Blockly

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Opening remarks by the Blockly team (Day 1)

Rachel Fenichel, Joe Davis and Cassandra Fernandes from Google's Blockly team kick off the fifth annual Blockly Summit. Learn about the Summit's learning agenda and event logistics. Then, break the ice with the Summit's attendees.

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Blockly Product Roadmap by the Blockly Product team

Hear the Blockly team recap recent core Blockly platform updates. Get a glimpse of upcoming priorities for the Blockly development product roadmap, including improvements in accessibility, partnerships, stability, and much more.

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Workspace Comments Assemble! by Google

Beka from Google's Blockly team provides an update on Workspace comments, including exciting improvements to the user experience. Beka then provides an overview of the process that the team goes through to preempt problems when building new features, and answers audience questions.

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Improvements in Getting Started with Blockly by Google

Maribeth from Google's Blockly team provides an overview of how the team is improving the experience of developers getting started with Blockly's platform. We'll cover challenges from the old Block Factory format, and how the forthcoming Block Factory update will make development tools more cohesive, and easier to use.

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Packaging fields and blocks by Google

Rachel from Google's Blockly team provides technical best practices for developers using packaging fields and blocks.

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Modernizing Blockly's Packaging by Google

Christopher Allen from Google's Blockly team provides a technical overview of Javascript module systems in Blockly, changes the team has made to improve how these modules can be used, and what the team plans to do next to make further improvements to the product.

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Unforking Scratch and CS First by Google

Aaron Dodson from Google's CS First team gives an overview of how and why the team unforked Scratch for CS First at the Blockly Summit 2024. Follow along as Aaron provides a visual tutorial of how the team went about unforking Scratch, and understand the reasoning at each stage.

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Opening remarks (Day 2)

Joe Davis and Cassandra Fernandes welcome Blockly Summit 2024 attendees back for the second day of the Summit, and provide an overview of the day's agenda.

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Spotlight and closing remarks

Rachel from Google's Blockly team shares closing thoughts at the Blockly Summit 2024

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Scratch Lab's Rainbows, Boops and Rhyme Limes: Designing Playful Blocks

Eric Rosenbaum, Director at Scratch Lab, discusses how the team builds experimental, creative coding experiences that are simple, joyful, and generative with AI. Hear Eric share reflections on the design and play testing of three experimental Scratch extensions: Animated Text, Face Sensing, and AI Chat blocks.

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MIT App Inventor's Building Gen AI Apps with Aptly

Evan Patton from MIT App Inventor leads a workshop around the Aptly project. Evan explains how Aptly brings generative AI capabilities to App Inventor's Blockly-based, low code environment. He discusses the technical approach the App Inventor team took to build Aptly, and how it might extend to other Blockly-powered coding environments.

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micro:bit's How students and teachers build and use AI/ML systems with Blockly

Katie Henry and Lucy Gill from the Micro:bit Educational Foundation demonstrate how students and teachers can build and use end-to-end AI/ML systems with Micro:bit at the Blockly Summit 2024. Learn more about the Foundation's approach to designing hands-on AI/ML learning tools through Blockly-powered examples and try the demos yourself by following along with this showcase.

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Bringing Instructional Design to Blockly Development

Josh Caldwell from Google explores the perspectives that curriculum developers and instructional designers can bring to the design of Blockly-based instructional environments. Josh discusses how these roles can collaborate with developers to make products that lead to more effective learning experiences for students, grounded in clear outcomes.

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Exploring automated student code evaluation for teachers

Thomas Sparks from Microsoft MakeCode shares the team's research and investigations into tooling for automated block code validation at the Blockly Summit 2024. Thomas explores student code evaluation and feedback, one of the biggest pain-points for teachers - especially for those who don't have a background in computer science. Hear about what they've learned and created so far in their pursuit to automate some of this process.

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Python Programming curriculum concepts using Blockly

Ahana Ghosh, Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute, discusses the Machine Teaching Group's ongoing work surrounding how learners transition from Block-based coding to text-based coding.. Hear about the new block-based visual programming curriculum Ahana developed that uses the Blockly library to more seamlessly transition students from using blocks to learning introductory Python programming concepts.

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Blockly as a visuospatial learning tool for deaf students

Hear Shireen Hafeez, Founder of Deaf Kids Code, describe how Blockly empowers deaf students to showcase their unique problem-solving skills at the Blockly Summit 2024. Shireen describes how deaf students who often excel at algorithmic thinking and strategic planning, yet struggle in traditional math classrooms, are using Blockly to display their talents in unique, impactful ways.

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Micro:bit's journey towards accessible block-based coding coding

Lucy Gill, Head of Product for Micro:bit, explores Micro:bit's journey to improve accessibility across its physical and digital products at the Blockly Summit 2024. Hear highlights and examples from this ongoing work, including Micro:bit's approach to incorporating expert advice to steer their product roadmap.

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Code.org and Leveling Up Sprite Lab: Migration, Innovation, and Collaboration

Emily Eastlake and Mike Harvey from Code.org give an overview of the new curriculum module within Sprite Lab, created using custom Blockly blocks, to teach students about variables.

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Tinkercad Codeblocks for 3D and circuits design education by Autodesk

Phillip Ly, Software Engineer at Autodesk, discusses Tinkercad focused on 3D and electronics design education. Phillip double clicks into Codeblocks, a workspace in Tinkercad that leverages Scratch-blocks and Blockly components to enable users to create 3D objects.

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Build your own custom block extensions for Minecraft by Microsoft

Jacqueline Russell and Thomas Sparks from the Microsoft MakeCode team lead a fun, hands-on workshop where about building your own custom block extensions for Minecraft at the Blockly Summit 2024.

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Topia's new multiplayer Game Engine and no-code builder

Chris Psiaki and Dalton Gray give an overview of Topia, a proximity chat and spatial communication platform with customizable browser-based worlds They discuss how the Topia Game Engine uses Blockly to enable anyone to create no-code games.

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Microsoft's Great Blockly Upgrade

Richard Knoll from Microsoft MakeCode shares the team's experience of upgrading their forked Blockly code base to the latest version of Blockly. Learn about their approach, and their advice on how to update your code to the latest version.

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Browser Bugs by Neil Fraser

Neil Fraser team dives into an example of how the team approaches browser bugs at the Blockly Summit 2024. Since browser compatibility is crucial for Blockly-based programs to reach learners on any system, this work is invaluable for making Blockly universally accessible.