Reviews

Roblox virtual camp

Hello Gabriele enjoyed the class especially last day when he had the chance to do a one to one lesson. He found in the beginning some difficulties to find the right buttons to press, perhaps is due to the fact that this was his first camp. Overall a nice experience. Let's see if he wants to j...

Hello
Gabriele enjoyed the class especially last day when he had the chance to do a one to one lesson.
He found in the beginning some difficulties to find the right buttons to press, perhaps is due to the fact that this was his first camp.
Overall a nice experience.
Let's see if he wants to join other camps in the future.
Personally I like your approach and it shows that you really care about the children and their learning.
Appreciated you contacted me when you have seen the feedback from Gabriele and took immediate action.
Thanks
Matteo

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Very engaged coding lesson, very good overall

The coding lessons seems well- structured, could be better to spend a bit time in each day to explain the learning objects and outcomes, and have a summary at the end of each lesson for study focus. There are some teaching contents delivered by direct recorded videos, which seems not very eff...

The coding lessons seems well- structured, could be better to spend a bit time in each day to explain the learning objects and outcomes, and have a summary at the end of each lesson for study focus.

There are some teaching contents delivered by direct recorded videos, which seems not very effective and kids may think they are not very interesting. Hand-on projects are embedded in the lesson which is very good, maybe some blend in more quiz or mini games in a group setting could keep students more concentrated in the study.

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Excellent course

My son thoroughly enjoyed the course and the tutor was brilliant! My only issue is the python dev environment. It was a bit intrusive for the tutors to have full control of our home computer. My son as a matter of principle and his age doesn’t have his own computer so has to use mine. Oth...

My son thoroughly enjoyed the course and the tutor was brilliant!

My only issue is the python dev environment. It was a bit intrusive for the tutors to have full control of our home computer.

My son as a matter of principle and his age doesn’t have his own computer so has to use mine. Other providers use a virtual environment which has python embedded for similar courses.

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Great Experience with Funtech

Akein has told me that he has enjoyed his 3D Game Design Course very much, although he experienced a few problems, like his laptop crashing because of 'Unreal Engine', but he has said that he loved it and has lots of fun learning about different elements of 3D Game Design, so I think that overall...

Akein has told me that he has enjoyed his 3D Game Design Course very much, although he experienced a few problems, like his laptop crashing because of 'Unreal Engine', but he has said that he loved it and has lots of fun learning about different elements of 3D Game Design, so I think that overall, he had a brilliant time in the FunTech Course!

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Indie game course review

My son did enjoy the virtual course but it was a lot of screen time. Some longer breaks may have been good

Kept my 9yo engaged and enthused

The course was really good. My daughter was really happy to see her creations progress from design and build to published status. The teacher was great and small groups made it easy to learn. If I could say anything constructive it would be that maybe they could be offered a bit shorter too a...

The course was really good. My daughter was really happy to see her creations progress from design and build to published status.
The teacher was great and small groups made it easy to learn.
If I could say anything constructive it would be that maybe they could be offered a bit shorter too as a full time week (or 10 mornings 9-1) felt a little long.

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Well run, excellent instructors and great support provided

Lessons were well conducted, enthusiastic instructors. I was particularly impressed by the additional consolidation sessions provided if the child requires it as that meant no kid would be left behind in subsequent lessons if he/she didn’t understand a particular concept.

Python coder

Very happy with the camp. We would consider a term-time coding course online.

My son enjoyed the virtual camp, but he is not using anything he learned

I am happy my son Nick enjoyed the half-term virtual camp on Minecraft with mods and this is why he is now enrolled in a term time year long course with FunTech. I am not experienced in Minecraft at all, so it is difficult for me to evaluate how much he learned to be able to do mods himself in Mi...

I am happy my son Nick enjoyed the half-term virtual camp on Minecraft with mods and this is why he is now enrolled in a term time year long course with FunTech. I am not experienced in Minecraft at all, so it is difficult for me to evaluate how much he learned to be able to do mods himself in Minecraft, but I see that he is not doing it. It might be because he is interested more in playing with friends on servers, a topic which was not in the scope of this virtual camp. Nevertheless he had a positive experience and I am happy to keep enrolling him in different FunTech courses.

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Minecraft Engineering Course

Happy with the camp

Python Game Developer

A bit of a slow start as Jamie had already worked with Python. But after initial 2 sessions he found it really good. Worked well doing half a day over 2 weeks worked well.

Very useful

Got my 12 year old daughter enrolled in a 2 week "online camp" for Java coding, after much of deliberation.
Pleased to say - she made the most of it and has found it very useful !
Definitely recommend it !!!

Python Coder

My 11yr old son really enjoyed the Python Coder course. This course was recommended as he had already worked out Minecraft Redstone engineering himself. Before the course he was intrigued but concerned everyone else would know more than him. I explained this to Funtech and they were very appro...

My 11yr old son really enjoyed the Python Coder course. This course was recommended as he had already worked out Minecraft Redstone engineering himself. Before the course he was intrigued but concerned everyone else would know more than him. I explained this to Funtech and they were very approachable and offered a 10 min taster session so he could see how it worked and maybe talk about Minecraft - which he didn't want to do but was happy about the course. There were only 3 on the course.

A few weeks later, my son did the Python Game Developer course. There were 8 on the course, and straight away, my son felt out of his depth and was lost. I think he was too shy to ask for help, When I explained this to Funtech mid course, they offered 1-2-1 consolidation course in the afternoon, but my son was too lost by then and not interested. Funtech kindly offered Java Coder instead, which my son started, felt a lot better about, still needed a consolidation afternoon and chose not to continue the course.

To conclude, I think the course and opportunity is great. Funtech really did everything they could to make sure my son felt some level of success, growing on from his experience of the Python Coder course. It may be some children are overwhelmed or don't feel they can ask for help, and so it was a shame that I wasn't aware of the potential consolidation lessons until it was too late on the Python Game Developer course, especially as another boy had one, a boy who attended the same Python Coder course as my son. In my son's case, I know he would feel shame if he showed he had fallen behind and so was not equipped confidence-wise to ask for help in front of others. Funtech did tell me that not everyone likes the style/format of teaching, hence their offer of the consolidation lessons which really goes a very long way to hopefully provide an element of success int heir learning.

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Python coder, Good course, those with certain learning difficulties may struggle

Good course, my daughter learnt lots of code for User interface creation. But did struggle with her slow auditory processing speed and dyslexia on this course as very tutor verbal describe and text type heavy. Being asked to type certain words in the script or create folders with certain name...

Good course, my daughter learnt lots of code for User interface creation.
But did struggle with her slow auditory processing speed and dyslexia on this course as very tutor verbal describe and text type heavy.

Being asked to type certain words in the script or create folders with certain names is also problematic if you don't know how to spell them.

But overall she enjoyed it despite these issues.

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Minecraft redstone

My son had a really good time on the minecraft redstone camp and learnt a lot. He particularly enjoyed applying his skills to make a house full of redstone gadgets. Sometimes both he and I felt that too much content was being presented in a single session - particularly when learning about gate...

My son had a really good time on the minecraft redstone camp and learnt a lot. He particularly enjoyed applying his skills to make a house full of redstone gadgets. Sometimes both he and I felt that too much content was being presented in a single session - particularly when learning about gates. One thing which could usefully improve the camp would be having a pdf document with some notes to refer back to, both during the course and after it has finished.

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From a newbie coder's point of view

"Actually quite fun" - for someone who has no knowledge of coding to one who is adamant he has to get his code correct and play the game he just created. Good fun and 2 weeks pace is just nice to dip into Python for a 12 year old.

Well run course which my daughter enjoyed.

The course provides the attendees with a basic overview of Java, using a procedural programming style. The course was well run, with a good pace through the week and my daughter enjoyed it a lot and learned about Java. There was some interaction between the participants and the tutor seemed t...

The course provides the attendees with a basic overview of Java, using a procedural programming style.

The course was well run, with a good pace through the week and my daughter enjoyed it a lot and learned about Java. There was some interaction between the participants and the tutor seemed to be friendly and experienced.

My only slight negative comment is that I think the content of the course could be more ambitous given it is 5 days long. It seems quite odd to teach Java and not introduce classes (or in Java 14 records). Java is an object-oriented language and so classes and objects are central to understanding and using it. If the attendees have done any Python, a lot of the content of the course is very familiar, they're just changing syntax so I would think that classes could be introduced gently on day 2 or 3 without overwhelming the students.

All in all though, a good use of my daughter's week which she enjoyed.

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My Review

Luca enjoyed some parts of this course but struggled with the virtual side. With his dyslexia he struggles remembering the instructions so we ended up taking a photo because the instructions moved on. He also found the constant chattering of some students very off putting, making it hard to conc...

Luca enjoyed some parts of this course but struggled with the virtual side. With his dyslexia he struggles remembering the instructions so we ended up taking a photo because the instructions moved on. He also found the constant chattering of some students very off putting, making it hard to concentrate and hear. The instructor was very helpful and Luca gained confidence to use the messaging chat to ask for help over the first few days. Its a hard course but very interesting and Luca said he would have preferred a classroom - at least he tried!

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