Last updated on 12 December 2016
Junior Campus is a kind of online mini mooc with the ambition toIntroduce children from 7 to 13 years old to the basics of programming with the Scratch language.
Scratch is a programming language created by the famous MIT (Massachussetts Institute of Technology). It simplifies the creation of interactive stories, cartoons, games, digital simulations and their sharing on the web.
Campus Junior will support aspiring coders in using this computer language so that they can create their own stories. The beautifully designed platform offers to discover Scratch step by step through thirty small videos.
Videos, but also practical workshops with increasing difficulty will gently guide students from a beginner to an expert level. Online quizzes allow at the end of each sequence to review and validate the main concepts. A system of points and badges is there to encourage young people to move from one level to another.
Playful and pedagogical, Campus Junior is a real success. The site offers access reserved for children and another for teachers and trainers. The latter have access to the same route as that offered to children, but they also have a toolkit designed around a dozen computer concepts: position, movement, sound, iteration (loops), conditional structures, variables, plots, random numbers … The explanatory sheets, the step-by-steps and the tutorial scripts are available in PDF format.
The teacher can also create a group of learners to monitor their individual and collective progress.
Campus Junior is an initiative of a major electronics brand. To register, children must fill in an online form, which is then sent to parents for permission. A somewhat complicated system. We would have liked something simpler that does not collect private information about learners. This is the only false note of this site which for the rest does not lack attractions.
Campus Junior is free.
Link: Junior Campus – Link to Scratch's website to code online.
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