Like most boys his age, Carter really like to play video games and, while Mandy and I try to limit the amount of time all of our kids spend on them, there are some I like more than others. One game I do not mind him playing as much is Minecraft, which can played be like a digital LEGO adventure. In an attempt to take advantage of his love of the game, I was excited to hear that Code.org had recently released a Minecraft module.
Code.org uses basic drag-and-drop interfaces to teach kids how to code using JavaScript and fun characters (including Star Wars and Frozen). Here is one screen shot of Carter’s work last night:
You can see the end-results of Carter’s code online here and you can even view the source code by clicking on the “How It Works” button: https://studio.code.org/c/130452489. It is only a start, but he had a lot of fun playing around with this teaching tool last night, much to the delight of his two younger brothers that have both already asked for their own Code.org accounts.