Round EightLearning to Code with: Studio.code.org

This website is a great resource to introduce children to coding. It has courses for children to complete that help children develop fundamental computer science skills. Further down the page there are coding stories, games and code art for all ages. These activities are appealing to children because they have a theme like Frozen or Star Wars. They can complete challenges to complete basic coding (See images); they can also use coding to make pretty patterns.

It is a fun and interesting way to learn about coding. It is simple to use and once children have mastered the basic skill and have found their way around the tools, they will be able to code easily with little or no supervision. I think that having themes like Frozen appeals more to the users and by having stages or levels the children have to complete makes the activities more exciting.

During the session we explored this website, familiarising ourselves with the tools and tasks it provides. The tools are basic and are fairly self-explanatory: moving forward … pixels, moving backward… pixels, turn left… degrees, turn right… degrees and repeat… times. As you can see below in the screenshots (Screenshots 1 and 2) I have used the tools to get Elsa and Anna to draw a pattern on the ice. Each round gets more complex and incorporates more skills.

I believe this website is very useful and would be a great resource to use with the children in school. I would use it as an introduction to coding and then progress onto Scratch, which I discuss in round nine.

(Screenshot 1)

(Screenshot 2)