Blockly is Google’s web-based, graphical programming tool. Blockly is designed to get people developing small programs by dragging and dropping elements into sequence. Block can be used without knowledge of a programming language and without even touch your keyboard. Google Blockly’s interface reminds me a lot of the MIT App Inventor which is based on code originally released by Google. Google Blockly, like the MIT App Inventor, uses jigsaw pieces containing commands that you can snap together to create an application. The blocks can be dragged, dropped, and rearranged as many times as you like.

The Blockly Turtle Graphics Contest invites you to “draw something cool” with the Blockly Turtle app. Submit your drawing and you could win $100 credit for the Google Play store. Entries will be accepted until midnight PST on April 1, 2013.

Applications for Education
Creating drawings for the Blockly Turtle Graphics Contest could be a good way to get students interested in using logic commands to create simple applications. Blockly is relatively easy to understand environment. Blockly doesn’t require any typing, just clicking, dragging, and dropping with a mouse or on a touch screen.