For teachers

After Scratch, before Python

A real language, gentle enough for day one, deep enough that students never have to start over.

  • Constructionism, not worksheets. Students construct knowledge by constructing something they can show — a drawing, a game, a model. Bugs are information: the difference between what they said and what they meant.
  • The same powerful ideas they will meet later. Loops, procedures, variables, conditionals, recursion. Logo sits deliberately between blocks and Python: real enough to transfer, readable enough to debug across the room.
  • Student-driven projects. Geometry, art, animation, music, simulation and games are native. The prompt that keeps a room from collapsing onto one prototype: what does yours do that nobody else’s does?
  • Free where classroom 3D tools often charge. 3D, physics, a real text language, publishing and remixing are in the box. You can start without an account; there are no ads.

You cannot teach this out of a script. An hour of your own stuck — wanting a snowflake, getting a spiky star, walking the angle — is worth more than a borrowed lesson plan.

Classroom tools

A teacher account can own groups, opened from Classroom in the IDE’s user menu, at the top right once you are signed in (on a phone, it’s in the ☰ menu). A group is a class: your students join it, and you look after their accounts and follow their progress from one place.

  • A join link for new students. Every group has a Registration link. Students who open it get the sign-up form already set to join your group. You can also require a shared group password to join.
  • Verified group owners. Before you create your first group, we send a 6-digit code to your account email. Only a verified owner can gather a class.
  • Members and password resets. The Members list shows each student’s account. When someone forgets a password, use Reset password to set a new one for them. No email round-trip is needed.
  • Classroom mode. Tick This group is a classroom to configure the IDE for your students:
    • Allowed primitives: Full, the Beginner or Intermediate presets, or a Custom space-separated list of the commands students may run. Abbreviations such as fd and rt are included automatically. Anything outside the list answers “I don’t know how to …”.
    • Feature level: Full, Standard (core IDE features) or Basic (a simplified interface).
    • Sharing: a switch that decides whether members may share and publish projects.
    • Classroom password: an optional password that protects the classroom settings.
  • Skill progress per student. The group’s Progress view scores each student from their own coding activity over the last 90 days. It gives a level from 1 to 5 for Breadth, Crafting, Fixing and Repair, plus a Practice column (how regularly they code) and the sophistication of their latest saved project.
  • AI class summary. Where it is switched on, one button turns those scores into a short class summary with per-student notes. Student names are replaced with labels before anything is sent to the AI provider. It is a starting point for your own judgement, not an assessment.
  • Profiles. Every student has a profile with an avatar, a catchphrase, their badges and their published projects.

This is not a gradebook, not LTI, and not a full LMS. The tools help you run a room of Logo programmers, and that is all they are for.

Set up your class in 5 minutes

  1. Sign in to the IDE with your own account, or create one.
  2. Open the user menu at the top right and choose Classroom, then New Group. On a phone, Classroom is in the ☰ menu; signed out, it asks you to sign in first and then opens your groups.
  3. Enter a Group name and a Description. If you want students to need a shared password to join, tick Members join with a shared group password and set one.
  4. For your first group only: enter the 6-digit code we emailed you and press Verify & Create. The code is valid for 60 minutes.
  5. Press Manage on the new group. Tick This group is a classroom, then choose the allowed primitives, the feature level and whether members may share and publish. Press Save.
  6. Copy the Registration link and give it to your students, along with the group password if you set one.
  7. Students register through the link and appear under Members when you Manage the group. Once they have been coding for a while, the Progress button next to the list shows their skill levels.

A student who is already signed in must log out before using the link. Join links create a new account in the group.

Next step

Open the IDE and spend the hour yourself before the class does. Draw a square. Get something wrong. Then pick a first project from the Tutorials: each one builds a complete project step by step and explains the code as it goes. Downhill Skiing was written as a Scratch-to-text first game: lists, 3D models, input and sound, no heavy math.

Privacy for schools

Students can use the IDE without an account. When a school runs class groups, the school decides how its students’ data is used and we process it for the school; class AI summaries replace student names with labels. See Schools and teachers and AI features in the Privacy Policy.

AI features and student code

The AI features (Shelly’s error help, the Claude assistant, the Turtorial) only run when a signed-in user asks for them. Then the question, the error and the program the student is working on are sent to our AI service, which uses Anthropic’s Claude models to answer. The student’s username and email address are not added. Anything a student types is sent, so remind students not to put personal information in their messages or code. Class progress summaries for teachers are made from scores, with each student’s name replaced by a label such as “member 1”. The details are in AI features in the Privacy Policy.

Also: parents · game developers · 3D modelers · creative coders · who it's for