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Final spring I trialed a brand new learn-to-code platform known as Blackbird. As I wrote in Might, I appreciated it and most of my college students appreciated it. This fall Blackbird launched an up to date consumer interface and a brand new slogan of “Coding as a Conduit.” The mission of Blackbird stays the identical as earlier than. That mission being to assist academics introduce coding to their college students.
The way it Works
Blackbird is a platform that’s attempting to bridge the hole between utilizing block editors like Scratch and making college students leap right into a full-fledged IDE with none built-in help assets. Blackbird teaches college students methods to write code (particularly, JavaScript) by means of a sequence of quick, guided classes earlier than difficult them with some “workshop tasks.” Alongside the way in which there are many simply accessible assist assets for college students to make use of with out having to depart the code that they are at the moment writing.
What’s New This FallLast spring I made this quick video about methods to use Blackbird. The ideas are the identical as after I made the video, however the consumer interface has modified to make it simpler for college students to search out the teachings and for academics to view their college students’ progress. Blackbird launched a brand new video that exhibits how the present consumer interface appears. That video is embedded beneath.
Blackbird Product Tour – Fall 2021 from Blackbird on Vimeo.
Functions for Schooling
You probably have plenty of expertise educating coding and programming, Blackbird may be too easy for you. However in case you’re new to educating coding and programming, Blackbird is a superb alternative as a result of it’ll stroll you thru the entire actions and classes earlier than your college students do the teachings.
One other replace from after I used Blackbird final spring is an improved integration with Google Classroom that makes it straightforward to import your Google Classroom rosters and examine your college students’ progress by means of the teachings.
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