Tynker

Tynker is a powerful visual coding tool (HTML5-based website and mobile app) and curriculum that teaches students to program, either with blocks of code or with text-based languages. It's all available through the web interface with nothing to install, and some features are available in the app. The sandbox area and some of the courses are freely available, but the meat of Tynker content is through paid courses and subscriptions.

Courses for the youngest students, through audio instruction, include logic problems, creating simple apps, and a focus on coding basics. For the middle grades, courses cover block coding, building apps and games, a variety of STEAM subjects, and designing Minecraft mods. High school students dive into real-world coding with JavaScript, Java, Python, HTML/CSS, data structures, and even AP Computer Science prep. Students can also follow learning pathways, divided into six skill levels. Many interests are covered in the material, such as drawing and animation, music, storytelling, game design (platformers, RPGs, and physics), Minecraft mods, robotics/AR (including Lego WeDo), and web design. The site also has a level editor and character builder for game design with plenty of media assets, or you can design your own. Diversity in both prefab and customizable characters is decent, but a few gender and ethnic stereotypes pop up in the character builder. Students can create their own projects, collaborate with others, remix others' projects, and share with the online Tynker community.

A useful teacher dashboard allows teachers to create classes, keep an eye on students, and get involved with their progress. Most of Tynker's lessons are text-heavy, but the courses aimed at the youngest students have voice-over instructions, and many courses have Spanish options as well. It's integrated with Clever, Microsoft Azure logins, Google Classroom, and Apple Schoolworks API, and the teacher dashboard provides a robust tool for teachers to create class rosters, assign courses, post to asynchronous feeds for their students (who can comment on the posts), see student progress and grades, and access plenty of guidance including quick-start guides. There's also extra guidance and options for distance learning, lesson plans, classroom slides, answer keys, get started tips, activities, and previews for all the courses. Each lesson has both online and offline activities, and content is aligned to national standards.

Tynker has something to offer students of all grades and experience levels. Young students gain experience in logical and sequential thinking, while middle-grade students work on breaking down tasks into small steps, visually sequencing code, and learning through drag-and-drop block coding, including learning commands, commenting, loops, variables, expressions, input/output, conditional logic, and game design. Older students can apply these same lessons while learning real-life programming languages. Instructions for all but the early grades is text-heavy, so students who aren't strong readers may need some extra help.

The interactive learning modules, mini-games, coding projects, puzzles, and even competitions will keep students' interest and motivate them to keep going, and the built-in tutorials and how-to videos help them become independent learners and make Tynker compatible with distance learning. Students can move up in difficulty as they work through the lessons, even making the jump from block coding to JavaScript in the Sky Pirates course, which links block code on one side of the screen with the text code on the other. The Interactive Notebook configuration allows students to try out pieces of code within the context of the instructions, without having to go to another window or install anything on their computer. Students can also collaborate on projects, opening up discussion to other students and the teacher.

Courses are organized by a number of criteria, including difficulty level, grade level, programming language, and topic of interest, so it's easy to find courses that'll work for your students. The cross-curricular options add extra appeal for those who resist the more CS-oriented lessons. After students finish courses, they can use what they learned to create new projects in the sandbox portion of the site, creating any kind of project from scratch or from a template. Truly, with all of its features -- for both students and teachers -- Tynker takes coding way beyond the basic into real creation, collaboration, and application where kids can see their learning come to life.