Designing a Novice Programming Environment with Children

2005

This paper aims at presenting different ways to involve children in the design sessions and to include the outputs in the process of designing technologies for children. As a result of our experience in the Child Computer Interaction field, we strongly believe that involving children in different phases of the process is vital to ensure that most of the requirements needed are included.

Communications of The ACM, 2005

Working with Young Children as TECHNOLOGY DESIGN PARTNERS How children's technology is developed, and who is involved in the process, can vary greatly. While there are many roles children can play in the design of new technology, at the University of Maryland we have focused on partnering with children ages 7-11. We have found these intergenerational partnerships can lead to unexpected technology innovations, as well as establishing design methods for working with children. Influenced by the cooperative design practices of the Scandinavian countries, and participatory design and contextual inquiry in the U.S., we have developed design methods for working with children called Cooperative Inquiry [3, 4]. A case study illustrates how even young children can contribute to the technology design process.

Foundations and Trends in Human-computer Interaction, 2012

Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 Terminology 2 Design Process and Goals 2.1 Define the Problem 2.2 Research the Problem-Gather Requirements 2.3 Create Multiple Solutions (Brainstorming) 2.4 Evaluate Solutions 2.5 Reflect Outcomes, Repeat/Iterate the Design 2.6 Design Process and Goals Summary 3 Brief Literature Survey: Involving Users in the Design Process 3.1 How Have Adult Users Been Involved in the Technology Design Process? 3.2 How is Designing for Children Different from Designing for Adults? 3.3 How Have Children Been Involved in the Design Process? 3.4 Why Co-Design with Children? 4 Methods of Designing with Children 4.1 Design Approaches that are Mindful of Children 4.2 Bluebells 4.3 Bonded Design 4.4 Distributed Co-Design 4.5 Cooperative Inquiry 4.6 Children as Software Designers

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Information Technology and Multimedia at UNITEN (ICIMU 2008), Malaysia, 2008

Learning programming languages especially the first programming language is generally known to be a challenging task to most learners. It takes a long time to understand and master programming. We strongly believe that programming should be taught in stages to children at early age in efforts to turn them into experts in the future. Educational games provide a unique opportunity for integrating the cognitive, affective, and social aspects of learning. Since, learning programming is a complex subject matter, we could exploit games as means to introduce programming to children. This paper discusses how game could be used as a mechanism to introduce basic programming principles to children between the age of 5 to 7 years old. A simple 2D game prototype consisting of 7 different scenarios is being developed. Each of the scenarios covers the fundamentals of computer programming such as variables, data type, arithmetic operators, comparison operators, and operator precedence. Just like most of the game in the market today, this game is built with a storyline, rules, challenges and a reward system.

Mediterranean Journal of Humanities

The purpose of this study was twofold. Firstly, the reactions of children aged 5-6 were analyzed in their efforts to use an application aimed at teaching the basics of programming concepts (i.e., sequencing, loops, conditions) on tablet computers. Secondly, the researchers reported on the implications of the approaches during the delivery of programming education to preschool children. A four-week, design-based study was conducted with 20 preschool children. During this study, as the children used a tablet application their reactions were observed and they were also asked to share their views and experiences. There were times when the children met with difficulties and needed adult assistance. If they felt a sense of failure or inadequacy during their engagement with advanced parts of the program, they displayed signs of boredom. Those children who had difficulty asked for help from others who had succeeded. The researchers also monitored the phases which other children had reached and who perceived the implementation as a competition. The boys seemed to be more confident in the application phases. The results of the study indicate that for young children to successfully use tablets for programming, initial training in the use of tablets that incorporate concrete activities and basic programming instruction under non-distracting conditions are needed.

Designers of children's technology and software face distinctive challenges. Many design principles used for adult interfaces cannot be applied to children's products because the needs, skills, and expectations of this user population are drastically different than those of adults. In recent years, designers have started developing design principles for children, but this work has not been collected in one place. This paper takes a first step towards this goal: based on an analysis of a wide range of research into children's technology, we present a catalogue of design principles for children's technology that are oriented towards the needs of designers.

2012 IEEE 12th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, 2012

This paper investigates children preferences regarding tangible and graphical tools for introductory programming. The study makes use of the PROTEAS (PROgramming TangiblE Activity System) kit, an ensemble including one graphical and two tangible programming tools. The kit was designed to operate as a user friendly introductory programming tool even for children of preschool age. Using the tangible programming tool of PROTEAS children can develop their code by arranging real cube-shaped blocks that represent simple programming commands. Alternatively they may create programs by dragging programming commands with mouse in an isomorphic graphical computer environment. In our study, 27 children (7-8 years old) used both tangible and graphical tools to program the actions of a LEGO robot. Using questionnaires we evaluated children's first sight preference, enjoyment and easiness in the use of the two interfaces. Moreover, we measured children's preference in relation to the type of activity, team or stand alone play. The results showed that the tangible subsystem was selected for team play was easier to be used and simultaneously more enjoyable than the graphical one.

Interacting with Computers, 2006

Research on computer programming usually views the interactions as mostly cognitively based, with focus on concepts such as memory, perception and conceptual understanding. However, the current trend towards embodied and social perspectives on interaction provides an alternative way of looking at interactive processes, instead emphasising aspects such as social and physical performance with and around technology. We have explored a range of activities and tools that explicitly address these aspects in programming, with a specific focus on children's making of own computer games and simulations. We exemplify this work through three different situations where tools and activities are used by children as recourses for building of interactive systems, while at the same time allowing for bodily action in negotiation of design ideas. We discuss how situations like these may provide directions for new technologies for programming as well as methodological developments in the area of interaction design.

Anais do Workshop sobre Educação em Computação (WEI), 2018

Teaching programming is a common choice to introduce computational thinking concepts. When learning programming, students face several challenges, problem solving and debugging among them. These activities are central to the concept of computational thinking [Fl​ó​rez, Casallas, Hern​á​ndez, Reyes, Restrepo and Danies 2017]. Previous research shows that teaching logic and programming to undergraduates is a hard task [Bromwich, Masoodian and Rogers 2012] [Liu, Cheng and Huang 2011]. This finding lead us to believe that the earlier a person is accustomed with those abstract concepts, the easier it will be for her to learn and use that knowledge when necessary. According to Piaget, kids of age approximately seven to eleven are on the concrete operational stage [Piaget and Cook 1952], in which they already can construct abstract ideas and logical structures on their mind. Children are spending more time than ever1 using mobile devices. At the same time, it is becoming common practice t...