Coding for Kids
Table of Contents
How Coding Builds Collaboration Skills
What do you think of when you hear the word “collaboration”? Collaboration has been defined as “the action of working with someone to produce or create something,” and “two or more people working together toward shared goals.” In today’s networked society, we all need to learn how to work together effectively to accomplish shared goals.
Tynker is a great tool for teaching kids how to collaborate! They use online tools and text to work asynchronously with others to create projects, and they team up with other kids face-to-face to help each other learn to code.
Getting Hands-On with Robotics and Drones
With Tynker, kids can collaborate as they help each other program drones and robots! Take for example a 6th grade math class at Buffalo Trail Public Schools in Alberta, Canada. Students learned about angles as they designed tracks and programmed robots to run the course correctly. They had to work together to create their tracks and help each other successfully program the robots!
When kids use Tynker to program Parrot drones, they work together to complete the correct code and navigate the drone while it’s flying. Just watch the video below to see how these students at St. Joseph’s School work as a team to launch and catch their drone–and how excited they are when their drone-flying mission is accomplished!
Time for another Genius Hour with Decoders and some excellent examples of @gotynker and @ParrotEducation coding #stjcpdc #stjcpdecoders pic.twitter.com/Ab2wOpfFkz
— St Joseph's Cathedral School Swansea (@StJosephsCPS) November 16, 2018
Solving Challenges Together
Via Twitter
Kids around the world take collaborating with Tynker beyond the screen through coding clubs, school projects, and coding time with friends. When his students code with Tynker, Featured Teacher Adrian Santesteban says: “I encourage collaboration between each other in order for them to work together to think critically to resolve the problems in front of them. It’s great to see them interact and talk through the problem until they arrive at a solution.” And with Tynker, coding collaboration doesn’t just happen when teachers facilitate it: kids talk to each other about code blocks to reach a successful outcome—like flying a drone or completing Candy Quest!
Creating Mods with Friends
In Tynker, you can create mods with friends! When kids play Minecraft together, they’ll help each other create skins, mods, and mobs, to make immersive worlds! In Tynker’s Mod Creator, kids can see a gallery of Minecraft creations, all crafted by the Tynker community. Kids can remix their own versions of these creations. And in our Minecraft Game Design 1 course, kids can even build their own multiplayer games. With Minecraft, kids can take game-playing to a whole new level as they collaborate!
Competing with Friends in Crystal Clash
In Crystal Clash, our newest multiplayer game, kids can compete with friends as they battle with the best code they can think of! This coding challenges requires kids to be persistent and resilient as they strategize using code. The longest-surviving player is the winner, who then reaches the Champion level. Along with other critical 21st-century skills like critical thinking and logical reasoning, kids learn collaboration skills as they play Crystal Clash!
Ready to help your child get the collaboration skills they need? Tynker offers intrinsically collaborative activities like Crystal Clash, our multiplayer game! With over 2,000 coding challenges, your child can practice navigating online tools, writing compelling text, and interacting face-to-face with other coders today!
