Games: Play & Create. CodeCombat. Life with Raspberry Pi: The hot $25 computer may just spark a coding revolution in schools. Illustration by Harry Campbell By Chad Sansing Our classroom glows with activity.
One kid drafts a how-to article in which he explains the steps involved in wiring a cardboard Minecraft controller. Another writes a branching-path, choose-your-own-adventure story in Twine, a free, downloadable interactive fiction app. Teacher's Guide to Kinect: How to Program for Kinect and Gesture-Based Learning. Are Kids Who Make Their Own Video Games Better Prepared For The Digital Future? Alice.org. Looking Glass. Botlogic. Robozzleapp.com. Logo Software.
Scratch. Easy Scratch Project Ideas for Kids. Stencyl. Build Worlds If you're used to graphics editors like Photoshop, you'll feel right at home in the Scene Designer.
Familiar features, such as a selection tool, zooming, grid-snapping and flood fill, will help you quickly craft complex worlds out of Actors, Tiles and Terrain. Create Actors Drop in graphics from your computer to create Actors on the fly. Then use Stencyl's Actor Editor to tweak your Actors' appearances, behaviors and physical properties, and to get them ready for showtime. Browse Game Assets When it comes to game development, most of us aren't Jacks of all trades. But thanks to StencylForge, our integrated marketplace, we don't have to be. Stencyl's Official Blog.
Computer Game Design in the Classroom - Stencyl as a tool for creating Flash games. I've been briefly highlighting some computer game creation tools over the past week.
The first two articles are here: For this installment I want to focus on my current resource of choice: Stencyl Update 2/2/2014: I recently posted a review of a book that will be great resource for learning Stencyl: Learning Stencyl 3.x Game Development. If you are considering using Stencyl in class or if you are just learning the program, I recommend the book. I wrote recently about Stencyl and I have featured a few games I created. My Experience My first attempt to use Stencyl was met with frustration, but I revisited it this summer after I realized they updated to version 2.0. Like many other tools, users arrange code blocks rather than typing all the lines of a program. But even if a user finds the blocks to their liking, it's not exactly easy to make a game. For example, my games were simple in the fact that I did not need to handle collisions or many different "scenes" based on player interaction. Gamestar Mechanic.
Hopscotch. How Do You Get an App to Code? How to Program with Hopscotch. Hopscotch: Coding for kids, a visual programming language. The Hopscotch Blog. Daisy the Dinosaur. Daisy the Dinosaur. Daisy the Dinosaur is an iPad app that teaches basic programming to young children.
It has a Challenge Mode, in which the user is given 5 challenges that increase in difficulty, beginning with programming the dinosaur to walk forward. In Freeplay Mode, the user can experiment with several different commands, including making Daisy grow or shrink. I think that this app is perfectly appropriate for students as young as Kindergarten.
They may need some help with the reading, but will enjoy solving the problems. My daughter is 9, and I handed her this app with no instructions. Daisy the Dinosaur is a good introduction to programming. All of the above activities are fabulous for working on problem-solving skills, logic, and perseverance. Daisy the Dinosaur - A Visual Intro to Programming. Logo Software. What is Logo? "Logo is the name for a philosophy of education and a continually evolving family of programming languages that aid in its realization.
" - Harold Abelson Apple Logo, 1982 This statement sums up two fundamental aspects of Logo and puts them in the proper order. The Logo programming environments that have been developed over the past 28 years are rooted in constructivist educational philosophy, and are designed to support constructive learning. Constructivism views knowledge as being created by learners in their own minds through interaction with other people and the world around them. This theory is most closely associated with Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist, who spent decades studying and documenting the learning processes of young children. In the Beginning In the mid 1960s Seymour Papert, a mathematician who had been working with Piaget in Geneva, came to the United States where he co-founded the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory with Marvin Minsky. Out Into the World Innovation. 14sia - Robotics. A robot is a electrical machine which is made to act and be like a living thing.
A robot is a product of human imagination, and are pictured in many sci-fi movies. Robots that are being engineered now a days are programmed to help people. Only very basic robots can be made, that can only do tasks, not feel like a human. Robots are often made with electronic parts and computer system programming.Who made the First Robot? The first factory robot was made by Joseph F. Robots in Entertainment Robots can also be found in the markets, either as sophisitcated robots or toy robots. Robots are also very popular in the media, as many movies and T.V shows incorporate robots.