A full programming course, built by a teacher, where students don't even want to open ChatGPT.
Before I taught this class they finished at functions. Now they're building web apps that fetch and store data. Just one example — 252 students have been through Tinkr.
Return a new array with every value doubled.
Write a function doubleAll(numbers)
that returns a new array where every number is multiplied by 2.
transforms each element into a new array
(n) => n * 2
function doubleAll(numbers) {
return numbers.map((n) => n * 2)
}The problem you already know
As soon as they need to do something hard, students prompt an AI and paste the answer back without reading it. Then they move on, having learned nothing.
Ban AI and they fall back on Google — except Google is AI now. Point them at MDN and it's for working devs, not students. Point them at W3Schools and it's never quite right — too thin, or too much, and rarely clear.
The real question isn't how to stop them using AI. It's why they reach for it in the first place. Usually the course makes them — something's confusing, something's missing, something's boring.
So the things they'd leave for — docs, tests, help from you — are inside the exercise.
What students get
Short explanations. Tight challenges. Everything they need is one click away, inside the exercise — including you.
JS fundamentals → algorithms → HTML/CSS → async → APIs → data → micro-projects → capstones.
Challenge-based, not tutorial-based. Less explaining, more pattern recognition.
Short concept pages. No fluff, no 1500-word intros. Just enough to start the next exercise.
Multiple-choice checkpoints. Catch misunderstandings before they harden into habits.
No code to write. The student simulates the computer, walking data through given code and predicting what it prints. Flips the struggle — the hard part of programming is that data is invisible, so we let them be the computer.
Drag lines of code into the correct order. Short, fast reps. Builds a gut feel for what correct code looks like. Works on a phone.
Full code editor, JavaScript, tests baked in. Hit Run, see pass/fail. No need to ask AI if it works.
Multi-file HTML/CSS/JS with live preview. Real projects, not algorithm puzzles.
Timed, teacher-controlled. Same UI they already know — the test format isn't the obstacle.
Be the computer. Walk the variables, line by line.
let
total = 0
for
(let n of
[2, 4, 6]) {
total += n
}
console.log(total)
What is
total
after line 1?
What is
total
after the first iteration?
2 more checkpoints below
Return a new array with every value increased by 1.
function addOne(numbers) {
return numbers.map((n) => n)
}Docs as a first-class citizen
Tinkr has its own documentation, written for students, not for spec authors. Every exercise links to the docs it needs, just-in-time, no tab-switching.
Reading docs is a real-programmer skill. It's the opposite of prompting an AI. Students who can read docs don't need to cheat.
Free and public. Send your class here even if you don't use Tinkr to teach.
filter
gives you a new array that only contains the items that pass your test.
The rest are thrown away. The original array stays the same.
See also
Homework they'll actually do
So Tinkr has thumb-friendly mobile games — short Arrange reps they'll actually do on the bus, not at a laptop.
Homework stops being a fight. They practice between classes without feeling like they are.
Drag the lines into the right order.
function greet(name) {
return
"Hi, " + name
}
greet("Ada")
SDB — the backend for real apps
A chat app. A multiplayer game. A leaderboard. Students engage when they're building something real and familiar — and SDB is the backend that lets them, no SQL course required.
Messages for the class chat app project.
Endpoint
tinkr.tech/sdb/ada/chat-app
Documents
What you get as the teacher
Not a framework. Not a best-practice. A thing I needed on a Tuesday at 10:42 when five hands were up.
In the room, or fully remote — same thing.
I run classes in the school building and one that's entirely online. Dashboard, chat, live code view, exam control — all of it works over the internet.
24 students · 18 online now
Each card below: a classroom moment on top, the tool I built for it underneath.
30 students, no idea who's stuck.
Live dashboard. Total progress per student, plus how long each one has been sitting on their current lesson. Time-on-lesson is how I find who needs me next.
Five hands up — and the shy ones never raise theirs.
Per-lesson chat threads with every student. Private messaging means scared kids finally ask. Unread counts and push notifications so you don't miss one during a break.
"It's not working" with no context.
Live code view. Click a student's name and watch their code in real time. No screen-share setup, no "share your screen" dance.
Exam day is chaos.
Exam control. Open and close exams for the whole group at once. Check who's physically in class — only they can join. See who's joined, who's in progress, who's done. One screen.
Cohorts across years and periods.
Groups. Create them, move students between them. Each group has its own dashboard, chat, exam control, projects view.
Real projects live on GitHub, not Tinkr.
GitHub projects. When it's time for real projects outside Tinkr, you still have an overview of who's been active in their repo.
Students won't tell you what's broken.
Feedback inbox. Every lesson has a feedback button. Complaints and confusion land in a table — you see where students got stuck, I see what to fix. Tinkr evolves fast; your feedback shapes it.
Free for teachers.
Try before you commit. Take the whole course yourself, try every tool, see if it fits your class before students join.
3
is still red — expected
[2,4,6,8,10]
got [1,2,3,4,5]
idk what's wrong
n, should double it
async function loadPosts() {
const res = await fetch('/sdb/ada/posts')
const posts = await res.json()
return posts.map(p => p.title|
}Next year
Calling out what isn't in yet, because you're going to notice anyway.
Right now the course is traditional — read a concept, solve a challenge, write code, check the test. It works.
Next year every lesson will orbit one piece of documentation: learn the doc → quiz on it → trace code that uses it → write code that uses it → one micro-project every 10 docs → a test every 30.
The whole progression points back to reading documentation — which is how programming actually works. Once students know how docs work, they don't need AI or Google. They just put the puzzle pieces together.
Watching typing rhythm and paste patterns to flag code that wasn't written by the student — both in exercises and in projects. So you can ask the real question before the gradebook closes.
I've tried integrating AI in Tinkr a few different ways. Every time it confused students more than it helped. So right now there's zero AI in the platform — I care about results, not marketing.
AI can genuinely help students and teachers if it's done right. We're not there yet. When it does more good than harm, it ships.
VS Code is now full of AI, and there's no reliable way to tell whether a student actually wrote their code. Moving the editor into Tinkr is the only way to know for sure — every keystroke happens where we can see it.
For the student it still feels like a real IDE: real files, real bash, real git. Nothing simulated, nothing dumbed down — just the same tools, on our side of the screen.
For students who need a runway before touching code at all. Start from logic, progress into programming naturally.
Who made this
Software developer, 10+ years. I've taught 252 students through Tinkr — plus 500+ more at university level and in career-change trainings for adults.
Tinkr is a condensation of everything I've tried in a classroom. I know learning to code is hard. I also know it doesn't have to be.
I'll keep experimenting on Tinkr until programming becomes a normal part of school.
Free for teachers so you can test the course before you buy for a class. It doesn't cost €1000 to start.
Test before you teach.
Your whole class.
One learner.
Price is negotiable. Public school, private, homeschool co-op, bootcamp, club — tell me what you need, we'll work it out.
Things will break. I fix them fast. Your feedback shapes what happens next.
Register, pick the "teacher" group, browse any lesson top to bottom. I'll know you joined — we can hop on a call if you want, or you can just poke around.