This weekend I had the great opportunity to attend an event hosted by SparkFun at a local venue called Geekdom. The event was a class for young students to learn how to use the free programming language, Scratch, developed by M.I.T. The students also learned how to use Scratch with a PicoBoard, which connects to … Read more
I’m finally introducing my third graders to programming. We are studying systems thinking this year, and I feel like computer programming fits right into this. This group has not been exposed to programming, yet. So, I thought I would use a fun activity suggested by Kodable in its Learning Guide to get the ball rolling. … Read more
I’ve been using this blog and Pinterest to promote the importance of teaching programming to students for awhile now. One of the benefits that I see is how coding makes natural connections to Systems Thinking. Some of my favorite FREE programming apps are: Daisy the Dinosaur, Cargo-Bot, and Hopscotch. While these are definitely fun apps, … Read more
Alexandra Jordan. 9 years old. 4th grade. Likes playdates. Developed an app in her free time. If you are a regular reader, you know that I am a big fan of teaching programming to kids. Alexandra is learning programming with the help of her dad, saw the need for an app that aids in scheduling … Read more
BotLogic is a new web-based game that teaches programming to kids. It reminds me a bit of the iPad apps , “Daisy the Dinosaur,” “Kodable,” and “Cargo-Bot.” The main difference is, of course, that you can play BotLogic on any device with an internet browser, and are not restricted to a certain operating system. What also makes … Read more
If you are interested in integrating some computer programming into your curriculum, you may want to take a look at Tynker. Earlier this year, I mentioned Tynker in a post about programming for kids, but I hadn’t had the chance to try it. It looked promising, so I decided to offer it as a free … Read more