MDN partners with Scrimba to enhance web development learning
Hermina Condei6 minute readIn February this year, we launched the MDN Curriculum. We hope you've had a chance to explore it and have been finding it useful. The MDN Curriculum is a high-level guide to all the fundamental topics that we believe front-end developers should know to be successful in the web industry. The curriculum includes links to learning resources from MDN and elsewhere for learners to dive into each topic.
Creating the MDN Curriculum was not our end goal. Our intention has always been to provide you with a complete learning experience to help you succeed as a web developer. The MDN Curriculum is one part of this. In the next step, we want to offer a variety of resources to suit different learning styles and needs. To this end, over the last several months, we have been carefully reviewing offerings from several course providers to ensure they meet the high standards set by MDN and align with our goals.
We had many interesting conversations and, along the way during our reviews, we provided our would-be partners with valuable feedback on their courses. This helped them improve their learning material and helped us reinforce our understanding of what we wanted to ensure that we could ultimately provide you with the best possible resources.
Drumroll please 🥁
Fast forward to today: We are proud to announce Scrimba as our recommended course partner. This passionate group of web educators has put together a truly fantastic learning experience with great content and a fun and innovative platform.
After months of collaboration between MDN and Scrimba, their content now aligns perfectly with our curriculum. If you're looking for a complete course to learn our core module topics, you don't have to look far or put in a lot of research time. We have done the hard work for you: You can trust Scrimba's content to meet our high standards, at a reasonable price. Some of Scrimba's content is free for registered users.
Let's take a look at what our selection process looked like and how our partnership with Scrimba will enhance the learning experience for web developers.
Our partner selection criteria
We used several criteria to assess our potential learning partners:
- Alignment of values: We believe in teaching students how to build performant, accessible, and responsive websites. We also believe in teaching students the core web technologies that will be useful in years to come, not just abstracted frameworks that may go out of fashion. Finally, we believe in helping students gain soft skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, and how to get a job. Our learning partner should align with all these values.
- Conformance to the core curriculum: The curriculum Core modules provide the list of fundamental skills we feel students need for success in the web industry. Any course provider we partner with should cover those topics.
- Quality of content: The course content must not only embody the above values and conform to the MDN Curriculum, but it must also be engaging and high-quality, ensuring the students feel excited as they progress towards their learning goals.
- Effectiveness of the learning platform: The course's platform should be robust and accessible. Furthermore, it should be interactive and innovative. MDN has a whole wealth of text content already; there would be little point in partnering with a provider that offers the same experience.
- Value for money: The course provider should offer an affordable experience with a flexible pricing structure that can be tailored to different geographies. We understand that delivering a high-quality experience requires time and effort. Our goal is to provide great value for money for our community, without compromising on quality.
Why Scrimba stood out
We were immediately impressed with Scrimba's content due to their commitment to quality and comprehensive topic coverage – it was in line with our expectations. They strike a fantastic balance between offering comprehensive coverage of essential tooling, guidance on standards and best practices, and interview tips, all within a slick and engaging learning environment. Their innovative scrim format combines a video-like learning experience with a live IDE that you can interact with right inside the player. Scrimba makes learning both effective and enjoyable, at an affordable price.
Scrimba also has a lively community including a Discord server for students to interact with teachers and each other, a forum for asking questions, weekly live town hall events, and a podcast. Scrimba wants to encourage students to collaborate, help one another, and build a network within the wider tech community.
In our collaborative efforts, we engaged deeply with Scrimba's Frontend Developer Career Path. We shared with them comprehensive feedback to ensure the course aligns well with our educational goals and meets the evolving needs of aspiring front-end developers. Scrimba's enthusiasm for refining their offerings and incorporating our feedback highlights the strength of our partnership. Together, we're enhancing the learning experience for web developers worldwide.
Explore Scrimba
We are proud to endorse Scrimba as a trusted learning resource that complements the MDN Curriculum perfectly. Head over to the Scrimba Frontend Developer Career Path now, and you'll quickly see the value it offers. Best of all, you can explore many parts of this content for free, including:
To find out more about what Scrimba is and what the experience is like, see Welcome to Scrimba. You can also read the company's origin story at How Scrimba came to be.
FAQ
How does MDN know Scrimba's courses are high quality and follow best practices?
Scrimba already had a great reputation before we started talking to them about a partnership. However, we didn't just take the community's word for it. We did an extensive review of Scrimba's Frontend Developer Career Path (FDCP) and provided them with feedback on possible improvements, focusing on increasing coverage of best practices and conformance to the MDN Curriculum Core modules. Scrimba implemented all of our feedback, and the FDCP is even better than it was before. Now that it conforms to our Curriculum Core, we are confident it aligns with MDN standards.
Why doesn't MDN just create its own learning course?
Creating a full-fledged learning course to take students from beginners to getting their first job is a huge undertaking. Many courses already exist to serve this purpose. Additionally, the most successful courses today, such as those offered by Scrimba, are dynamic multimedia experiences; MDN's core strength, on the other hand, lies in its written content.
MDN's main content itself contains most of the material you need to become a successful front-end web developer.
We decided it would be a much better use of our resources to create a curated, organized list of links to existing MDN pages (hence the MDN Curriculum) and partner with existing course providers. This approach allows us to concentrate on other efforts, such as further enhancing the curriculum and developing certifications.
Is MDN sharing user data with Scrimba?
We prioritize user privacy and transparency. The only information MDN shares with Scrimba is user navigation to Scrimba from MDN, and this happens through their own actions by following a link that is marked as external.
In cases where we embed Scrimba content on MDN, Scrimba won't see user data until a user chooses to interact with Scrimba's content.
Scrimba's content isn't free. Doesn't this conflict with MDN's philosophy of providing free content?
A lot of Scrimba's content requires a paid subscription, but they also offer several complete courses that are free to access after you register.
It is also worth pointing out that Scrimba's courses are not necessary to make use of the MDN Curriculum — they are an enhancement for those who wish to pay for a structured course that covers the Curriculum core. You can still learn all the topics in the Curriculum for free using the recommended resources.
Is a certification awarded on completing Scrimba's Frontend Developer Career Path?
Yes, once you complete all the topics in the Frontend Developer Career Path, you can access a certificate of completion to share with potential employers or include in your portfolio. See Where can I find my completion certificate? for more information.