ScratchJr vs PlayXylo

With ScratchJr, young children (ages 5-7) learn important new skills as they program their own interactive stories and games. By snapping together graphical programming blocks, children can make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. In the process, children learn to solve problems, design projects, and express themselves creatively on the computer. They also use math and language in a meaningful and motivating context, supporting the development of early-childhood numeracy and literacy. With ScratchJr, children don’t just learn to code, they code to learn. ScratchJr was inspired by the popular Scratch programming language (http://scratch.mit.edu), used by millions of people (ages 8 and up) around the world. The ScratchJr interface and programming language were redesigned to make them appropriate for younger children’s cognitive, personal, social, and emotional development. ScratchJr is a collaboration between the Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the MIT Media Lab, the Developmental Technologies research group at Tufts University, and the Playful Invention Company. The ScratchJr project has received generous financial support from the National Science Foundation (NSF DRL-1118664), Scratch Foundation, LEGO Foundation, and British Telecommunications. If you enjoy using this free app, please consider making a donation to the Scratch Foundation (www.scratchfoundation.org), a nonprofit organization that provides ongoing support for ScratchJr. We appreciate donations of all sizes, large and small.

PlayXylo is a distraction-free musical app that plays sounds from recordings of a real xylophone. It’s designed to be fun and easy to use for kids and adults alike—perfect for an educational environment. Launch the app and you’ll get the xylophone board quickly-no delays—so you can immediately start playing any tune you want. The controls are what you would expect on a digital xylophone. Tap the keys with your fingers on touchscreen devices, press the corresponding numbers on a keyboard, or just click the colorful keys with your mouse. You can even slide over the board to hit consecutive keys, or use two or more controls at the same time. The distinguishing feature of a xylophone’s sound is the sense of precision that comes from its lack of resonance. PlayXylo uses sound recordings from a real xylophone to give you that same feeling. There are many ways to make the xylophone fit your use case. By default, a beautiful set of rainbow colors are used. In addition, there’s a Boomwhacker version for those using this colorset. A special Solfege mode is available, which replaces the pitch names with Solfege (Do, Re, Mi) to teach kids and students effective reading and singing of music. The chromatic scale is also available, giving you access to all the flats and sharps. Don’t know how or what to play? There is a community section that contains videos of how other PlayXylo users interact with the app for learning, teaching, or just playing. You can find it in the navigation menu. Dark mode follows your system theme, which is perfect for playing lullabies at night. The layout and language of the app and xylophone board also adapts to that of your system.