“Programming is hard and boring”

“programming is hard and boring”

cog

nit

ive

affective

easy

hard

boring exciting

cog

nit

ive

affective

easy

hard

boring exciting

Holy Grail

where we want to be

cog

nit

ive

affective

easy

hard

boring exciting

where we were

compute prime numbers

C++, Emacs

cog

nit

ive

affective

easy

hard

boring exciting

making programming easier

Syntactic Support

Mission Accomplishednot quite

1995:

AgentSheets pioneers drag and drop programming

cog

nit

ive

affective

easy

hard

boring exciting

making programming easier

Syntactic Support

Semantic Support

Pre-bugging

cog

nit

ive

affective

easy

hard

boring exciting

making programming exciting

sem

an

tic

sup

port

synta

ctic

sup

port

Ownership &

Creativity

Creativity3D Tools

<inflatable icons movie: 15 seconds>

create exciting worlds

<screen dump>

does it work?

> 10,000 students

45% girls 55% boys

74% boys, 64% girls of

non self-selected students want to continue

some middle schools expose

350 students

per year

results Pedagogy

scaffolding moreless

motivation girls

more

less

motivation boysg

uid

ed

d

iscovery

inqu

iry-

base

d

self

dir

ecte

d

dis

covery

open e

nded e

xp

lora

tion

dir

ect

instr

ucti

on

step-b

y-st

ep

tuto

rials

• http://scalablegamedesign.cs.colorado.edu

• ralex@cs.colorado.edu

• http://hourofcode.com/ac

• WIRED article on programming, October issue

Thank you!