Community reviews for Lightbot Jr : Coding Puzzles for Ages 4+

For the majority of our Grade One to Five students, completing the Basics was a reasonable challenge with our Grade One students appropriately needing the most support and encouragement. However, what was most interesting to me was how this app and way of thinking encouraged new students to emerge as leaders in programming and computational thinking. Students who were USED being challenged by new learning demonstrated much more grit and perseverance than those students not used to having to work hard to find success (i.e students experience consistent success in academics.) This app (website) was very popular to learners from Grade 2 and 5. Moving to the Procedures levels was a bit of jump for many students. Perhaps more videos and examples would help learners be more able to make the leap from Basics to Procedures levels. (The pace is much slower in the paid app which allows learners a more gradual progression of difficulty. The Hour of Code (has 3 Levels: Basics, Procedures and Loops) whereas the paid app adds levels called "Jumping" and Overloading" BEFORE the Procedures Levels. (The Loops Level was challenging but demonstrated the concept in an intuitive manner. Overall, all students found success with with app especially in the first Basics Level and I would recommend this app and website as a popular introduction for students new to programming. Allow them to collaborate and encourage them to demonstrate grit and perseverance, two important 21st century skills and you will have a busy, noisy but engaged class for students aged 6 to 12.

As a teaching tool, I would recommend Light-Bot to be used in the classroom. I used it with my Technology students 2-5. There are different levels which allows for multiple entry points and differentiation. On the downside, my students were not able to create an account and save their work. It would be nice if the students were able to save their progress and continue their work at a later date.