The exception to the above impressions from my students was one junior who had a great deal of prior experience writing JavaScript. He ripped through all of the phase 1 lessons very rapidly. Quickly, in fact, that I challenged him to enjoy this video then try to code the Snake game. He accepted and will most likely finish by the time class reunites on Thursday.

The exception to the above impressions from my students was one junior who had a lot of previous experience writing JavaScript.

Last week I published a.
written overview of a new learn-to-code platform called.
Blackbird. In other words, Blackbird is a platform that is trying to bridge the gap between utilizing block editors like Scratch and making trainees leap into a full-fledged IDE without any integrated support resources. Blackbird teaches students how to compose code (particularly, JavaScript) through a series of short, directed lessons before challenging them with some “workshop tasks.” Along the way there are lots of easily accessible aid resources for trainees to utilize without having to leave the code that theyre currently writing.
View this video that I produced a visual introduction of Blackbird.

In brief, Blackbird is a platform that is attempting to bridge the space in between using block editors like Scratch and making trainees jump into a full-fledged IDE without any integrated assistance resources. Along the method there are plenty of easily available aid resources for students to use without having to leave the code that theyre presently writing.
All of the trainees felt like there was a lot of repeating which, as one student pointed out, is a great way to learn the language.

Preliminary Impressions from My Students.
I have a small group of students taking a Computer Science Principles class with me. All of my trainees believed the very first few lessons were “too simple” and they breezed right through them. All of the students felt like there was a lot of repetition which, as one student pointed out, is a great method to learn the language.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that regularly take my (Richard Byrnes) work consist of CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web..