Author Archive for Tynker

How Janese Swanson Brought Tech Toys to Girls It’s 2017, and we now know that gender-neutral toys empower kids and support cognitive development – but it wasn’t always the case that toys were marketed to all kids. Inventor, educator, and software developer Janese Swanson was always interested in how kids learn. After her experiences working in the software industry and […]

Community Highlights – September 2-September 9 This week’s highlights include an exciting game, an impressive animation, and some great tweets. We love seeing how kids are using Tynker! Projects of the Week: DINO COIN: Collect the coins but avoid the dynamite in this prehistoric jumping game! Sea Pirates: Sea Monster Attack!: Two pirates encounter a sea monster in this cool […]

Vivian Gets Inspiration for Projects from Her Favorite Books! Nine-year-old Vivian, who is starting 4th grade this fall, lives and codes in San Jose, California! When asked about her hobbies, she told us, “I love to do Tynker on my iPad!” She also likes to perform in musicals, read, and in her words, “create and write stories about dinosaurs and […]

Community Highlights: August 26 – September 1 This week, we have some great highlights to share with you from our community! Don’t miss these fantastic projects and awesome tweets from classrooms coding with Tynker. Projects of the Week: Warrior Cats part1: Check out this fun project that’s based on the Warriors series of children’s books by Erin Hunter. Elements: Dress-up meets […]

How to Use Clever with Tynker We’re excited to announce that Tynker is now fully integrated with Clever! Clever, one of the most popular platforms for managing technology access in the classroom, makes it easy to connect student information systems (SIS) with learning apps. Classroom apps are auto-rostered for district administrators, kept up-to-date for classrooms, and students access all apps […]

Tyrus Taught His Older Sister How to Code! Nine-year-old Tyrus is in 5th grade and lives in Deering, New Hampshire. In his spare time, he enjoys swimming, as well as playing soccer, badminton, and basketball. When we called him for his interview, he picked up saying, “Oh, I was actually just using Tynker!” What do you want to be when […]

6 Ways Kids Benefit from Tinkering So your child has shown an interest in tinkering—that’s great news! Even if they’re at the stage where they’re taking apart the toaster (and not quite mastering its reassembly), it’s important to find ways to foster your child’s curiosity and imagination. Tinkering—especially controlling robots, drones, and other connected toys with code—makes for a great […]

Community Highlights – August 21-August 25 We like to do a weekly round-up of what’s been happening in the Tynker community – and we have some great things to share this week! School is back in session and everyone’s creativity is ramping up. Check out some of our favorite projects, tweets, and more! Projects of the Week: Solar System Rap: This funny, […]

Dorothy Vaughan: A Story of Mathematics, Determination, and Intuition Without programming, space travel simply wouldn’t be possible. What many people don’t know is that women were some of the first computer programmers! To kick off our series of blog articles featuring women in STEM, we’re taking a look at Dorothy Vaughan and her early navigation of the field of computer […]