How to learn Coding while Playing Games using Blockly Games
Coding is a powerful tool for creating, expressing, and understanding ideas but this could be a tedious task for kids. When we were kids things like toys, blocks helped us in developing our mind and creating something new from different pieces. Thus similarly Blockly library adds an editor to your app that represents coding concepts such as loops, expression as interlocking blocks without getting confused with complex syntax and makes coding as fun as games like puzzle or Lego pieces.
Blockly Games is a series of educational games that teach programming. It is designed for children who have not had prior experience with computer programming. By the end of these games, players are ready to use conventional text-based languages.
Features of Blockly
- Concepts made easy – Loops are one of the most important as well as complex topics but using blockly we can use them without getting into complexity.
- Free – Open source features provide accessibility to all.
- Extensible – Easier for kids to add or delete any block.
- Extraction- It is easy to export block-based programs to common programming languages and smooth transition to text-based programming.
Why Blockly?
The tool is a fantastic learning tool and makes code both readable and easy to manipulate thus help kids in boosting their confidence. Also, it is a user-friendly UI(user interface) that helps in making it interesting. You don’t need to know the languages you are working with or even be familiar with programming languages at all to figure this out. This makes it a fantastic learning tool if you are just trying to learn how to code.
How Blockly focuses on Skills
- Puzzle is a quick introduction to Blockly’s shapes and how the pieces snap together.
- Maze is an introduction to loops and conditionals. It starts simply, but every level is more challenging than the last.
- Bird is a deep-dive into conditionals. Control-flow is explored with increasingly complex conditions.\
- Turtle is a deep-dive into loops. Use nested loops to paint a picture. Then publish your art for the world to see.
- Movie is an introduction to mathematical equations. Use math to animate a movie. Then publish your movie for the world to watch.
- Music is an introduction to functions. Use functions to compose music. Then publish your music for the world to listen to.
- Pond Tutor introduces text-based programming. Levels switch back and forth between blocks and actual JavaScript in a text editor.
- Pond is an open-ended contest to program the smartest duck. Use either blocks or JavaScript.