We got the opportunity to explore methods of coding that we can use to teach students in a highschool setting.

Some of the programs that we looked into and tried out were Scratch, Grasshopper, Hour of Code, and Code BC.

A common theme amongst these programs is the use of blocks to organize rather than actually coding with keyboards. This makes these programs easier to use and it makes it seems like more of a puzzle, which is very fun.

I used Scratch to make a little fun animation in about 15 minutes. It was so easy. Although my animation was simple, it seems really easy to edit, troubleshoot, and build on ideas and concepts. It could get time consuming and does require an account to export the final product. The applications to students might be nice to demonstrate scientific topics as a review since it offers a variety of characters and backgrounds.

Attached is a clip of the animation that I used