Learning HTML Through a Board Game 34
An anonymous reader writes "cHTeMeLe is a board game about writing HTML5 code. In cHTeMeLe, players endorse their favorite web browser (Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, or IE) and then score points by correctly laying out HTML tags, while also trying to bug or crash their opponents' code. From the article: 'Despite cHTeMeLe's technical theme, its developers claim you don't need any web programming experience to play. The game takes web design standards and boils them down into game rules that even children can learn. To help less technical players keep everything straight, the tag cards use syntax highlighting that different parts of code have unique colors — just like an Integrated Developer Environment. No one is going to completely pick up HTML5 purely by playing cHTeMeLe, but it does have some educational value for understanding basic tags and how they fit together.'"
A giant waste of time (Score:4, Insightful)
I've now been around long enough to have seen a few dozen projects like this pop up, vanish within five years, and be completely gone without a trace in ten. They're not relevant because they're not effective.
To get people to learn to code HTML, get them a project they want to work on, and then guide them through the HTML stage to using a script to generate that HTML. By itself, HTML/CSS coding is a dead-end skill. The real goal should be the web application or site and how it's going to do something that people actually need.
Clever little games may seem to increase participation, but they really distract from the actual task and attract people who do not have the mental state to pursue the other skills they will need to further themselves along this path.
Re:A giant waste of time (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's intended as a real game, not a way to learn html5