PROGRAMAEducational MaterialsTransferencePublications
Summary
The PROGRAMA project addresses the challenges of learning block-based programming both from a technological and didactical point of view. It is a multi-disciplinary project, which comprises facets of computer science, pedagogy and psychology. The project is oriented to teacher development as well to students of Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary Education.
The project addresses the design, development and evaluation of several systems aimed at the effective learning of block-based programming, complemented with programming methodologies and educational materials which will make the outcomes of the project to the educational process easier. On the one hand, program visualization systems will be developed for teacher training. On the other hand, three types of collaborative systems will be developed for young students: a system based on multi-touch tables that supports the in situ collaborative construction of programs, another one based on collaborative panels for concurrent remote construction, and a conversational agent playing the role of another student, and linked to a robot, which provides cognitive and emotional support to children. As a complement for teaching, some issues of programming methodology which are important in education but have not been addressed yet are: documentation guidelines, design patterns and debugging strategies. In addition, collections of programming exercises specific for these languages will be created. The project contributions will be validated or evaluated with respect to several criteria, namely conceptual consistence, educational effectiveness, user experience (usability, motivation, emotions, eye-tracking) or identification of misconceptions.
Keywords
Block-based programming, Teacher development, Program visualization systems, CSCL, Pedagogical conversational agents, Debugging strategies, Design patterns, Documentation guidelines, Programming exercises.
Contact persons
J. Ángel Velázquez Iturbide, angel DOT velazquez AT urjc DOT es