Student Selection #1 - ToonTalk

Citation

Kahn, Ken (1999). A Computer Game to Teach Programming. Proceedings of the National Educational Computing Conference, 1999. Retrieved Wednesday, February 11, 2009 from http://www.toontalk.com/Papers/necc99.pdf


Short Summary

I chose this article since I am presently a computer programmer presently and formerly an Assistant Professor of Information Systems. This article is about ToonTalk, "an animated interactive world inside of which one can construct a very large range of computer programs." It is designed to teach computer programming skills to grade school children.




Tasks include programming a robot to perform repetitive tasks, such as, given a box with the number 1 and the capability of moving, copying, and adding numbers, create a box with the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, ... , 256. A programmable robot can be made to perform repetitive tasks.



A trial version of the software is available at http://www.toontalk.com/English/free.htm so I downloaded the game and played it for a couple of hours. Completing the "puzzles" does, indeed, require a programming "mindset", though I am concerned that young children may have trouble reading and understanding the instructions from the young "Martian" who directs the tasks (see instructions on image below.) The full version of the software is $14.95, and I suspect it would be worth it.




What it means to you and your educational setting or future interests.

I was pleased to be able to find a simple game that could indeed be programmed to perform repetitive tasks. If I could "make a wish" about the software, it would be to allow the player (learner) to view a text- or flowchart-equivalent of the animated program. That addition, while probably of little or no interest to the player, would facilitate its use in the classroom as a learning tool. Then a teacher could say "write a program to do (some task) in text" or "what do you think would be the outcome of this text program?"

Post script - Friday Feb 13, 2009 - I read Gee chapter 4 today, two days after my original post on ToonTalk. It has really got me thinking about concrete vs. abstract and the role games such as ToonTalk can play in making concrete that which is abstract, thereby providing "situated meanings and embodied actions", and about Gee's comment that "There is no other way to make sense (page 84)." Gee (no pun intended), I can't believe I'm letting myself get sucked into this....