CodePen Shows Students How Web Apps Are Made

ByRichard Byrne

CodePen is a code editing environment in which students can see how HTML, CSS, and JavaScript work together to form web applications.

As you can see in my video that is embedded below, the CodePen screen is divided into four parts. There’s a column for HTML, a column for CSS, and a column for JavaScript. Below that there is a preview panel that displays what the application looks like and how it functions. 

The best aspect of CodePen is that it is a real-time editor. That means you can change any aspect of the HTML, CSS, or JS and immediately see the effects of those changes in the preview panel. This is a great way to see what happens when a variable is changed in an application. If the change didn’t work as anticipated, a quick “CTRL+Z” on your keyboard reverts it back to the previous state. The same is true when you edit an aspect of the HTML or CSS. 

You can register for a free CodePen account using an email address, a GitHub account, Twitter account, or a Facebook account. (I signed up using my school-issued Gmail address and my students did the same). The first time that you sign into your CodePen account you’ll be taken through a very short tutorial that leads into making your first project. The first project is a simple “Hello World” project that has some basic HTML, CSS, and JS elements that you can quickly edit. 

CodePen does have a gallery of publicly shared projects that you can copy and modify. In fact, the screen image above is of a project that I found and shared with my students so that they could get some fun practice with CodePen. You can access the same project right here. 

CodePen offers free and paid plans. The paid plan offers additional features that can be helpful to teachers. Those features include Professor Mode and Collab Mode. Professor Mode lets you remotely watch your students’ progress in real-time. Collab Mode lets you and your students collaborate on projects in real-time much like working in Google Docs. You can read more about CodePen’s paid plans for educators right here.