Comments on: Block-based programming: does it help students learn?

By: IanS

IanS — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 09:48:18 +0000

Working with my 8 year old son on Micro:bit projects, he finds the block based style easier, which is hardly surprising. However the standard Micro:bit environment is hybrid, so he can see the correlation between the blocks and the code. He agrees that the code is a much faster way of writing, once you know it, but initially the blocks are much easier. However, they are really slow to find and position, and sometimes the easiest (only?) way to make a slight change to a code structure is to delete the whole section and rebuild it, whereas editing the code is trivial if you know it.

By: Sonora Technical

Sonora Technical — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 20:04:05 +0000

I often wonder where Node-RED falls in this? You do allot of block programming (nodes) as you layout the flows… but you also do a tremendous amount of coding (javascript) within function blocks to really accomplish stuff. Perhaps Node-RED would be too intimidating for children?

By: Ashley Whittaker

Ashley Whittaker — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 16:53:18 +0000

In reply to Plinta Alba Archives.

Hi ? they link to this cool page in the blog which has instructions for lots of projects: https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en

By: Plinta Alba Archives

Plinta Alba Archives — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 15:17:47 +0000

Thank you for any other informative web site.

Where else may just I get that kind of information written in such an ideal approach?
I have a venture that I am just now running on, and I’ve been at the look out
for such information.

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 18:07:45 +0000

I wonder how the transition from Scratch to Java was taught, or how OOP was explained (if it was). Scratch simplicity hides the “grown up” principles lurking in the background. Sprites are Objects, variables are class properties, blocks of code are methods and running those blocks is multi-threading. The broadcast tools are signals between threads. Defining new blocks is “sub-routines”. Setting up the stage almost becomes the GUI layout (but not quite).

By: PeterO

PeterO — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 09:29:06 +0000

“The 90 students in the study (14 to 16 years old) were divided into three groups, each with a different intervention but taught by the same teacher.”
What does “intervention” mean here ? Educationalists love to use long words to hide behind !

By: ameyring

ameyring — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 16:53:54 +0000

I spent years using text and committing it to memory. When I tried Scratch a few years ago, the hardest part was finding the blocks in the menu that I needed (and trial and error to try blocks). It takes a little time, but eventually you get fast at finding the necessary blocks. I recently wrote an app using MIT’s free app maker and it’s based on Scratch. After several days of looking at the examples and finding YouTube videos for more advanced stuff, it worked out. I realize blocks and text have their roles, both in style of learning and how the software for a gadget it set up.

By: Colin Deady

Colin Deady — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 14:21:36 +0000

I learnt multi-threaded programming with block-based programming in my 30s and would recommend it to all.

I’ve been programming since circa 2001. Up until 2011 this was all for test automation or websites and I had no concept of multi-threaded programming. I’d looked at it but couldn’t grasp the concepts. What I needed was something that reduced the programming aspect while increasing the learning. Enter LEGO (R) Mindstorm.

I discovered in Mindstorm that you can run multiple parallel threads. I quickly learnt, for example to have a thread always running on a loop turning the wheels, injecting velocity as a variable from a separate process. The wheels remained “turning” even when stationary, ie: velocity=0. What an advantage! I could set up wheel control and others on threads, fire, loop and forget.

I quickly took what I learnt and wrote a multi-threaded program in Python for an early MagPi. While the code looks clunky to me today it served me well. It’s a program I still use now, several years later, to speed test each new Pi that is released.

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 12 Dec 2020 19:59:22 +0000

Dubious interpretation of the data… The hybrid group’s score fell the most in the second phase, and was worst overall at the end.

Yet the author believes the hybrid approach is best?

By: Eric Olson

Eric Olson — Sat, 12 Dec 2020 18:38:39 +0000

In reply to Jbeale.

My understanding of the graph is that students in the Blocks and Hybrid groups had declining sense of accomplishment between the 5 week and 15 week assessment, while the Text group had a continuing upward trend in positivity and sense of accomplishment.

After 15 weeks they are both about the same, but that’s still pretty short term from a career point of view as well as any type of strategic educational initiative. If the trends continue, students in the Text group may continue to feel that they are thriving while students in the other two groups could become even more frustrated.

On the other hand, I may have misunderstood the whole study.