Excellent way to teach outside-the-box logic and problem solving!
Community Review for Tynker
My Take
Overall, this product is a wonderful way to introduce programming and logic skills. It can challenge students of every age and ability level. I do recommend that when first using Tynker you have students work in small groups and/or pairs. Encourage creativity, peer support, and independent thought!
How I Use It
I used Tynker to introduce my students to basic programming skills. After they had a general understanding of the site and how the coding blocks work, I assigned them a task. Their assignment was to create an animation based on a scene from one of the three "Mouse and the Motorcycle" books. The animation needed to include at least three "actors", each actor needed at least three "actions", and it needed at least one scene.
Advanced students were able to go above and beyond the requirements, creating games rather than animations. The site is very visual, and blocks are color coded. This was very helpful for ELL students. They could choose a block and watch it in action, rather than just reading it.