IN THIS ARTICLE
Creative Coding
Accessing Creative Coding
Frequently Asked Questions
Creative Coding
Creative Coding, in partnership with Scratch and Vidcode, accompanies our BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. topics and is accessible to district and school subscribers on individual teacher and student accounts.
Creative Coding introduces students to the basics of coding by offering projects in two coding languages:
- JavaScript - A text-based coding language available through our collaboration with Vidcode.
- Scratch - A block-based visual coding language that uses icons or textual labels on blocks or elements that you can drag and drop rather than typing.
Creative Coding invites students to apply their understanding of a BrainPOP topic through a variety of coding projects.
Our Vidcode projects include:
- Memes - Make your own meme using videos, graphics and text. Learn more about objects.
- Newscasts - Tell the news with your scrolling headline. Learn about if-else statements.
- Comics - Code an interactive comic with characters and speech bubbles that change. Experiment with properties that enable customization of a character’s appearance.
- Flag - Design a flag that includes circles, rectangles and graphics. Learn to use arguments in code to customize the positions, size and color of the flag’s design.
And our Scratch projects include:
- Museum - Create a museum exhibit about a BrainPOP topic. Drag and drop blocks of code to create interactions between the items in the museum exhibit.
- Story - Tell a story that includes a setting, dialogue through speech bubbles sound effects, and timed interaction between characters’ lines.
- Math Problem - Code the question, or problem, and the scenario required to solve it. Make sprites change color, disappear, grow or shrink and move around.
- Game - Create a game where players sort objects by category, and program the positive and negative feedback players get when clicking the objects.
No prior knowledge of coding is necessary to get started. Each project is scaffolded with support and is flexible so beginners can be successful and advanced programmers can create more sophisticated projects. Students can save and submit Creative Coding projects to teachers for evaluation. Projects are designed to take from one to a couple of class periods.
BrainPOP Educators provides teaching resources to help you get started using Creative Coding in your classroom, including lesson plans, videos, step by step guides, and assessment resources.
Accessing Creative Coding
To access the Creative Coding feature, log into your individual teacher or student account, navigate to a topic, then click the Creative Coding tile to the right of the movie player. Clicking it will give you list of coding projects to start.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can students save coding projects and return to them later?
Yes. Students can save their projects at any time, and return to edit them from their student timeline.
Can I share a coding project from my Teacher Dashboard with my students?
Not at this time. You cannot assign or share a partially completed teacher project to your students.
Does my subscription have access to Creative Coding?
Creative Coding is currently available when you set up individual accounts for School Plans and Homeschool plans. It is not available for Family plans or Teacher plans.
What version of Scratch do you use?
Creative Coding uses Scratch 3.0. It is HTML5 and cross-device compatible.
Can I access Creative Coding from any device or browser?
No. Creative Coding is not available on phones or on Internet Explorer 11. You can only access Creative Coding on desktops and tablets. We recommend that you use the latest version of Firefox or Chrome.