The Wolfram Language provides a unique opportunity to revolutionize programming education, and we’ve been working on ways to deliver the language for students and educators. Today we’re making available a beta version of Wolfram Programming Lab.

You can access it free on the web in our Wolfram Open Cloud. There are subscription versions that provide additional capabilities on the web and that include native desktop versions for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Wolfram Programming Lab is an interactive programming environment that contains dozens of “Explorations”—step-by-step guides to creating programs with tiny amounts of code. Each Exploration gives the starter code for a program, and students are encouraged to dive in and change the code to create something new. Students can also challenge their understanding by solving exercises in the Go Further sections available in most Explorations.

Explorations give students a hands-on, learn-by-exploring entry into the Wolfram Language. To provide a more structured, in-depth introduction to the language, we’ve also built Stephen Wolfram’s book An Elementary Introduction to the Wolfram Language into Wolfram Programming Lab. Students can use the book as a reference or try out the examples and exercises in Programming Lab. The two are designed to work together to teach the Wolfram Language.

Try Wolfram Programming Lab today in the open cloud, or sign in with a Wolfram ID to get access to all the Explorations as well as the ability to save your work. We’ll be rolling out the final version soon, so send us your feedback so we can make it the best experience possible.

To learn more about how to use Wolfram Programming Lab in your classroom, sign up for our free, virtual event, Exploring Programming for Computational Thinking: Virtual Workshop for Educators. You can also share your experience with others who are using it in their classrooms on Wolfram Community.