What Tynker does

Tynker is a K-12 creative coding platform that helps students learn coding in a gamified environment. It offers over 70 courses, 5,000+ lessons, and hundreds of tutorials, projects, and interactive assessments. Tynker allows students to transition from block-based coding to text-based languages like JavaScript and Python. For teachers, Tynker provides free professional development, standards-aligned curricula, and STEM coding resources. It also includes classroom and student management tools, allowing teachers to create virtual classrooms, assign lesson plans, and track student progress. Tynker supports remote collaboration, co-teaching, and offers a built-in tutor for self-paced learning.

Key features for teachers

• Comprehensive Course Offering: Tynker offers courses tailored to different age groups, covering topics from coding basics to AP Computer Science content.
• Learning Pathways: Tynker provides learning pathways divided into six skill levels, covering interests such as drawing and animation, music, storytelling, game design, Minecraft mods, robotics/AR, and web design.
• Project Creation and Collaboration: Students can create their own projects, collaborate with others, remix others' projects, and share with the online Tynker community.
• Offline Work Support: Tynker supports offline work on an iPad, allowing students to continue their learning even without internet access.
• Robust Teacher Dashboard: Tynker offers a teacher dashboard that allows teachers to create classes, monitor student progress, and get involved with their progress.
• Integration with Other Platforms: Tynker integrates with Clever, Microsoft Azure logins, Google Classroom, and Apple Schoolworks API, making it easy to create class rosters, assign courses, and see student progress and grades.
• Extensive Support for Teachers: Tynker provides quick-start guides, lesson plans, classroom slides, answer keys, get started tips, activities, and previews for all the courses.
• Distance Learning Support: Tynker offers extra guidance and options for distance learning, including a streaming feature to present lessons asynchronously.

Pricing

Tynker offers a variety of pricing plans including quarterly ($30/month), yearly ($25/month), and lifetime ($312.50/month) plans. Each plan includes access for up to three children and provides access to over 70 courses and 5,000+ activities.

Potential classroom applications

• Exploring STEM Concepts Through Coding: Tynker can be used to create interactive coding projects that allow students to explore STEM concepts in a fun and engaging way.
• Storytelling and Animation: Tynker can enhance language arts and creative writing lessons by allowing students to create their own animated stories.
• Creating Interactive Greeting Cards: Tynker can be used to teach students about different cultures, traditions, and celebrations by allowing them to create interactive greeting cards.