ArduBlock – Visual Arduino Programming

ArduBlock is a visual drag&drop programming plugin for the Arduino IDE (integrated development environment – the usual tool we use for programming Arduino boards/chips).

It acts as a tool plugin in the regular IDE – you install it by putting the ardublock.jar (Java) file in a specific subdirectory (depends on your operating system and configuration), and then it just shows up in the Tools menu of the IDE.

Then, programming works similar to MIT’s Scratch, and students may already be familiar with that:

Depending on the students’ age, this can be very useful. It can be an extra way for primary school age children to get started with Arduino electronics.

For high school, I reckon it’s very important to provide opportunity to dig into every bit of systems, so that there are no “black boxes” involved.  Still, it’s fine to (for instance) start with a visual environment and then see what that looks like in plain code!

We’ll explore this more on OpenSTEM – the trend with many educational materials appears to have been to simplify, and I’m doubtful as to the need and benefits of that. Kids (can) understand an awful lot more than they’re often given credit for. When kids are taught below their level, it makes for boredom. What a pity!

With kids being very quick at picking up new technology in particular, it is more likely a reflection of the adults (including educators) feeling overwhelmed and thus trying to reduce, rather than actually aiming towards the students’ educational edge.