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Current Trends in On-line Games for Teaching Programming Concepts to Primary School Students

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Technology and Innovation in Learning, Teaching and Education (TECH-EDU 2018)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 993))

Abstract

In this paper current trends in online educational games for teaching programming concepts, or else computational thinking, to primary school students are analyzed. Specifically, several online games such as CodeMonkey, Getcoding, Kodable, Lightbot, Program Your Robot, Rapid Router and Run Marco are briefly presented. This is followed by a comparative analysis of important features both regarding the game mechanics and their educational aspects. Specifically, the following features are analyzed: the genre and the scenario of the game, game mechanics used for entertainment purposes, programming concepts/constructs supported, the support provided by the editor for implementing programs, testing and debugging facilities. Moreover, enhanced features, such as the support for creating on-line classrooms, monitoring students’ progress and capabilities of creating new levels in the game are investigated. Conclusions and open-issues for further research in the field are presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Andreas Giannakoulas & Stelios Xinogalos

Authors
  1. Andreas Giannakoulas
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  2. Stelios Xinogalos
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Correspondence to Andreas Giannakoulas .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Meni Tsitouridou

  2. Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    José A. Diniz

  3. University of Ioannina, Ioannina, Greece

    Tassos A. Mikropoulos

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Giannakoulas, A., Xinogalos, S. (2019). Current Trends in On-line Games for Teaching Programming Concepts to Primary School Students. In: Tsitouridou, M., A. Diniz, J., Mikropoulos, T. (eds) Technology and Innovation in Learning, Teaching and Education. TECH-EDU 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 993. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20954-4_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20954-4_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-20953-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-20954-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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