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Creative coding is a rapidly expanding domain for both artistic expression and computational education. Numerous libraries and IDEs support creative coding, however there has been little consideration of how the environments themselves…
We explore the role of quizzes in elementary visual programming domains popularly used for K-8 computing education. Prior work has studied various quiz types, such as fill-in-the-gap write-code questions. However, the overall impact of…
Wearable devices hold great potential for promoting children's health and well-being. However, research on kids' wearables is sparse and often focuses on their use in the context of parental surveillance. To gain insight into the current…
Design skills are increasingly recognized as a core competency for software professionals. Unfortunately, these skills are difficult to teach because design requires freedom and open-ended thinking, but new designers require a structured…
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the use of robotic technology at home. A number of service robots appeared on the market, supporting customers in the execution of everyday tasks. Roughly at the same time, consumer…
Robotics sets have been successfully used in elementary and secondary schools in conformance with the 'learning through play' philosophy fostered by LEGO Education, while utilizing the Constructionism didactic approach. Learners discover…
Iteratively building and testing machine learning models can help children develop creativity, flexibility, and comfort with machine learning and artificial intelligence. We explore how children use machine teaching interfaces with a team…
While the body of research focusing on Intelligent Environments (IEs) programming by adults is steadily growing, informed insights about children as programmers of such environments are limited. Previous work already established that young…
Humans have long relied on visual aids like sketches and diagrams to support reasoning and problem-solving. Visual tools, like auxiliary lines in geometry or graphs in calculus, are essential for understanding complex ideas. However, many…
Computer experiments refer to the study of real systems using complex simulation models. They have been widely used as alternatives to physical experiments. Design and analysis of computer experiments have attracted great attention in past…
Science teaching in secondary schools is often abstract for students. Even if some experiments can be conducted in classrooms, mainly for chemistry or some physics fields, mathematics is not an experimental science. Teachers have to…
Children are one of the groups most influenced by COVID-19-related social distancing, and a lack of contact with peers can limit their opportunities to develop social and collaborative skills. However, remote socialization and collaboration…
Comics is emerging as a popular medium for providing visual explanations of programming concepts and procedures. Recent research into this medium opened the door to new opportunities and tools to advance teaching and learning in computing.…
Educational games are commonly used to motivate students and provide enhanced learning opportunities. Apps and mobile games play an increasingly important role in education and smartphones are part of the daily lives of most female…
Children learn though play. We introduce the analogous idea of learning programs through play. In this approach, a program induction system (the learner) is given a set of tasks and initial background knowledge. Before solving the tasks,…
This paper presents Cooking Code, a VR-based serious game designed to introduce programming concepts to students (ages 12-16) through an immersive, scenario-driven experience. Set in a futuristic world where humans and machines coexist,…
Teaching programming through storytelling is a popular pedagogical approach and an active area of research. However, most previous work in this area focused on K-12 students using block-based programming. Little, if any, work has examined…
Many neurodivergent (ND) children are integrated into mainstream schools alongside their neurotypical (NT) peers. However, they often face social exclusion, which may have lifelong effects. Inclusive play activities can be a strong driver…
Humans have developed the capability to teach relevant aspects of new or adapted tasks to a social peer with very few task demonstrations by making use of scaffolding strategies that leverage prior knowledge and importantly prior joint…
Debugging, finding and fixing bugs in code, is a heterogeneous process that shapes novice learners' self-beliefs and motivation in computing. Our Debugging by Design intervention (DbD) provocatively puts students in control over bugs by…