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Unique Tools Used to Teach Young Students about Programming
(Posted: June 22, 2007) (Printable Version)
What do cootie catchers and construction paper hats have to do with technology? If you ask 66 sixth through ninth graders who attended computer programming camps at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith, they will likely say “a lot.”
The Camp E! magination activities included “ITea Party” for girls only and “Techno-Toons” for boys and girls. Both were provided through UA Fort Smith’s Information Technology Department and the College Connection-Tech Prep program. The camps used a tool called “Alice,” after Alice in Wonderland, which was developed to teach programming concepts to beginning students.
Lori Cravens, program specialist with College Connection/Tech Prep, said the camps allowed the students to learn the basics of programming through storytelling.
“With ‘Alice,’ developed at Carnegie Mellon University, students were encouraged to create and construct an animated story,” Cravens said. “They began with storyboarding and idea development, then came actual implementation. Virtual worlds were already created and ready for development, or the student could develop one if the student was comfortable with the environment.
“The ultimate objective was to help students view information technology as a possible career path while having fun,” she said, “and I think they did.”
Dr. Janet Renwick of Fort Smith, who was one of the faculty involved with the camp, said the idea behind Alice is that, while students interact with visual computer worlds through games and the Internet from a very young age, non-visual tools are usually used to teach programming concepts.
“Many times when students get into their first real ‘computer programming’ classes,” Renwick said, “they are turned off because it isn’t anything like what they are accustomed to using. Alice presents the concepts visually, as in an animation or a computer game.”
Renwick and the other instructors used innovative and fun ways — like the cootie catchers and the construction paper hats — to get the students’ attention.
“I’ve found it useful to take an everyday process and ‘pretend to be a computer’ as a way to try to get students to think through it logically,” Dr. Renwick said. “We were using the origami cootie catchers as a repeatable process to analyze. It was simply an illustration to show the girls how you have to take a process and break it down to then develop a computer program that will perform that task.”
Dr. Renwick said she can take an everyday process like that and teach many of the basic computer programming concepts in a non-traditional way.
The camps were also designed to particularly pull girls into the career field. Dr. Renwick said that the percentage of girls going into technology related fields has been decreasing dramatically over the past few years.
“Alice is trying to address this gap by presenting programming concepts in a way that appeals to girls, done around the concept of telling stories,” she said.
The faculty also included Bob Cloninger and Scott Bell, both of Fort Smith, with student assistants Tamara Masters of Fort Smith and Kacey Chronister and Sam Shores, both of Alma. Volunteer assistants were Chasity Huddleston and Caitlin Keinard, both of Fort Smith.
Participating students included:
Barling: Tiffany Bardin and Dallas Boatman.
Branch: Patrick McLeroy.
Concordia, Mo.: Jacob Sparks.
Fort Smith: Kimmy Alexander, Caleb Bartlett, Anna Caroom, Hannah Cassingham, Erin Conrad, Kathy Dai, Tori Davenport, Grant Davis, Lane Dickinson, Michael Dotson, Megan Eads, Marty Foss, Andrea Foss, Chrissy Glenn, Sre Gorukanti, Olivia Griffin, Daniel Heinrichs, Aaron Henry, Clara Hubbard, Suzanne Hubbard, Eric Huynh, Michelle Huynh, William Jenner, Claire Kutchka, Jacob Langston, Maddie Linam, Jesse Mann, Jesse McCoy, Maleka Momand, Jessica Montgomery, Daniel Peek, Matthew Peek, James Penney, Annie Piechocki, Alan Pinter, Peyton Porter, Hannah Ryan, Cara Shelby, Matthew Shultz, Gray Stanton, Brooke Taylor, Erica Thavonekham, Zachary Tierney, Lauren Upton, Natalie Upton, Walt Wright and Will Wright.
Greenwood: Makayla Clay, Zak Galligan, Jessica Kolljeski and William Kolljeski.
Mountainburg: Tori Patton.
Mulberry: Brittany Davis, Luke Scott and Erica Swearingin.
New Blaine: Jameson Hall.
Sallisaw: Luke Beller.
Van Buren: Leslie Adair, Rachel Dooley, Matthew Evans, Hannah Putman and Grayson Stewart.
| Article by: Sondra LaMar, Director of Public Relations | |
| Photo(s) by: Jamie Mitchell of Jamie Mitchell Photography |
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