WHY MOST CODING TASKS ARE GAME — BASED.
Leading psychologist of the last century emphasized importance of child‘s play on development of emotional,
social, physical and cognitive. Play is one of the most important activities for development of important skills
for life, regardless of age or level of development.
What’s Coding vs What’s Programming
Coding vs programming is a debate that has become relevant in the software development community fairly recently.
Coding means writing codes from one language to another, Programming means to program a machine with a given set of instructions to run.
Though interwoven, Coding only deals with the codes and so it is less intimidating and less intensive. On the other hand, Programming deals with a program to control and interact with the machine to produce proper results.
Why are most programming courses Game based?
Game-based learning involves students using game development concepts and software to create their own games. Game-based activities are highly engaging and motivating for students and, when embedded within the curriculum, can be a highly effective way for students to learn. When students create games, they have the opportunity to become involved with authentic collaborative projects that enhance their problem-solving, communication and teamwork skills. Game-making also helps students develop the three types of thinking that the Digital Technologies curriculum is based around—Systems, Design and Computational thinking. The thinking and skills described above that can be developed through this learning process are highly desirable for workplaces of the future.
Learning programming requires many competences such as logical thinking, problem solving, and the ability to understand abstract concepts. For this reason, many students find computer programing difficult to learn. This fact can lead to low motivation to study introductory programming courses. In order to improve motivation and to enhance students learning attitude towards programming, teachers are looking for simulative approaches
to learning.
Since programming is best learned by practice and, if students are to learn effectively, at least some of this practice will have to be self-directed or in collaboration with peers. Teacher’s key role is to persuade students to do
this and thus to motivate them. Using Game based Learning has increased kids interest in Programming, since abstract concept can now be visualize. Because games are engaging and motivational, students will be encouraged to learn programming in an entertaining and potentially familiar environment, and will then be able to transfer their learning outcomes from that environment into introductory computer programming with a programming language. Courses that use games for learning programming have found positive effects on students as well as on learning outcomes. The
visual component allows students to see mistakes in their code as manifested in the resultant graphics.
A simple maze games developed with scratch will teach kids about key computational concepts such as loops,
conditionals, and even events. They also improved significantly in computational practices such as writing
and debugging programs when compared to kids not exposed to programming.
Game Design In Visual Programing Languages.
Games can be made in 2D or 3D platform. Its could be made using Blocks of codes or using text based programming.
Scratch/ ScratchJr- Scratch is a block-based visual programming language, developed by the MIT Media Lab. Users can create
Offline/online projects in a cloud using a block-like interface. Scratch encourages the sharing, reuse and combination of
code. Users can make their own projects, or they may choose remix someone else’s project.
- Light bot: Lightbot is an educational video game for learning software programming concepts. LightBot is a puzzle game based on coding; it secretly teaches you programming logic as you play!. Kids learn Sequencing
Overloading
Procedures
Recursive Loops
Conditionals.
- CodeCombat is a Strategy, Role-playing and Single-player Simulation for those students, who want to learn computer science while playing through the real game. The game centers on the education elements and available to play in the browser. In the game, you’ll learn
Python, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, or the Lua game scripting language as well as the Computer Science fundamentals. There are different levels, and the game features exciting characters.
- CodeMonkey teaches coding using CoffeeScript, a real programming language, to teach you to build your own games in HTML5. It’s aimed at coding for kids, but it’s definitely fun for adults, too.
- CSS Diner is a simple but fun way to learn CSS. There are 32 levels that will teach you the basics of how CSS selectors work. Each level of this free coding game gets progressively more complex, building on what you’ve learned in previous lessons
- Flexbox Froggy is an online game that teaches you the basics of how things align in CSS flexbox while you help Froggy and his friends.
- HUMAN MACHINE RESOURCE-
As an office worker you are challenged to complete tasks by combining various instructions together before the machines get you. This game is all about puzzle solving through visual programming.
- Swift Playgrounds, is a cute free iPad app that teaches Apple’s Swift langauge in a simple and fun way.
It begins with coding fundamentals and works its way up by presenting puzzles and other challenges that can only be solved through programming concepts
There you have it, few coding games to get you started in Programming.
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