Within the final month I’ve replied to some Tweets from individuals asking for my opinion about whether or not they need to use Code.org or Blackbird to assist them educate their college students methods to code. As you may anticipate, there isn’t a one-size-fits all reply to that query. On this submit I’ll share my expertise utilizing each in my classroom (ninth grade Intro to Programming). Hopefully, my experiences will allow you to determine which is finest in your college students.
Code.org CS Rules
Code.org’s CS Rules is a really scripted curriculum that you should use to show an introduction to programming and primary networking ideas. When you have by no means taught coding or programming, the CSP curriculum is useful as a result of it lays out a step-by-step, day-by-day plan so that you can observe. All through the teachings college students use Code.org’s Code Studio to apply utilizing the abilities taught in every lesson.
Code.org’s Code Studio offers a block programming interface. Every block represents a chunk of code. College students drag and drop the blocks to assemble packages. As they get higher or extra accustomed to programming college students can swap from block programming to writing code in a textual content editor within the Code Studio. My college students and I each discovered Code Studio’s consumer interface a bit crowded when displayed on 13” Macbooks and really crowded on 11” Chromebooks. That doesn’t imply Code Studio doesn’t work on these smaller screens, it simply implies that we at all times felt like there was one thing both hiding within the UI and or that there wasn’t sufficient area to essentially see the total image of what you’re engaged on. It’s sort of like utilizing Google Docs on a cellphone display in that it really works, nevertheless it’s higher on a bigger display.
The CSP classes usually embrace video segments which can be designed to supply some “actual world” context for the ability or idea taught in that lesson. For probably the most half, my ninth grade college students reacted to those movies with expressions starting from “oh, now I get why…” to “blah” to “that is tacky.” I ended up utilizing my very own “actual world” examples as dietary supplements or replacements for the included video segments.
CSP is extra than simply coding classes. There are many classes about networking and the way the Web works. It truly is sort of a Whitman’s Sampler of all issues associated to pc science. It was good for giving college students some broad publicity to the numerous instructions that they will go in with pc science. That mentioned, there have been instances when college students who had some earlier coding expertise in center faculty bought a bit irritated or annoyed by the Code Studio expertise.
Blackbird Code
In distinction to Code.org Blackbird doesn’t have any sort of block programming interface. From the primary lesson college students do all of their programming in a textual content editor. In different phrases, they be taught to put in writing Javascript and see what every line they write does. On the entire, my college students most well-liked doing that to dragging and dropping in a block programming interface.
After I used Blackbird with my college students there was only one curriculum to observe and there was a workshop area the place college students might work on something they needed to whereas I might observe that workshop area remotely. Right now, Blackbird affords 4 curricula to select from together with a workshop area through which college students can work on impartial initiatives.
The 4 curricula in Blackbird are Video games and Animations, Expressions and Equations, Magnet Rocket, and Ratios and Proportions. Whichever curriculum you select, Blackbird works in the identical method. That method is to begin with a easy exercise that makes a degree or line seem on the display. College students then see a break up display lesson that reveals them some transient directions on the left aspect of the display and a code editor on the fitting aspect of the display. It’s within the break up display setting that college students write their traces of code.
Blackbird offers assist and tutorials that college students can entry whereas writing their Javascript packages. There’s a useful “present me” button that college students can click on once they get caught on a lesson. Clicking “present me” reveals the answer and its rationalization. Nonetheless, college students nonetheless want to truly kind the code so as to full the lesson.
After I used Blackbird with my college students they thought the primary few classes had been “too simple” they usually breezed proper by them (to be truthful, all of them had some prior coding expertise). By the point they bought to the fourth or fifth lesson, they did not really feel that method. At that time they began to make use of the “present me” button in Blackbird to get a little bit assist writing their code. All the college students felt like there was plenty of repetition which, as one scholar identified, is an efficient option to be taught the language.
If you happen to don’t have any prior expertise instructing programming, Blackbird does have some good assets so that you can observe. That mentioned, it’s not fairly as scripted as Code.org. That’s an excellent factor as a result of I’d quite put my very own spin on classes than observe another person’s scripted lesson plan.
Which one do you have to use?
In case your focus is on instructing coding to center faculty and highschool college students, my choose is Blackbird. In case your class is a bit broader in scope begin with CSP then transition to Blackbird when your college students have outgrown utilizing Code Studio.
