App Review: Hopscotch

Guest post by Ms. Neumeyer, our online student teacher from Canada.(Dean Shareski's class) Today Ms. Neumeyer continues her series of iPad app reviews. 

Check out her other reviews! 

Virtual Manipulatives 

Toontastic

The reason I picked the Hopscotch app to review is that I saw recently that you had been learning about coding using Scratch.  We talked about this tool during my online college class, and it was also designed for kids to learn about coding. I thought it would be perfect to try out!

Welcome to Hopscotch! 

The first step when opening this app is to pick a character (and they sure have some great ones to pick from).

      Then users are given a list of commands on blocks which they can drag into order. The user can choose from a variety of options such as how far their character moves, the color and size of trail it leaves, creating a line or shape, changing its size and costume, etc.

             Hopscotch is an open-ended program so users can create anything they want. Users can easily experiment with what different commands do and revise their script to make it do what they want. Users then hit the play button to run their script, and if they want they can share it with others over email.

Here is a quick animation

 I made with Hopscotch.

Check out the Sydney Opera House done by an experienced coder. 

 What have you created using code?

Share some tips for making an interesting animation!

Scratch•ing the Surface of Visual Programming

Mrs. Yollis and her students love learning about computer programming. During the Hour of Code project, Heather's mom came in and taught about JavaScript using the Khan Academy. 

On Friday, Nick's mom came in to teach the class about an online educational programming language called Scratch. First, the good doctor shared a presentation about her work as a computer scientist. 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

Next, she shared some information about the computer program called  Scratch.

Here is the sprite that is first introduced when you open the program. By clicking and dragging events, you can make the sprite move, slide, rotate, or talk. The event options are limitless! 

When using Scratch, you may create using this orange sprite. However, the Scratch program allows creators to choose a new sprite or create a unique character from scratch. :-) 

(To start from scratch is an idiom that means to start at the beginning.)

Students worked in teams to create a program. 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis

As you can see, the events lock together to make a sequence of events. 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis

At the end of the session, teams came up to the front to share what they had created. It was interesting to see the different programs.

Photo by Mrs. Yollis

Photo by Mrs. Yollis





 Here is a link to learn about Scratch. 
Scratch must be downloaded by a parent. Parents, here is a direct link to the PARENT INFORMATION PAGE.



There is no iPad application for Scratch.

*     *     *     *     *



Do you see the word play in the title? 

Scratch•ing the Surface of Visual Programming
(Hint: Scratching the surface is an idiom.)


What did you think about the presentation?

What have you created?