Google’s Blockly Accessibility Fund has awarded funding to organizations that are working to develop and implement accessible block-based coding tools and resources. The University of Washington (UW) and University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) have recently received one of these awards to focus on working with Blockly developers to increase the accessibility of their tools and resources.
Created by Google, Blockly is an open-source library for the programming language JavaScript. It adds a visual code editor by using insertable blocks that represent coding concepts; this allows users to learn and apply programming principles without the complexity of syntax or the pressure of working in a traditional text-based code editor. Blockly is freely available for use in both web and mobile applications.
This project will be lead by Andreas Stefik (University of Nevada Las Vegas) and Brianna Blaser (UW), who work together on our partner program, AccessCSforAll, as well as a variety of other projects aimed at increasing accessibility in programming, especially for younger people. Their focus for Blockly will be on increasing the accessibility of their tools and resources.
