Have you ever played “connecting the blocks” game in your childhood? It used to be my favorite pastime as a kid. Or you must have had at least a puzzle game as you were growing up?
Puzzles were so much fun, right? Small blocks intelligently connected would form a full story! I still remember having a roller coaster ride puzzle and when I made it for the first time when I was 5, it was a huge success for me! Well, to be honest, I have grown up playing with puzzles, block games, cue cards, and models and I am sure you also enjoy playing with them. I love the fact of how to engage a child in what he/she is doing, and you don’t even realize how quickly you learn things.
Let me tell you a small story, to begin with. When I was a child, I used to hate eating fruits. My dad got me this amazing fruit puzzle. I would sit together for hours, dropping the pieces together to get a final picture of a fruit basket. I enjoyed playing the game so much so that I started eating fruits and now I absolutely cannot go without fruits. So, you see now, how we can engage children and capture their interest if we offer them an attractive and creative learning environment. Block coding is one such learning environment that has made programming, a fun task!
For those who think, coding is not for them, Block Coding is for you! Let’s understand what block coding is, how it works and is this language sort to become the future of coding?
BLOCK CODING
Block is a concept very different from the conventional text-based coding or visual coding techniques where code is generated by dragging and dropping statements to generate valid code. This kind of an environment is specially designed to engage kids in coding, but interactively, they don’t type out text strings but by connecting the puzzle pieces (which are a kind of visual cues) of commands.
Interesting, right?
So, you need not have the knowledge of a set of commands and instructions already but can browse the set of commands to check which one would work! The set of commands is arranged in a block palette, organized in a color-coded pattern and the user can simply drag the command into their program! This makes the process so simple, especially for those who struggle with typing. While working in a block-based programming environment, another notable feature you come across is intelligence. Such an environment prevents the user from snapping together those commands which do not produce a valid statement. This is especially good because that way syntax errors are avoided while keeping the programmer engaged.
ADVENT AND RISE OF BLOCK CODING: WHY NOVICE CODERS LOVE IT?
Block coding was commercially introduced through one of the most successful block coding environments called SCRATCH. It started with a goal to make coding easy and interesting for novices so that they could start with no or very little command over coding. Scratch is an equally good platform for handling big and complex projects, which makes it the “best platform”.
Millions of users on Scratch’s website have produced millions of distinct, creative and useful projects since its launch, showing how people find block coding to be much more convenient for users as compared to other text-based programming languages. And this is obvious if we were given an option, let say, to choose between reading a novel and watching a movie, both showing the same story, the majority of us would prefer a movie (visual medium) over the novel. Likewise, we enjoy the smart classroom study. We love lab classes more than regular lectures. It is because of a fact that 90 percent of the information transmitted to our brain is visual. And in that case, a visual in the form of a game is all we would want for learning something as complex as coding!
Various researches and studies have also resulted in a similar observation. Students especially love block coding platforms like Scratch, Blockly, Tinkercad and Codejig because of the visually attractive layout, drag and drop composition of the platforms and the ability to browse from blocks of commands. These things are visually more appealing and mentally relaxing for children or coders. Plus, they don’t have to remember any particular syntax or language, block coding is as easy as connecting English words to make sense! This is psychological empowering because when novices start coding, it doesn’t scare them but proves to be more effective at improving their programming ability. It boosts their confidence and chances are that students secure better marks if they learn by this approach.
Let’s quickly revise why block coding is useful: Engaging, Simple language, Easy to learn, Extensible and Scalable.
So, by now we know that block coding has the potential to catch user attention and make anyone, a pro in coding. But there are some challenges related to block coding in terms of computer science and technology, let us see what they are.
CHALLENGES OF BLOCK CODING
As programming is sure to become a core tenet of our education system and the future careers will require the proficiency of professionals in data analysis for handling large amounts of data, it is important to understand how block coding might not be the best choice for the future. Programming shortly will be more advanced and abstract, and AI will become a part of toolkits. In such a situation, will the perception of block coding environments including playful commands, colourful interface and drag, and drop composition constitute real programming? Will this inculcate a sense of programming in students and professionals? Is it possible for students to understand the conceptual equivalence between commands in Scratch and commands in Java? While there are some block-based environments are sufficiently empowered to do anything and everything but there are still some platforms that do not offer everything that can be done in text-based environments. This difference, if identified by students, might make them incompetent in terms of programming.
Also, there is a question of whether these block-based coding platforms will contribute to transitioning leaners to text-based languages required for their professionals. While some learners have shown progress in successfully implementing their knowledge and ideas from block-based to text-based environments, but we cannot generalize this for the entire learner community. And this might prove to be the biggest shortcoming of the block-based programming environment.
WHAT’S THE FUTURE OF BLOCK CODING?
Well, the future of block coding and will block coding be the future of programming are two very different but interrelated questions. The future of block coding will decide if block coding is the future of programming. Let’s understand this.
The future has for us, advanced and complex technologies that will transform our industries and lifestyles. To reap the benefits of such robust future technologies and emerging technologies like AI and Machine Learning, we must have programming languages that are easy to use and implement. Because the developments are universal, the programming language also must be universal. This is where block coding comes as a ray of hope. Right now, block coding is paying the role of an introductory tool designed to engage novices in programming but for the future, this tool has to be a robust combination of both block-based and text-based programming environments for better understanding and execution of immensely comprehensive tasks.
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This will give the programmers, the power to decide how and when to switch between the programming representations depending on the applications. Domain-specific block-based programming approaches can change the way things are designed in the world. If block-based programming models succeed in holistically modelling the emerging trends like AI and machine learning, the power of computing will be at the fingertips of those who are proficient with block-based programming and environments. Only if it could replace and supersede the ability of text-based programming approaches to create viable technology models, potential block coding will be the future of programming!
