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FunFonts: introducing 4th and 5th graders to programming using Squeak

Published: 28 March 2008 Publication History

Abstract

This paper discusses a series of presentations and activities designed to enhance the computing skills of elementary school students and hence expose them to Information Technology-related careers. Goals of the sessions include increasing the students' formal understanding of the inner workings of a computer and increasing their set of abstract skills by adding computer programming to it. A cohort of students participated in these one-hour sessions on a weekly basis (except for holidays and special school activities) during their 4th and 5th grade years. Overall, the students enjoyed the computing projects, which were not part of their formal curriculum. At the completion of the first year of lessons, approximately 91% of the students were able to trace the execution of a simple imperative computer program. After the second year of lessons, approximately 91% of the students were able to successfully write programs using mathematical skills associated with points in a 2-dimensional coordinate system in Squeak. In terms of programming, they liked controlling the appearance and behavior of their robot in the BotsInc environment but disliked having to correct errors.

References

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Fosnot, C. (Editor). Constructivism: Theory, Perspectives, and Practice. Second Edition. Teachers College Press. Columbia University, New York, and London. 2005.
[2]
Papert, S. The Children's Machine -- Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer. Basic Books, 1993.
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Papert, S. Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. Second Edition. Basic Books, 1993.
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Kafai, Y., and Resnick, M. (Editors). Constructionism in Practice -- Designing, Thinking, and Learning in a Digital World. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, Mahwah, New Jersey, 1996.
[5]
Ducasse, S. Squeak: Learn Programming with Robots. Apress, 2005. See also the companion web site at http://smallwiki.unibe.ch/botsinc/
[6]
Abelson, H., and diSessa, A. Turtle Geometry -- The Computer as a Medium for Exploring Mathematics. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, 1980.
[7]
Squeakland. See http://www.squeakland.org/
[8]
Alice. See http://www.alice.org/
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Lewis, J., and Loftus, W. Java: Software Solutions -- Foundations of Program Design. Fourth Edition. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 2005.
[10]
Florida Department of Education. "Sunshine State Standards". Taken from http://www.fldoestem.org/page221.aspx

Cited By

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  • (2023)Experimenting with computational thinking for knowledge transfer in engineering roboticsJournal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1292140:2(859-875)Online publication date: 12-Dec-2023
  • (2017)What computing instructors did last summer: Experiences and lessons learned2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2017.8190723(1-8)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2017
  • (2013)Game programming by demonstrationProceedings of the 2013 ACM international symposium on New ideas, new paradigms, and reflections on programming & software10.1145/2509578.2509583(75-90)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2013
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cover image ACM Other conferences
ACMSE '08: Proceedings of the 46th annual ACM Southeast Conference
March 2008
548 pages
ISBN:9781605581057
DOI:10.1145/1593105
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 28 March 2008

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Author Tags

  1. computer programming in K-12
  2. object-oriented programming
  3. squeak

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ACM SE08
ACM SE08: ACM Southeast Regional Conference
March 28 - 29, 2008
Alabama, Auburn

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Overall Acceptance Rate 502 of 1,023 submissions, 49%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2023)Experimenting with computational thinking for knowledge transfer in engineering roboticsJournal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1292140:2(859-875)Online publication date: 12-Dec-2023
  • (2017)What computing instructors did last summer: Experiences and lessons learned2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2017.8190723(1-8)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2017
  • (2013)Game programming by demonstrationProceedings of the 2013 ACM international symposium on New ideas, new paradigms, and reflections on programming & software10.1145/2509578.2509583(75-90)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2013
  • (2013)ChildProgramming process: A software development model for kids2013 8th Computing Colombian Conference (8CCC)10.1109/ColombianCC.2013.6637535(1-6)Online publication date: Aug-2013
  • (2011)K-12 game programming course concept using textual programmingProceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/1953163.1953296(459-464)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2011

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