already there
  • Click ‘Add Students’ or ‘Class Dashboard’ (the prompt will update once students have been added)
  • 'Copy’ the url and share the url with your students via email

How do I reset a student password?
Send them to this link: ​​https://app.vidcode.io/signin/forgot-password

What do I, as the facilitator, need to know?

  • All lesson plans are on the Vidcode platform. Go to ‘Class Dashboard’ → ‘Lesson Plans’. Additional materials include a Creative Coding O​verview ​with definitions
  • JavaScript syntax definitions and e​xamples
  • Intro to JavaScript ​Slides​ presentation - teacher facing document
  • Pac-Man laptops - teach students to ‘Pac-Man’ their laptops, or close them halfway to listen to instructions & make sure you have their attention
  • Save your work - encourage students to save their work periodically, perhaps assign a student role to remind the class to save every 15 minutes
  • Programmer’s journal - have students reflect on what they’ve learned, track their progress, and engage students in concepts they’ve learned in a different way
    • Use reflection questions in lesson plans as journal prompts
    • T-chart with two columns: Things I know/Questions I have
  • We are integrated with Google Classroom - you can assign projects and have students share them with you
  • Here​ is a guide to JavaScript organization, style, and conventions
    • Consistency is important—particularly relevant as complexity increases
    • Whitespace in between sections of code
  • Comments - lines of text that the computer doesn’t read:
    • /* */ comment out a section of code ■ Deductively find error
    • // comment out a line of code
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Here are some great additional questions that have come up in our weekly Vidcode 101 Webinars!

Can you submit projects to canvas?
We do have Canvas integration available, but it requires set up from your admin istrator.

Do the students have to join a class or can they do it by just logging in through Google or email?
They will need to join a class. A teacher/parent will need to create an account and class, then they’ll have a Class Code they can share with their student/child to create their account.

What does the student dashboard look like?
Students sign up with a Class Code, so it’s important to make your educator account first. Once they are logged into their account, they have the same look/experience as your educator account just with less resources (i.e. no sample solutions, lesson plans, class data etc).

Are students required to enter an email address? Date of birth?
Yes, they need to enter an email address to create a Vidcode account. No, they do not need to share their date of birth.

Are students required to verify their email address to complete the sign-in/registration process?
No. Students will be asked to sign up using email, but we don’t verify. So if they don’t have one, they can make one up as long and as they remember their email and password combo, they’ll be able to log in .

Are there “adversarial” lessons available? i.e. where students must code behavior of a turtle and it avoids / chases something?
Yes, Vidcode has lots of game making tutorials that involve physics with different characters and elements!

Which coursework is accessible with the basic/free account?
The basic/free account has access to two full courses (‘Starter Projects’ and ‘JavaScript 1’) and the classroom dashboard tools (rosters, certificates, and lesson plans).

On several lessons, it asks the student to “Publish” their project - is this the same as “Submit”?
Yes, publishing their project is the same as submitting their project.

What is the cost of Vidcode’s full curriculum?
We have a pricing page available on our website for classroom prices. We also offer customized quotes for multiple sites/district . Two popular tiers for full access and unlimited students is our $600/year single educator account and our $2,900/year site license for one school with up to 10 educators.

Is there a collaborative feature? For example, two students working on the same project from different computers.
Not yet! That being said, we highly recommend students use the “re-mixing” feature to collaborate asynchronously on projects. Easy to do this, here’s how:

  1. Tell students to write prompts for their partner in their submitted project description and title
  2. Then have the student email their partner the URL of their exported project
  3. Then their partner can iterate on the code and publish it anew with their own notes, title and description
  4. Then the student can email their partner back with this new version
  5. And so on and so forth

Does Vidcode support other programming languages? Python, Java, C#?
Vidcode is just JavaScript for now. We’re working on adding more options in the future. Vidcode teaches JavaScript, computational thinking and computer science I. Python is similar to JavaScript, so we don’t feel the need to have both at the moment. Vidcode is a great pre-req for Java classes since we teach object-oriented programming in an in-depth way. Would love your feedback on what is most needed from schools and libraries! Please email allie@vidcode.com with your opinion on what programming language Vidcode should add next :)!

How do you use this platform for K-3 ?
Vidcode is recommended for grades 4-12 . K-3 would be tough since Vidcode requires a lot of reading and younger students might find that frustrating .

Is Creative Coding the entirety of the content?
Yes, Vidcode’s full curriculum is called ‘Creative Coding’, which is made up of fifteen coding courses - JavaScript 1-12 (120 hours of content), cross-disciplinary 13-15 (hardware, science and social studies) and AP CS Principles (120 hours of content). Vidcode is always adding content and is considering a new language soon!

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Important FAQs about Vidcode’s Data and Security:

Where is the data housed? Is the data in the United States?
All user data is hosted by Heroku, a Salesforce company; ObjectRocket, a Rackspace company; and Amazon Web Services. Heroku, ObjectRocket, and Amazon Web Services use SSL encryption software. These third parties are well-known, established providers, who are bound to practice adequate security measures and to use your information solely as it pertains to the provision of their services. We have specified the region Heroku uses to store our data to be within the United States.

Who owns the data?
Unless otherwise noted, the tools and our content on the site, including our software, text, images, illustrations, designs, photographs, video and other materials, is owned or licensed by Vidcode. Any content you upload to or manipulate on our site, or post to our site, including student information, is yours. This applies to students and teachers on the site as well.

Do you sell student data to third party vendors?
No

What would happen to the data if the contract were terminated, your company is acquired or your company closes it doors?
We delete school data on request. We keep student projects active after contract termination so students continue to have access to their work, unless schools request removal. In the case of acquisition or closing down, students and teachers would have the option to download their work before we deleted all data.

As students have accounts is their work public? If so, who is it public or viewable to?
By default work is private. Teachers can create a public gallery that has no student personally identifiable information visible.

Do you require parental consent for students under 13 years old?
Yes

Do you require accounts to be created in order to leverage your program?
Yes, however students can complete tutorials without accounts, but they won’t be able to save their work

What data do you require in order to create student accounts?
Email (does not have to be real, we never email students), username, password