Tynker

This is a very brief post as I have only had a brief play with Tynker. It uses blocks for coding in the same way as scratch, hour of code activities and Hopscotch. This app allows children to explore their creativity and therefore goes beyond the linear games such as ALEX, Beebot and Fix the Factory. That said, I might have found it easier to have an aim when I started. It doesn't have the same creative freedom as Kodu (now wouldn't a Kodu app be incredible?!) and I quickly became frustrated that I wasn't doing anything purposeful with it. I do however recognise that children will master it much more quickly and find ways of getting the characters to interact more.

There are a few different 'worlds' you can choose from to create and play and the app has a game that you can play at the start (this does provide a model of what you can achieve, but it was quite a simple game.) 

The create and play element of it is useful in that you can tweak your characters if they don't quite do what you want - so debugging becomes simple for children.

When I start my code club next year I will be interested to see what the children think of it.