Just released: sound effects for ProcessingJS programs!

The students of the Khan Academy programming community love making games, animations and mini-movies, and they've been clamoring for a particular new feature for the last year: sound. Their wait is over! Last week, we released a way for programs to play sound effects.

The code is as simple as this, purposefully similar to image():

playSound(getSound("rpg/metal-clink"));

The current sound effects in the picker are from an RPG pack:

We also have more sound effects coming soon, like a retro pack made by one of our top community members.

We've updated the program guidelines to specify that sounds should only be in response to user interaction, so that sounds don't become an annoyance. We'll hold a contest soon to challenge students to use the sound to enhance their programs in the most impressive ways. We hope that sound effects inspire even more creativity in our community!

Holiday contests: Lights, trees, snow globes, fireworks, and games!

In December, while millions of new students were trying their first hour of code, thousands of students in our programming community were creating amazing entries in four holiday-themed coding contests. I picked the top 5 for each one (it was sooo hard!) and made a few montage videos, too. Check them out!

Contest: Light up this house!

Check out the entries here and winners here. Here's a video montage that I made of the entries, synced to Pachebel's Cannon:

Contest: Animate this snow globe

Check out the entries here and winners here.

Contest: Tree decorating

Check out the entries here and winners here.

Contest: Snow game

Check out the entries here and winners here.

Contest: Fireworks

Check out the entries here and winners here. Here's a montage I made of the entries, synced to "Ride of the Valkyries":

Hour of webpages: Now dubbed in French!

Our hour of webpages, which teaches the basics of HTML and CSS, now has French dubbings and fully translated challenges, thanks to our French partner Libraries without Borders. Check it out here! Maybe you can write a better poem than I did. :-)

What can you draw in an hour of JavaScript?

Last week, as part of Hour of Code 2014, we had hundreds of thousands of students learning to make drawing with JavaScript and ProcessingJS. We love seeing what new programmers can make with a little know-how and imagination -- here are some of our favorites:

This mustache'd pig:


This unicorn just casually walking around a rainbow:


This adorable penguin about to get viciously eaten/hugged by a polar bar:


This pink and purple turkey, full of love:


This highly suspicious walrus:

What can you do in an hour of databases?

We can now teach SQL in an interactive environment on Khan Academy, and thousands of students have learned SQL this week in our hour of databases. The final project is to create a store, and I've screenshotted a few of my favorites below - we love seeing the creativity and the diversity!


This three-tabled inventory of bike models, inventory, and receipts:


This self-proclaimed amazingly_overpriced_store (truth in table naming!):


This Polish store (selling people?):


This store for Pokeballs, from a Portuguese student (Pokemon is a global phenomenon!):


This fantasy bookstore:


This cat supplies store (discounted!):


Finally, this store dedicated entirely to POTATOES:

Hour of Code 2014 on Khan Academy:Four ways to learn to code, in five languages!

Last year, we were thrilled to participate in the Hour of Code campaign and we had over 1 million students come to Khan Academy to try out coding. We're participating this year again, and we've gone all out.

We have four ways to learn to code in 2014:

• Hour of Drawing with Code: Students will learn to program using JavaScript, one of the world's most popular programming languages via two great options:
  • Drag-and-drop: Our new experimental block-based coding for younger students with less-developed typing skills and students on tablet devices (ages 8+).
  • Typing: keyboard-based coding for older students (ages 10+), our popular offering from last year.
• Hour of Webpages: Students will learn to make their own webpages using the basics of HTML and CSS (ages 10+).
• Hour of Databases: Students will learn the fundamentals of databases using SQL to create tables, insert data into them, and do basic querying (ages 12+).

We've also internationalized those hours into multiple languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and French.

This is the chance for millions of people, young and old, all around the world, to spend an hour learning to code — to see what it means to create technology instead of just use it. We hope you join us!

Track HTML/CSS progress in coach reports!

We happily announced our HTML/CSS course a few weeks ago. We know that many teachers want their students to learn the basics of webpages and to track their learning progress, so we've added HTML/CSS to the coach experience.

You can select HTML/CSS from the mission picker, if that's the main topic your students are working on:

If you do that, your students will get a notification urging them to start it:

You can filter the student progress for any class to see what they've done in the HTML/CSS course:

When your student's all done, you'll see they've earned the HTML/CSS badge!

We hope these coach resources help more teachers and parents guide their students through learning HTML and CSS.