The famous Swedish developers Mojang - the authors of one of the main masterpieces of the gaming industry in recent years, Minecraft - in cooperation with the portal Code.org created a fun and interactive course that explains the basics of programming in Javascript, in the style of an exciting vivid world of Minecraft.
The Foundation course is a simple task about making the actions algorithms through existing commands. Using these algorithms the player (or a pupil?) need to make the character perform simple actions specific to
Minecraft, like take down a tree or cutting a sheep. At first it seems that the tasks is quite simple, however, as your progress getting more and more through the course tasks become increasingly difficult, so I'll have to really use your brain. The course has an interactive inserts in English, in which employees of Mojang explain the basic principles of the programming. In total, to pass all the tasks, you will need to spend about an hour. Very useful to understand basic principles of writing the code and make the programmer's work more understandable for you and your children.
At the moment the course is available in English, but soon Mojang promises to add support for other languages. Very pleased to see how computer games are being increasingly recognized as the most effective tool for learning, not only for children but also for adults. Let's hope that such initiatives in the future will only grow.
