Google's Santa Tracker Introduces Coding Lab

Written by Lucy Black

Sunday, 06 December 2015

Google's Santa Tracker has a new feature - Code Lab - where you'll find an introduction to coding that is suitable for the very young.

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If you haven't already come across Google's interactive advent calendar you may be surprised at the amount of content it offers for kids and their parents and teachers. As in previous years it offers games and videos, rolling them out at the rate of one per day. As well as intending to entertain and add to the excitement of the holiday season, Google provides educational adventures which are intended to:

"sneak in learning experiences between all the fun and games"

To make it a suitable resource for the classroom it even provides lesson plans on topics such as Christmas traditions around the world.

New for 2015 is Code Lab which opened on December 1. The activity it presents is to navigate a grid layout using the fewest possible instructions. It is a simple introduction to using Google's Blockly and provides the opportunity to view the JavaScript this is generated.

Blockly is the language of choice for December's other calendar highlight - Computer Science Education Week which starts tomorrow, December 7th. Schools across the globe will be engaging in an Hour of Code and a high proportion of them will encounter Blockly which is used by both Code.org's Star Wars tutorial and Microsoft's Minecraft one. Santa Tracker could even provide an alternative coding experience for young school pupils.

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Another Google technology, its translation engine, finds a festive niche in the advent calendar. You can use it to discover how to say Happy New Year in a long list of languages - including Elvish which is an unusual addition.

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So don't wait until Christmas Eve - when the Santa Tracker embarks on its main mission of following Santa Claus progress in delivering presents across the globe. Pop in on a daily basis to play and learn and to enter into the spirit of Christmas. With Google.org Santa Tracker has partnered with 10 charitable organizations including Solar Aid, WWF and Donors Choose to remind its audience that this is also the season of giving and well as fun and festivities. Happy Holidays!

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