What is the WebDev Guild - A guide for parents

Howdy, and welcome to the WebDev Guild! The WebDev Guild can be a great opportunity for your child to develop technical development skills that can benefit them now and in the future. Learning to code not only opens door for future career development, but can improve computational problem-solving skills in all areas. As your child sets out on this journey, we want you, as a parent, to be well-informed about the Guild, and your child’s learning. We need your help to ensure your child’s success.

What is the WebDev Guild?

The WebDev Guild is a website programming club for kids. We provide resources and guides for students (we call them Guilders) to learn the basic principles of web development. The Guilders complete requirements and earn badges to showcase what they have accomplished. This isn’t a watered down program. The resources we provide are real-world guides created by industry leaders. Our goal is to develop Guilders who are able to assemble fully functional web apps by the time they complete all of the badges and requirements.

Guilders also have access to experienced adult mentors who can answer their questions, guide their learning, and pass off their requirements.

The Guild also has regular meetings where Guilders meet to discuss their progress, show off the projects they are working on, and pass off badge requirements.

Is there anything I should be worried about?

As with anything on the internet, there are a few risks with being involved in the WebDev Guild:

• Programmers sometimes use saucy language in their blog posts and guides. Since many of the badges encourage Guilders to do their own searching, they might come across this language.
• As with any interactions on the web, Cyberbullying is always a threat—both from inside and outside the Guild. We encourage any Guilder who experiences bullying to speak up—either to their parent, or to a Guild leader.
• To develop and deploy web applications, students will need to create accounts on trusted, secure websites. However, any web activity also comes with a risk that personal information could be discovered and exploited.

We take these matters very seriously and employ the following measures to combat them:

• We ensure that all of our badges link to posts and guides of the highest quality. If we find that these guides are not up to our standards, we will remove them immediately.
• We will not tolerate cyberbullying of any kind. If we receive reports of cyberbullying, we will immediately suspend the offender’s Discord account and take appropriate action, up to and including ejection from the guild. In addition, adult mentors are strongly discouraged from communicating in private chats with Guilders. All communications for the guild over Discord will happen in monitored public channels. Any adult mentor communicating with minor Guilders will be suspended. As a parent, we encourage you to help by making sure Guilders are not engaging in inappropriate private conversations at home.
• We require all minors to complete the Apprentice Web Safety Requirement before they are allowed to pass off any other badges. We also require the parents of minor Guilders to read and sign a Parental Release Form which allows you as a parent to give direct permission for your child to participate.

We want to ensure that our Guilders have the best experience possible, so your feedback is very important to us. If you have any other concerns or questions, please get in touch.

Why should I be involved?

There is plenty of evidence that supports parents’ involvement as critical to child success. For example, this article explains how parents learning to code can catalyze their child’s learning:  Parenting by Example: Why Parents Must Learn to Code

Our classes and curriculum are designed for kids and adults alike, so parents are welcome to join in the fun alongside their children. We are always open to feedback, so don’t hesitate to share your thoughts about our meetings and materials. And who knows? Maybe you’ll discover a hidden talent for programming!

How can I be involved?

Here are a few things that might help:

• Fill out the Parental Release Form. This form show us that you give your child permission to participate in the guild.
• Attend the guild meetings with your child.
• The online services which we use require parental permission. You can help your child by assisting them when they create accounts on those services. Specifically, those are:
  • Discord - The group-chat app which we use to share Guild news and announcements and work with Guilders on their badges.
  • Github - A code repository hosting site. Guilders will use this site to store and share the code for their projects.
  • CodePen - A code assignment site. Here, Guilders will be given assignments to complete. They can also use this site to learn how experienced developers write code.
• Ask your child about what they are learning in the WebDev Guild. Work through the badge requirements with them.

We look forward to your involvement in the WebDev Guild! Again, if you have any questions, please reach out.

Alex