A tangible programming tool for children to cultivate computational thinking.

Game and creation are activities which have good potential for computational thinking skills. In this paper we present T-Maze, an economical tangible programming tool for children aged 5-9 to build computer programs in maze games by placing wooden blocks. Through the use of computer vision technolog...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Scientific World Journal pp. 428080 - 428081
Autores principales: Wang, Danli, Wang, Tingting, Liu, Zhen
Formato: research Journal Article
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell 2014
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Game and creation are activities which have good potential for computational thinking skills. In this paper we present T-Maze, an economical tangible programming tool for children aged 5-9 to build computer programs in maze games by placing wooden blocks. Through the use of computer vision technology, T-Maze provides a live programming interface with real-time graphical and voice feedback. We conducted a user study with 7 children using T-Maze to play two levels of maze-escape games and create their own mazes. The results show that T-Maze is not only easy to use, but also has the potential to help children cultivate computational thinking like abstraction, problem decomposition, and creativity.