I’m Excited About These Coding Books!

Learning to Code – An Invitation to Computer Science through the Art and Patterns of Nature (Lynx and Snap! Editions)

Two new books by the highly respected Dr. David Thornburg!

Why am I so excited? Well, I love the intersection of art, nature, mathematics, and computer science!

So do kids!

Dr. David Thornburg has been designing exploratory learning environments for children since the dawn of the digital era in schools. In these two books, he provides opportunities for young people to discover the artistic beauty of both nature’s patterns and the mathematics and science of coding.

“We are continually entranced by geometric form—the symmetry of a butterfly’s wings, the spiral of a snail’s shell, the facets of a crystal—and each of these natural occurrences is perceived as having beauty associated with it. The hands of people have produced geometric art since marks were first made on cave walls or stones were first fashioned into tools. From the Pyramids and the Parthenon to the finest gold-link chain, the beauty of geometric form is clearly present for all who care to find it.
Underlying the geometric pattern that we experience with our eyes lies a more subtle pattern of mathematical beauty, which is experienced intellectually—a collection of unifying principles that govern the arrangement and shapes of objects, both natural and crafted. Computer programming offers a bridge between the worlds of nature, design, and intellect.”
Read more at: Constructing Modern Knowledge Press

Lynx Coding

Lynx Coding is the latest version of Seymour Papert’s famous first programming language ever developed exclusively for children—Logo. It is fair to say that nearly all the recent iterations of coding languages for kids have arisen out of roots of Logo. This cloud-based version is developed by the Montreal-based company, LCSI—which was founded by Papert and others.

Lynx—in Canadian English, French, & several Indigenous languages…

Canadians—take note! Lynx is available in Canadian English, French, and several Indigenous languages including Ojibwe, Oji-Cree, Mi’kmaq, and Mohawk—with others to be developed when CanCode funding is renewed. With CanCode funding, it is also available at no cost to Canadians. (For others, after the Trial version, it is quite affordable.)

Snap!

Snap! is a powerful derivative of Scratch—both of which arose from Logo. It is a free block-based programming language designed at UC Berkeley that can be used on any device with a web browser.

Get your Copies!

Available at Amazon.ca (Lynx or Snap!) or at Amazon.com (Snap! or Lynx).