Event-handlers (“when-do”) aren’t primitive constructs in traditional coding languages like Python and Java, but they are in blocks languages like Scratch, Snap!, Thunkable and App Inventor. The latter two languages are also integrated with a user interface design tool. This radically changes the kinds of software beginners can create.

• What might you have students build ?
• How can you leverage the creativity facilitated to motivate your students?
  

Contributed by Dr. Christine Liebe, CS Teach Course, Colorado School of Mines

• How could you use events in block-coding to introduce the idea of state, or the information that is created, manipulated, and destroyed by a computer program?
• How could tangible computing, e.g., programming with microcontrollers and sensors, be used to help students understand events?
• What types of metaphors with life outside of the classroom could help students better navigate events?