Youth Digital Mod Design 1 - Online Course for MAC/PC

Bought this for our sons 9th birthday and it was his favorite gift ever - he was so sad when the course was over! Excellent method of editing Minecraft java code that is very engaging, productive and educational. Codecademy et al. didnt connect with the simple coding results, this integration with making a mod kept him incredibly engaged. The videos are very well done and had him laughing out loud. EXCELLENT support response - very fast, very personal and very well tailored for kids. Hardest part now is waiting for Mod Design 2 !

My son is 11 and very bright. He made it through the first section. That part was set up great. But, when he tried to move to the next section, the software wasnt working like it was supposed to. As instructed, he contacted customer service but they did little to help him. I stepped in and tried to get them to fix it but they still werent able to fix it. No offer of a refund or anything. We wasted all that money for nothing.

this is an awesome program!

A couple of things that you should be aware of before you buy. This course does not help you write Minecraft plugins, which is what most kids want to do. Also, it is only for single user mode and does not help you with servers, which is what most kids want to play on

My 11-year old son got this for Christmas and loves it. My husband watched some of the video over his shoulder and talked about how well done and funny the video is. No drawbacks here. My son is a mod-ing machine now.

I only have good things to say about this company, they are creating fun interactive training courses for kids to learn by doing what they love, playing! I got my 11 year old son the Mod Design 1 course, and he is literally programming in Java to make his ideas come to life in Minecraft. I have watched a couple of the videos with him, and the trainer is a total goofball, but my son is laughing and learning, so dont let that turn you off; the goofy + serious training totally works... You might think it is expensive, but it is a true training class, and I think it is a good value for what you get out of it. Having been a programmer for almost 20 years, I can say that it is really good stuff, and critical concepts that kids are going to be required to know at some point. They have other courses too, such as fashion design, 3D Game Design, 3D Animation, App Design (you actually build and install an app on an iPhone or iPad!), and others. It would make a great Christmas present! ... ok, done with my product advertising... no I dont get paid for this, I just want them to make more of these!

Best self-teaching Java and Minecraft curriculum a kid could ask for. My daughter absolutely loved this program. It integrates great teaching videos, a programming environment, great support and more! Even I enjoyed watching and participating in the lessons while seeing her creations play out live on Minecraft.

1) The custom environment that the course installs for you is quite error prone. Eclipse will often fail to load and unless you really know what youre doing, you can loose your work and start over.

Im sure its a good program but Im sitting here on xmas day with my 10-year old son and I open the box and get a cheap card with a voucher code and cant get past the RECALCULATE button on their order page. The biggest day of the year to provide sales support and their website says they are all home with their families. Great. So they get this thumbs down evaluation. I hope I change my mind when they get back to work. My $250 purchase is zero return on the most important day to use it. Tomorrow I go back to work and may not have the time to open this program with him.

No effective support. Takes days to get a reply and the only way to contact support is by their chat system which is not live. No child will find this kind of help to be appealing. Mine certainly dont. I honestly believe their claim to provide helpful teachers is a vacuous claim.