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We all have heard the word- Coding. The immediate thing that comes to mind when we hear about coding is a Computer/Laptop/PC.
However, here comes Next Skills 360 breaking all the norms! This award-winning Ed-tech start-up is helping thousands of children around the world learn to code WITHOUT Computers! You read it right, WITHOUT-ANY-COMPUTERS!
Next Skills 360 is revolutionizing the way children learn coding skills through their innovative and unique, multiple award-winning solution called ProGame, WITHOUT using a Computer.
Shocked? And curious to learn how? Read on.
ProGame
Next Skills 360 is a multiple- award-winning social enterprise that strives to develop engaging, innovative, and fun educational tools that impart quality education to the students. You can learn more about them at www.nextskills360.in
ProGame is a very innovative and unique solution that imparts coding skills to students WITHOUT using a Computer. ProGame is currently available in a monthly theme-based Subscription Box delivered to the user’s doorstep. The organization also has a customized ProGame variants to impart coding skills for students studying in/with Government/rural schools, NGOs, and CSR Teams
The unique purpose of ProGame Monthly theme-based Subscription Box is to impart coding skills to students WITHOUT using a computer. Apart from imparting coding skills to kids in a fun, innovative manner, ProGame also helps enhance their computational thinking, creativity, logical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
The best part is that the screen time for kids is reduced by 75% and their creativity is increased 100%. Kids can create their own interesting animations, and this keeps them away from screens, and with this parents are certainly happy.
Kids can learn scratch programming language using ProGame. For those who do not know, scratch is a block-based visual programming language developed by MIT, USA.
Now you wonder what exactly is inside a ProGame Monthly Subscription Box.
ProGame – Coding WITHOUT Computers is a one-of-a-kind kit that has two components- printed cardboard coding blocks and the ProGame Android Mobile Application.
The kids arrange the cardboard coding blocks in the form of a program, open the ProGame Mobile App and scan the program and voila – The output of the program is displayed to the kid on the mobile screen! That’s so cool!
ProGame monthly-themed Subscription Box consists of –
- Coding Blocks
- Colourful cartoon characters (Sprites)
- Background images (Backdrops)
- ProGame Gaming Boards
- 20 Activity Cards with step-by-step instructions
- 20 Explainer Videos
- Pencil, Sharpener, Eraser
- License Key for Android App,
- Leader boards
- Surprise Gift! Yay!
Review
We received the Month One Subscription Box from the organization and the name of this box is – TOONS TIME. ALL coding activities in this box revolve around creating fun animations in this theme – Cartoon.
So, the moment we opened the box, we found one surprise gift. We will not tell you what it is….as it is a SURPRISE.
Apart from this, the box contained all the items mentioned above in the contents.
We downloaded the ProGame App from the Google Play store and followed the simple registration process. All instructions are clearly detailed step-by-step in the instruction card. You can even scan the QR Code to download the App! Very simple.
After this, we went through the entire App interface. In our opinion, this is one of the best-designed apps for kids. The App is self-explanatory with plenty of features, self-help activities, and Leaderboards designed especially for kids. The kids can compete with users worldwide using the Leaderboards!
The App interface is in a pleasant blue color and opens with a big and appealing Scan button. Beneath that, there is a “How do I scan?” option, and by tapping on that, the user can watch a short and simple video on how to scan.
After this, the App has two more options on the main screen, i.e., Self-Help Activities and Video Tutorials. Self-help activities are graded in 3 sections – Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. After tapping on them, the user gets to access the self-help coding activities, and we really liked that Next Skills 360 has given them an Indian Flag feel.
The Video Tutorials section is for step-by-step tutorials on the coding activities that are present in the box in the form of activity cards. By the way, each box comes with 20 colourful, printed Coding Activity Cards.
A bit more about the activity cards – these activity cards are rectangle printed sheets with the name of the activity mentioned on the front, along with the activity number. On the right-bottom corner, there is the video tutorial QR scanner, and by scanning it from the Video tutorial section in the app, the user can watch the guided video on how to code using the kit. The user can also flip the card to read the printed instructions and follow them to make the code. Believe us, these video tutorials and printed activity card instructions make it SO VERY EASY for kids to code.
Now all the things have been described, let’s code with ProGame and WITHOUT a Computer.
So, ladies and gentlemen, bring out your laptop/computer. LoL! We are kidding; you do not need any.
All you need is to take out the gaming board from the ProGame box and follow the instructions on the activity card if you are a new user. Otherwise, you can be as creative as you can, let your imagination run and code whatever you want with the coding blocks given in the Box.
So, we took the gaming board, and on the top, there are two sections – one is for placing the backdrop, and the other is for placing the sprite/character. A QR code is printed in the middle of these two. So, we popped out one backdrop and sprite from the dedicated backdrop sheet and made one activity named “Dance Freddy Dance.” Mind you, you may really not be able to stop admiring the cute sprites.
Now we popped out coding blocks from the coding blocks sheet, and the first block we used is a little hat-shaped block that says- “When Flag Clicked.”
We placed this on the gaming board, and then we picked another block that says, “Play Sound,” and after that, we added a repeat block and wrote 35 with the help of a pencil provided in the kit. And just followed all the instructions of the activity card.
Now to view the animation, we scanned it using the App, and that’s all! Our code has come alive!
We thought it would take time for the App to scan the coding blocks, sprite, backdrop, handwritten text, but to our surprise, it just scanned in a blink of an eye, and boom! The whole code which we performed on the physical gaming board was now on our smartphone screen. The best part is that the App scans handwriting so accurately! ProGame App uses state-of-the-art technology to recognize images and handwritten text!
Now, we just tap on the run button and saw the lovely animation of our frog Freddy dancing.
Verdict
We absolutely recommend it!
In our opinion, ProGame truly revolutionized the way kids learn to code. We did find this extremely interesting and highly innovative.
For kids, it is a must-use product – we have been seeing several kids addicted to gadgets, we are hearing several doctors cautioning parents to reduce screen time, we are hearing several parents complain about screen time.
Screen time robs children of their health, mental stimulation and creativity. 85% of parents worldwide wish their kids do some other activity than being glued to their screens! Given this background, ProGame gives children a break from all the screen glare, while helping them learn the 21st Century Skills.
ProGame is Made in India product that is extremely unique and smart in the way it imparts coding skills to kids. The price is also very reasonable at just ₹850; it is affordable as these days a regular tuition class costs more than this.
