Ok. My husband and I are both computer geeks.. we have worked before as computer programmers. Our kids are fairly computer literate as most kids are nowadays. So I am coming at the review of the DVD, Web Design for Kids (…And Curious Grown-Ups!) put out by Click Drag Solutions, through a technical person’s eyes. I thought that since I would be more critical having a more advanced understanding of HTML that when I received the DVD to review that the best way to do it was to give it to my 11 year old daughter. I gave it to her and had her watch it as well as work with it on her own. From the moment we got the DVD in the mail she was excited that she would be able to learn to make her own website. When you watch the DVD, you are sitting in on Brian Richardson teaching HTML to several kids who are walking through the instruction themselves. He is a middle high school computer literacy teacher and technology expert who does a good job of using down to earth language and explains things simply for easy understanding by all age groups. The DVD itself is targeted to ages 8 and above.

We are fortunate enough to own a laptop so we played the DVD on our TV and my daughter was able to work along with it. Since she is not a typist, she paused the DVD while she worked on the laptop until she caught up with the instruction. In the DVD, Brian Richardson focuses on the HTML basics involved in creating a website. There are no extra tools needed in order to do the instruction on this DVD beyond the standard files already on your computer such as notepad, a web browser and though it is advisable to have an internet connection, even that is not required. The DVD is broken down into several categories in order to learn basic HTML which includes the necessary statements to build a website. You learn how to use colors, various fonts and backgrounds and how to make text move on your web page. My daughter’s favorite part was when she learned how to use colors on her website. Brian Richardson in the DVD has you pause or stop the DVD in order to do some experimenting on your own before going on to next the set of instructions. I think the color section is when my daughter paused the DVD the longest. If you were to run the DVD straight through it would last about 1 hour and 22 minutes. You may find that it takes a little longer to go through the DVD if you pause to take time to experiment with things you’ve learned as my daughter tended to do. Overall if you are looking for a very basic understanding of HTML statements and how to start creating a website, then this is a good DVD for you. Keep in mind that you will need to know a little bit of information about your computer’s current operating system as well as the browser you are using as the instruction focuses on the operating system and browser that is used by Brian Richardson in the DVD. This was the one main area that I had to step in and help my daughter with when she was working with the DVD. I had to show her how to find notepad on her computer and how to do some other things since it was slightly different from how she was being told to do it in the DVD. That is the only thing that was a con for the Web Design for Kids (…And Curious Grown-Ups!) DVD. However, since technology changes quickly these days, it is something that is to be expected and not entirely a negative for this DVD program. If you can get past that and know that is the case when viewing this DVD then everything else is very well done.

My daughter’s web page that she made can be viewed from here.
She completed it entirely on her own with very minor supervision from myself on items that were specific to our own operating system.

The DVD normally costs $40 but there is a current special where the DVD is 50% off for only $19.99 plus shipping costs.

You can either order online or by phone by going to their order page at http://www.webdesignforkids.net/order.html.

Check out the Web Design for Kids (…And Curious Grown-Ups!) website for the most recent information on this DVD. Click and Drag Solutions also is dedicated to supporting the community at large by giving to various charities from the sale of their DVD, Web Design for Kids (…and Curious GrownUps!). You can also get more information about how they are achieving this goal on their website.

From there, you can also view a free 1 minute clip of the actual DVD here.

Filed under: Home, TOS Crew by Barbara
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