It became very obvious to me when preparing for my Programming in the Primary School seminar that Apple was ahead in the programming apps race. iOS apps such as Daisy the Dinosaur, Hopscotch and Kodable are all free and will be extremely useful when the new Computing curriculum starts in September. However, with more and more schools adopting Android tablets, it is only a matter of time before developers start to develop similar apps for the Google Play Store. One such app is called Pocket Code. Pocket Code works in a similar way to Scratch and is free to download and use. There is very limited support for teachers who want to know how to use the app in the classroom (compared to resources available for Scratch) but there are some basic tutorials available as well as sample projects to show what can be done. I will certainly be downloading this app to try it out and will let you know its suitability for use in Primary Schools. Link to the Pocket Code website is here.
Michael EmertonPrimary Computing Teacher and Technician. Archives
February 2015
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