Do you think they are a great way ... App Inventor, Tynker or Tickle App. Block-based programming is a virtual version of brick building toys. Build bricks of commands to build a program.

At least before, the Blocks Editor ... experience with App Inventor (inital connectivity problems aside) is that it’s a fun, easy way for beginners to learn some basic programming skills.

Getting started on App Inventor is easy relative to installing Eclipse ... is a web page), and do the actual drag-and-drop coding in the Blocks Editor (which is a Java app). You can deploy changes ...