Blog & News

The Blackbird coding platform is exactly what I was hoping for to help students learn text-based coding. We incorporated it into a two-week Code Dance Create camp for middle school students this summer funded by the Oregon Department of Education, and it was wonderful to see how even brand-new coders learned the skills. Students with special needs excelled with it, too, and everyone had the flexibility to work at their own pace. I volunteered to share our story with the hope

If you're in a coding class, this might just be a valuable lesson for you. If you're a teacher, I'd love your help collecting evidence for (or against) my theory. My theory is that students in most coding classes have a hard time learning to code not because it's fundamentally difficult (our pilots have demonstrated that 90% of eighth graders, and their teachers, can learn it without difficulty). I don't think because students need to learn "problem solving skills" or "comput

We'll be releasing updates on 04/13/2022 from 9PM to 11PM PST. 1. Support for multiple curricula We added a curriculum selection component to the dashboard. It looks like this: Teachers can use it to demo available curricula. Students can use it to switch between multiple curricula associated with their sections. This is a big step toward making Coding as a Conduit more accessible to teachers everywhere. 2. Curriculum design tooling improvements We've made substantial improve

We'll be releasing updates on 11/11/2022 from 9PM to 11PM PT. 1. Enable translation and text-to-speech for an account We recently added the ability for users to enable accessibility options on their accounts. These options include the ability to translate lesson content to Spanish and have content read out loud in English with text-to-speech. Here's how to enable and use these new features. First, go to your Account page and click the checkbox next to "Enable accessibility op

From PBS: This episode of “A World of Difference: Embracing Neurodiversity” explores the intersection of neurodivergence and technology....

The 'Hour of Code' is a Global Initiative by Computer Science Education Week and Code.org to Introduce Millions of Students to Computer...

An accelerator for social impact startups building products addressing equity in education. Portland, OR, November 6, 2022 - Blackbird...

Richard Byrne compared Code.org to Blackbird in this new article on Free Technology for Teachers. In contrast to Code.org Blackbird...

Richard Byrne wrote about Blackbird in Free Technology for Teachers. Around this time every year I get emails that go something like...

Tech & Learning featured Blackbird in a new article. Blackbird does teach JavaScript, however, rather than dive in with all the details...