Day: October 16, 2017

Coding with Emoji

by dougpete, posted in application, Computers, Education, learning, Teaching

I’ll admit; I was not a fan of drag and drop coding in the beginning.  After all, I learned to program using Fortran and learning that knowing syntax was key to success.  I learned all the instructions and eventually understood all the nuances that can get in the road of a successful program.

Even programming for young students via Logo was text based.  So, there you had it.  Coding = Knowing the Language.  Done.

Even working with HTML was best done with a text editor.  Sure, there were WYSIWYG editors where you could just drop things into place and they worked for about 95% of what you needed.  A tweak here and there often required going into the source code the editor generated to make it perfect.

Well, as we know by now, that mentality has long gone.  There are many drag and drop options; probably Scratch and Blockly are two of the more popular.

Recently, I ran into a site, Codemoji,  that supports and offers courses for HTML, JS, and CSS – using Emojis!  The courses range from Beginner to Expert.  There are options for free access and premium access for a fee.

I really was taken by the environment.  Here’s part of the HTML collection.

Screenshot 2017-10-15 at 09.37.32

It truly is drag and drop from these tools to the work space.  For those of us who like our code, there’s the option to switch to a code only work space to see what these emoji tell the computer to do.  Quite frankly, when you choose an emoji, the description given is among the best descriptions that I’ve seen.  You’ll have to give it a try to appreciate it.

Of course, you’re not limited to just the HTML as part of the playground.  There’s an option to create your own animations (complete with sound effects).

There’s a great deal of fun to be had here; you should check it out.  Oh, and it’s really educational as well.

Advertisement

OTR Links 10/16/2017

by dougpete, posted in Links

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.