Programming at home, summer camps, computer clubs, and after schools programs are a great first step but now it is time to get computer science into regular middle school curriculum. For that you need more than just a tool. You need a curriculum and teacher training. Don't use bait and hook tools that are fun for a couple of days but not powerful enough to make a real game. For the tool to work you need to be able to cover all these conditions:
* low threshold: visual language simple enough to make a working Frogger game in about 3 hours from scratch.
* high ceiling: powerful enough to enable even middle school students to implement sophisticated AI algorithms such as graph search to find shortest path in maze. Even for a simple game like Pacman: need to have grid structure with spreadsheet-like operations to implement collaborative diffusion or A* types of approaches.
* works for games and computational science applications
* ability to transition to traditional programming
here's a paper on how we are using AgentSheets to teach game design in middle schools and other places:
Repenning, A. and Ioannidou, Broadening Participation through Scalable Game Design, ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education Conference, (SIGCSE 2008), (Portland, Oregon USA), ACM Press.
Programming needs to go back to (middle) school
Submitted by Alexander Repenning (not verified) on April 3, 2008 - 12:35.
Programming at home, summer camps, computer clubs, and after schools programs are a great first step but now it is time to get computer science into regular middle school curriculum. For that you need more than just a tool. You need a curriculum and teacher training. Don't use bait and hook tools that are fun for a couple of days but not powerful enough to make a real game. For the tool to work you need to be able to cover all these conditions:
* low threshold: visual language simple enough to make a working Frogger game in about 3 hours from scratch.
* high ceiling: powerful enough to enable even middle school students to implement sophisticated AI algorithms such as graph search to find shortest path in maze. Even for a simple game like Pacman: need to have grid structure with spreadsheet-like operations to implement collaborative diffusion or A* types of approaches.
* works for games and computational science applications
* ability to transition to traditional programming
here's a paper on how we are using AgentSheets to teach game design in middle schools and other places:
Repenning, A. and Ioannidou, Broadening Participation through Scalable Game Design, ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education Conference, (SIGCSE 2008), (Portland, Oregon USA), ACM Press.
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ralex/papers/PDF/ScalabeDesign_SIGCSE2008.pdf
Prof. Alexander Repenning
University of Colorado