short-paper

Introducing Computer Programming to Children through Robotic and Wearable Devices

Authors:

Alexandros Merkouris,

Konstantinos ChorianopoulosAuthors Info & Claims

WiPSCE '15: Proceedings of the Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

Pages 69 - 72

https://doi.org/10.1145/2818314.2818342

Published: 09 November 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Learning to program in computer code has been considered one of the pillars of contemporary education with benefits that reach well beyond the skills required by the computing industry, into creativity and self-expression. Nevertheless, the execution of computer programs usually takes place on a traditional desktop computer, which has a limited repertoire of input and output interfaces to engage with the user. On the other hand, pedagogy has emphasized that physical representations and tangible interactive objects benefit learning especially for young students. In this work, we explore the benefits of learning to code for ubiquitous computers, such as robots and wearable computers, in comparison to programming for the desktop computer. For this purpose, thirty-six students participated in a within groups study that involved three types of tangibility at the target computer platform: 1) desktop with Scratch, 2) wearable with Arduino LilyPad, and 3) robotic with Lego Mindstorms. Regardless of the target platform, we employed the same desktop visual programming environment (MIT Scratch, Modkit and Enchanting) and we measured emotional engagement and assessed students' programming skills. We found that students expressed more positive emotions while programming with the robotic rather than the desktop computer. Furthermore, tangible computing platforms didn't affect dramatically students' performance in computational thinking.

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https://doi.org/10.1515/auto-2023-0208
Chu SGarcia BRani N(2023)Research on wearable technologies for learning: a systematic reviewFrontiers in Education10.3389/feduc.2023.12703898Online publication date: 9-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1270389
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Introducing Computer Programming to Children through Robotic and Wearable Devices

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cover image ACM Other conferences

WiPSCE '15: Proceedings of the Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

November 2015

149 pages

ISBN:9781450337533

DOI:10.1145/2818314

Conference Chairs:
Judith Gal-Ezer
The Open University of Israel
,
Sue Sentance
King's College London & Computing At School
,
Jan Vahrenhold
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

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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King's College London: King's College London
ACM: Association for Computing Machinery

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 09 November 2015

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WiPSCE '15

WiPSCE '15: Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

November 9 - 11, 2015

London, United Kingdom

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Overall Acceptance Rate 104 of 279 submissions, 37%

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Cited By

Al-Tashi MLennartson BOrtiz-Catalan MJust F(2024)Classroom-ready open-source educational exoskeleton for biomedical and control engineeringat - Automatisierungstechnik10.1515/auto-2023-020872:5(460-475)Online publication date: 7-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1515/auto-2023-0208
Chu SGarcia BRani N(2023)Research on wearable technologies for learning: a systematic reviewFrontiers in Education10.3389/feduc.2023.12703898Online publication date: 9-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1270389
Bellino AHerskovic V(2023)Protobject as a tool for teaching computational thinking to designers: student perceptions on usabilityProceedings of the 15th Biannual Conference of the Italian SIGCHI Chapter10.1145/3605390.3605401(1-8)Online publication date: 20-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3605390.3605401
Qin CLiu YZhang H(2023) Scratch versus LEGO robots: Which engages undergraduates more in programming education? Journal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1277839:3(935-953)Online publication date: 16-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12778
Alam A(2022)Educational Robotics and Computer Programming in Early Childhood Education: A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Elementary School Students’ Computational Thinking for Designing Powerful Educational Scenarios2022 International Conference on Smart Technologies and Systems for Next Generation Computing (ICSTSN)10.1109/ICSTSN53084.2022.9761354(1-7)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSTSN53084.2022.9761354
Smith SNovak ESchenker JKuo C(2022)Effects of Computer-Based (Scratch) and Robotic (Cozmo) Coding Instruction on Seventh Grade Students’ Computational Thinking, Competency Beliefs, and EngagementIntelligent Human Computer Interaction10.1007/978-3-030-98404-5_31(325-336)Online publication date: 20-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98404-5_31
Camelo DGuzzoni LGuerr B(2021)Aprender a pesquisar: estudo preliminar sobre oensino de têxteis inteligentes em CianorteBlucher Design Proceedings10.5151/cid2020-18(221-236)Online publication date: Aug-2021
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Liang MLi YWeber THussmann HSas CMaiden N(2021)Tangible Interaction for Children’s Creative Learning: A ReviewProceedings of the 13th Conference on Creativity and Cognition10.1145/3450741.3465262(1-14)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2021
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Bellino AHerskovic VHund MMunoz-Gama J(2021)A Real-world Approach to Motivate Students on the First Class of a Computer Science CourseACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/344598221:3(1-23)Online publication date: 10-May-2021
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Pedersen BJacobsen DTeichert LNielsen JBethel CPaiva ABroadbent EFeil-Seifer DSzafir D(2021)Educational Robotics and Mediated TransferCompanion of the 2021 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/3434074.3447201(402-406)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2021
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