The second part of my Creating with Code assignment is to find one mobile app that helps children to learn how to code and to explore that app and reflect upon it as I wish. I began the process by downloading nine suggested apps; Cargo-B0t, Kodable, Tickle, Daisy the Dino, The Foos, Hopscotch, Lightbot Hour, Scratch Jr., and TinkerBox.

The next step was to open one website for each app and to be totally judgmental in terms of aesthetics, likely support, popularity, and most importantly, whether I want this piece of software in my classroom life – can I stand to see it on a consistent basis? I immediately drop Daisy the Dino as it’s way to ‘cute’ and I know I will tire of her quickly. I lose TinkerBox because I see no appreciable web presence and therefore little community connection.

The next step was to open each one of the remaining seven on the iPad to get an initial impression. I drop Kodable for aesthetic reasons; the character’s voice and cutesy blinking eyes are too much to bear day-to-day, ditto for The Foos. Now I’m down to five apps that, thankfully, look quite promising. I leave Tickle behind because I know I will use it for other reasons, Hopscotch because it seems the weakest of the ‘block’ apps, and Lightbot Hour only because it seemed the need to include music, which is sometimes a deal breaker in a classroom, even with a mute button.

I played with Cargo-Bot and Scratch Jr. for a while and choose Scratch Jr. because it’s scalable to Scratch, its ease of use, the recording function, its community support, and seems quite deep enough so as not to tire of it.

In the not so very distant future expect a post on a planned “Scratch Day” in which I will use Scratch on my Raspberry Pi, Scratch on CS First, and my new member of the family, Scratch Jr.