Some Games for Tomorrows Web Developers
Following on from the article at the start of the week about BBC code-related shows, I’ve been looking around at some activities I could be doing with my daughter.
Rather than her only computer interaction being games with in app purchases and Youtube, it would be nice to learn something too.
Getting your children to learn other languages is really important for their own development (and can’t harm future employment chances!). Learning a programming language is probably as important, if not more. The hardest part of teaching programming or a language is making it fun.
One of the most popular games for kids, Minecraft, has a new mod on it’s way the mod is called learntomod. It will allow kids to mod mine craft with Blockly or Javascript. Blockly is a bit like another language for kids called scratch. It’s a visual programming language and a great way to engage young people before they get into the nitty gritty of “real” programming. The nice thing about Blockly is that it is a Google project and open source.
A nice project that uses Blockly is Blockly Games. The idea is that you progress from very basic drag and drop jigsaws and mazes through to a final game that will have you writing actual code. If you are looking for something on a tablet, try “Daisy the Dinosaur”, a game that will teach you how to manipulate objects.
Have fun playing and creating (honestly, it is fun!).