Pencil Code: A Free Coding Tool That Checks a Lot of Boxes
Pencil Code is a block-based coding platform where students join different coding blocks together in a sequence, tweak variables of the blocks, and then run them to do things on the screen. Code can do things like display text, move a character, or draw objects. With Pencil Code's tools and supporting resources, teachers can introduce concepts like functions, loops, conditionals, and arrays. To get started, teachers will want to do some work up front, getting familiar with the tools and curating the most important resources for students. Teachers will also need to do some instruction; there's no onboarding or scaffolding. However, there's a Teacher's Manual with lessons and sample projects that can be adapted. If you want to do something more comprehensive, this would be a good option. Note that Pencil Code recommends the lessons in the manual for ninth grade and up.
For more, check out our review of Pencil Code: https://www.commonsense.org/education...
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