myPhd

2008-10-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

Computer games good for:

1. boosts children language skills.
2. treats phobia.

2008-09-01T00:24:00.000-07:00

Forgot to upload these pictures from the user testing. Make sure to send them to Michael Frieslaben.

2008-08-25T23:38:00.000-07:00

Done a user testing with Michael Frieslaben's children. Both children, a boy and a girl gave their cooperation and seems to be having fun with the testing and the Gatelock. From the session, fews points need to be ponder and minor changes need to be made both with the software and the instruments involved. Sergej and Franciska came to help me and they did alot.

2008-08-14T23:02:00.001-07:00

Email to Michael Freislaben for the kids. The test will be on August 22 in the games lab. Time will be set accordingly to the availability of the children.

2008-08-05T23:07:00.001-07:00

Target date for the final version of gatelock will be on August 20, 2008. Hopefully the testing can be done a week after.

2008-07-20T22:26:00.000-07:00

The transformation of gatelock is still in progress. We are fixing minor bugs on the mainscreen while marco is doing his best with the developmentscreen. I guess both of them need more time to crack their heads with gatelock. Meanwhile the testing will be done in the month of august - september. It is all depend on the gatelock transformation progression. The other thing, by end of August, i need to clarify the target sample for the testing. Raimund need around 20 childen. I guess i need to ask ISG staff for some simpathy.

Thomas Rosenburg = 2
Bernard Preim = 1
Marcel Gotzel = 2
Rita = 2
Freislaben = 2
Ah Huat = 1
Petra = 1
Voigt = 2

13 is enough?

2008-07-08T23:53:00.000-07:00

Right now, need to concentrate with the icon and interface design paper. This include the EPL paper too.

2008-06-24T23:01:00.001-07:00

Still buzy with these things:

1. EPL journal paper
2. MS Access for the questionnaire evaluation
3. ED-Media 2008 presentation preparation
4. Dissertation writing
5. Gatelock final version

...and just add a new one...a paper for iconic design for children application.

Need to settle these things:
1. extension time for SLAB
2. post progress report
3. post tokens for friends in Malaysia
4. post extension time application

2008-06-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

Snapshots of children doing the questionnaire for QUIS

They were so enthusiasm in answering the questionnaire. In fact they really enjoyed the activities and asking for more. This shows that children do have interest in participating in the design of their own software and suggest on how to make the software better for their own usage.

2008-05-18T23:26:00.001-07:00

Mohamed Khaled berkata sistem penarafan yang dipersetujui Jemaah Menteri pada Oktober 2005 itu mengandungi enam domain utama dan 89 indikator, serta dinilai berdasarkan skor 1-6 dengan yang tertinggi dikategorikan sebagai terbilang, diikuti dengan cemerlang, sangat baik, baik, memuaskan dan yang terakhir adalah lemah.

2008-05-07T22:58:00.001-07:00

Modify GATELOCK: Interaction and Interface Design

For the first comparison, the GATELOCK has 4 buttons (play, develop, draw, signout). We can leave the drawing tool for the main menu and put it later in other windows. The simplify main menu (on the right side) has smaller size of icons and a list of existing projects including one new project template.

The new project template will have 3 embedded functions - delete, save and develop. Children can give the project name (or rename) by clicking at the word new project. The diagram above show the interaction design differences between the current GATELOCK and the new-plan GATELOCK.

Next comparison, the current GATELOCK has two ways of browsing existing projects - scroll bar and arrow icons. In the new-plan GATELOCK, we will simplify the browsing interaction by having only one way, the scrolling. This icon (X) in the current GATELOCK was misunderstood and remark by someone as "close" instead of "delete"(?).

The dialog box/s used in the current GATELOCK will be used also in the new-plan GATELOCK. Perhaps we can simplify the sentence used and the confirmation of the questions asked.

Next comparison, if you want to play, in the current GATELOCK you need to move your cursor to top-upper screen and wait 2-3 seconds for the menu to appear (or you can just press Esc key). The waiting condition was said to be not appropriate and there is no indicator on the exact location of the menu. In he new-plan GATELOCK, we will put an indicator (a flap or flag) that show location of the menu. Again, the drawing icon will be delete since it is going to be use here.

Instead of hiding the left menu, we will stick the menu permanently on the left screen. The features of the menu will also be eliminate. We only use object and game level while others can be visualize using other methods (will be describe in further explanation).

To create a game object, currently we have to follow almost 6 steps. This steps can be shorten by re-designing it (as shown on the right side in the diagram). The interface of this section can be redesign according to designer creativity.

The interaction design should follows these rules by Donald Norman - affordance, constraint, visibility, mapping and feedback.

2008-04-28T05:07:00.000-07:00

Why 5 users? A Miss Belief by Practitioners

Is there a big difference between testing 20 users or multiple groups of 5 users?

Nielsen says:
1. First test with 5 users (to catch average of 85% of usability problems)
2. Fix those problems
3. Second test with 5 users (to fixes, tests, and probes much deeper than first
4. Fix those problems
5. Third test with 5 users (to fixes more problems)
6. Then fix no more...

Faulkner says:
"the risk of relying on any one set of 5 users was that nearly half of the identified problems could have been missed; however, each addition of users markedly increased the odds of finding the problems." BUT...Faulkner’s article is based on using 5 users in single usability tests.

Finally, he says:
"...But it sure seems like three groups of 5 users for usability testing still works just fine, and catches most, if not all, web usability problems."

2008-04-28T03:56:00.001-07:00

Right now, I'm in the process of developing a questionnaire for the summative evaluation that include the usage of Anoto pen and paper. Here, one project describe how the Anoto pen and paper really works and how the technology can be apply in our daily life. Quite interesting! Hope it will work and will present it to Raimund by end of this month. For some tutorials on this subject, click here.

2008-04-27T23:17:00.000-07:00

Some photos of me with Gatelock tested using tabletop in the User Interface Lab.

2008-04-22T01:07:00.000-07:00

For more information as guidelines for summative evaluation, please refer here. Some of the discuss articles are:

• 5 keys to a successful usability test
• 8 guidelines for usability testing
• 90% of all usability testing is useless
• A proposal for evaluating usability testing methods: the practical review system
• Comparative usability evaluation
• Conducting and using usability tests
• Don't test users, test hypotheses
• Eight is not enough
• Experience remote usability testing
• Formal usability reports vs quick findings
• How many users should you test with in usability testing (latest research)
• Observer effects in usability testing
• Quantitative studies: how many users to test
• Recording screen activity during usability testing
• Remote online usability testing: why, how, and when to use it
• Seven common usability testing mistakes
• Six tips to ensure a successful usability test
• Test your designs - on people
• UI guidelines vs usability testing
• Usability testing: myths, misconceptions and misuses
• Beyond the five-user assumption: benefits of increased sample sizes in usability testing (PDF)

2008-03-10T02:25:00.001-07:00

Starting the first day of April 2008, Gatelock has been tested using a table top in the user interface design lab. Thanks goes to Matthias and his team for letting us used the tabletop and guidance. We can see the potential of using Gatelock with the tabletop technology but we need to face some issues especially towards the implementation and designing game activity. One major example is the limitation of using keyboard as the main interface. We try to modify it with other possible interface such as gamepad. But we need to change some coding in the Gatelock itself. we are trying our best...

2008-02-15T11:57:00.000-08:00

Why should we learn by doing?

Below are the arguments taken from the Web article.

The reason why 'Learning by Doing' works is that it strikes the basic memory processes upon which humans rely. Human memory is based in scripts and the generalization of scripts. We learn how to do things and then learn how what we have learned is wrong and right. We learn when our rules apply and when they must be modified. We learn when our rules can be generalized and when to make note of exceptions. We learn when our rules are domain bound or when they can be used independent of domain.

We learn all this by doing, by constantly having new experiences and attempting to integrate those experiences, or more accurately the memory of those experiences, into our existing memory structures. This integration process relies upon new data provided by experience. When new data is simply told to us, we don't know where in memory to put it because we don't really understand the use of that data. When we experience the data ourselves, we also experience, at the same time, other sights, sensations, feelings, remembrances of goals achieved and goals hoped for and so on. In other words, we have enough context to help us to know how to characterize what we have learned well enough to find a place for it in memory and to begin the generalization and exception process.

It follows, then, that what we learn when we Learn by Doing will be details of how to accomplish something in a particular domain (a scriptlet); strategies that are independent of domain (process participation strategies); and the cases that stand alone as exceptions awaiting possible future integration into the memory system. Learning by Doing works because it impacts all these important memory issues.

2008-01-29T11:03:00.000-08:00

D-Day a.k.a Doktorandentag 2008

Finally, I have presented my work. It took me almost 3 weeks to prepare and every night I had dreams about it. Last night was the worst. It took me approx. 20 minutes to present and another 10 minutes to answer all questions. It was pretty impressive seeing that people really have interest in what I'm doing and keeping themselves awake instead of sleeping throughout the presentation. What else could I say, it almost 5:30 pm and it's getting darker.

One particular comments from my supervisor..."please make sure you answer the question KISS...simple and short". I couldn't help it, I'm a teacher and that is one of the main habit that any teacher will have. I like to explain more so people can really understand each word that came out from my mouth. On the other side of the coin, I'm using English which is obviously is my second language :)

I like the way my supervisor told me just now..."Now you know where you stand and how to move on." I guess he's right! What a tremendous feeling you will have right after the moment you finished presenting your work.

But, already I have 3 possible papers to be written next. Good luck to me!

2008-01-11T07:07:00.000-08:00

Pre-Presentation for Doktorandentag 2008

Today, I had the chance to present my study to Prof. Dr. Raimund. He indeed helps in 1) making the research more focus 2) suggests on the how to direct your research in the right order and putting it in a nice presentation way, and 3) making construction comments on the presentation structure and content.

I really appreciate his effort in coming and will surely put his ideas into works. This pre-presentation did help me to minimize the uncertainty especially towards the perception and response on my "humanistic" study. It was a valuable experience.

On top of that, I received an e-mail from Maic today. I'm waiting for his answer to my question. I would like to meet him next week and present to him before "D-Day".

2007-11-20T03:54:00.000-08:00

Edutainment

Was ist Edutainment? The definition of edutainment seems to be left out by academia field. People started to argue the exact meaning of edutainment and some of them tried to mathematicalize the word and make it look more uglier than ever. Some of them tried to change and replace the word with others such as playful learning or fun learning. Guess people are always try to steel other people thunder.

2007-11-20T03:49:00.000-08:00

People around the world that I should check out their project or thesis: before trying to get an outline approved for my PhD dissertation.

1. Amy Bruckman PhD Dissertation - Moose Crossing [constructivist environment for children]

2. Kristy Streefkerk Master's thesis - Child centered design application

3. Richard G. McDaniel PhD Dissertation - Gamut [PBD tool for building games]

4. Yasmin Kafai Project - Scratch [programming with a purpose]

5. John Pane PhD Dissertation - HANDS [computer programming more accessible to beginners by focusing on usability in the design of languages and tools]

6. Magy Seif El-Nasr Project - Gender and game modding

7. Mikael B. Skov PhD Dissertation - design of interactive narratives

8. Mark Overmars Project - GameMaker [game design and education]

9. Andrew Ko PhD Dissertation - Alice [end-user programming]

10.Ylva Fernaeus PhD Dissertation - [children's collaborative practices using visual programming tools]

11.Robert Sheehan PhD Dissertation - Icicle [the design, development and testing of a programming environment for children]

12.David W. Shaffer Project - epistemic games [games and children learning]

13.Judy Robinson Project - AdventureAuthor [computers, creativity and learning]

14.Jacob Habgood Project - Game Maker [game development workshop]

2007-11-20T03:43:00.000-08:00

Robert Sheehan and Icicle

Reading his dissertation makes me wonder how he ever think to solve the problem in the area of children and programming. Here is the abstract of his thesis.

"This thesis describes the design, development and testing of a programming environment for children. Several different approaches were employed to produce guidelines to aid in the design of the environment: a brief examination of the theories of child development, the production of a simple first programming environment, interviews of children to determine what they understood about computer programming and the programs they wanted to produce, and the evaluation of previous programming environments for children. The resulting guidelines ranged from suggestions as to the age range of children the environment should be aimed at, through to the necessity of making the environment fun. Icicle (Interaction computing in a constructionist learning environment), the programming environment that was produced, includes several novel approaches to producing and representing programs. Changes in state, or interactions as they are referred to in Icicle, are used as the basis for computation. Instructions are represented by animations, and parallelism is provided in a very simple way. The system was tested with twelve, nine and ten-year-old children. They found Icicle to be usable and very enjoyable. They produced many programs using Icicle and believed that it enabled them to produce any type of program that they desired. The real limits of Icicle are also discussed. My plan is to release Icicle, the programming environment for children that is described in the thesis when I have tidied it up. It is very alpha software at the moment. Unfortunately, I have very little time to work on this as I have a very full teaching load and a lot of administration."

The abstract source can be find here!

2007-11-20T03:36:00.000-08:00

Caroline and her research project

Hey, check her out. She's doing what I'm doing right now. What a small world. I guess "great minds think alike".

2007-11-20T03:27:00.001-08:00

Programming By Example or Programming By Demonstration

A technique called Programming by Example have been introduced in a program named Pygmalion. The designer, Smith elaborated PBE in the first chapter of a book entitled "Watch What I Do: Programming by Demonstration". The technique emphasize the need to describe algorithms through concrete examples rather than abstractly.

Here are some captions on somebody ideas of Smith's PBE. He also wrote on drag and drop programming which I think is just the matter of how you do it not really on how you think on doing it. He is Peter Hale by the way.

2007-11-04T23:57:00.001-08:00

Starting from today, no more procastinating on myself. I have exactly 1 year to polish everything and starting writing everything down in my dissertation. But I really need help on doing it. This week I have to present my current and future work to Niklas. Perhaps he has better idea and can help me in deciding what and which are the important parts of my work. It seems easy to do if you look at other people's work but only those who suffer knows the bitter. "So, it's time to get started in order to finish".

2007-10-23T03:40:00.001-07:00

The implementation of a field study back in Malaysia have been quite successful. Nevertheless, there are still many things to do especially in analyzing data gathered from the study. Despite the limitation of time back in Malaysia, I do not have the opportunity to test the latest version of the Gatelock. But I managed to give the students some experiences in using Gatelock eventhough it is not fully function at the moment.

2007-08-06T03:59:00.000-07:00

Constructivism and the Five E's

I have designed a teaching plan using these guidelines, Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate, which describes the expected phase of learning. The Five E's is an instructional model based on the constructivist approach to learning. Learners build or construct new ideas on top of their old ideas in the process of learning. It is designed to increase student engagement, motivation, and achievement. I have a positive feeling that these 'E's will eventually get along with the idea of learning by doing.

Read more on this theory.

2007-07-23T00:47:00.000-07:00

Comments from a teacher about teaching programming

...

"We should not be concerned with the sophistication of the output - which is what I think the heavy IDE aided approach seems too often to focus upon. Teaching children or anyone else that is what is important at the initial stages is the output, rather than the process, is misleading them."

"And children - in particular - are intuitive enough to know when they are being mislead. If we can't find a way to introduce children to programming without misleading them - and I seem to be open to that possibility that this is true more than many others - perhaps we should simply wait until they are developed, cognitively, to the point where we can."

Why start a process in a way that is not sustainable.

What does the environment teach us really about the most important aspect of becoming a programmer in any meaningful sense - i.e., working independently of large sets of mysterious dependencies. Most IDEs for beginning programmers are not only neutral, but I think counter product on this point - introducing programming as another form of dependency, rather than as the kind of liberating activity it should be understood, from the beginning, to be. And I think it needs to be sustained.

2007-07-20T00:58:00.000-07:00

Checklist for the Field Study

Couples of weeks ago, I had a tough time with the "Trier-no-Trier" issue. But after miserably thinking and thinking all over the same old thing, I started to come-up with an aim. "Let the time tells" Therefore, I will start again, refocusing back to my goal here. Punkt.

I have been drafting and planning the activities including the research materials and instruments for me to bring and use at SKTM. Opps...it's not going to be in that school. The headmistress has been transferred to another school - Sekolah Kebangsaan Sungai Dua. Isn't it lovely when you accepted two 'not-so-good' news in a month. That's life.

Well, I have been preparing the instruments such as questionnaire (for ethnography), quizzes (for performance evaluation) and checklist (for evaluating behavior and emotion changes). Besides those tedious works, I have settled the hand-out for the first tutorial [Etoys].

Next, I will set up the second tutorial [Gatelock] and this could be a tough one since I have to deal it as fast as I could. The Gatelock is still in development. Marco and Sergej is still putting their brains with the software. Even though the framework show the Gatelock will be successfully finished in time, I'm still worries...

2007-05-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Pengaturcaraan untuk Kanak-Kanak

That is the name that I have selected for the workshop that is going to be held from Sept, 10 until Sept, 29. I have been preparing materials for the workshop. It will be held at one school (Sekolah Kebangsaan Taman Senangan) with approval from the headmaster as one of the after-examination activities. I will get around 90 students and I have planned to conducted the workshop in 3 sessions since the computer lab occupied only 30 computers. After the workshop, all students will be given a questionnaire and their behaviour will be captured through video to make it easier to analyze the data in the future. Above all, we have only 2-3 months left to make a 'working' gate authoring tool without any errors.

2007-05-29T05:17:00.000-07:00

"I have the impression you are approaching Etoys from the wrong angle. It's not about "scripting" or even "programming" in the popular sense. It's about working with objects. Imagine what you would do if you were that object - how would you know it's your time to do something? Trying to implement a centrally controlled event-trigger system in etoys is certainly possible (there is no formal proof but it's obviously Turing-complete) but you are working against the system than within. That object-centric perspective was perhaps best understandable with Papert's *mechanical* turtles that you controlled. These original turtles were not just images on the screen with an x and y position. Or worse, colors in a 2D grid, or even numbers in an array called frame buffer. They were actual objects that you could touch and instruct. In Etoys it's the same - you create an object and describe its behavior. When you reference other objects in a script, it's generally good practice to just observe what they do, rather than make them do something. We recently added the option to hide the receiver tile in each line of a script to make the distinction between "me" and "other" objects more obvious. Otherwise it's too tempting to have one large central script that controls the behavior of all objects (which is what people previously exposed to "programming" often try to do). So try to rethink your problem if all you had at your disposal where independent agents that behave on their own. You may be surprised at what the result will look like :) by Bert"

Well, what could I say. Agreed and disagreed. But before that I should pictures myself as a kid. What should the word 'programming' means to me and what word is the most appropriate to be replaced with the activities that similar with programming.

2007-05-23T08:18:00.000-07:00

Facial Expression in Squeak Etoys

Using Squeak Etoys, each drawing is consider an object (object as a whole) but to make a facial expression animation, the object should be separated. But children have different perception while using it. Building or construct blocks is difficult for children because they tend to get lost in the massive information given in the tool. Hence the area for them to create/draw objects are too wide.

2007-05-15T01:49:00.000-07:00

Today, I called BSM and they said my application to do research back in Malaysia was approved and tomorrow I will book my tickets at Let's Fly. Now, I have to concentrate on the game making activity that I will conducted in Sekolah Kebangsaan Taman Senangan. I will give a phone call to one of the teachers there and hopefully, so hopefully everything will go smoothly and according to what I have plan.

2007-05-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

Skype Meeting with Maic

Yesterday, together with Marco and Sergej, we have a net-meeting with Maic through Skype. He talked on his experience visiting OLPC Foundation Office with Bert in Boston. Here are some of the inputs that we get and valuable towards our project:

1. Until today, Squeak etoys is the only application that are full-running in OLPC XO which also have Sugar (Python-based) as its operating system. Interesting part: depth view on software application OLPC is doing and etoys is the only thing far more advanced compared to others.

2. The Foundation target the first delivery will be early October and they were relief that etoys is ready and working well.

3. Bert made some interesting networking with those in OLPC Foundation. Maic contributes his ideas on the interface and found out there are no one doing anything with Squeak. He concluded that we are far more advance with programming interface, ideas on doing and pursuing the game making at school.

4. We agreed upon one thing. Instead of making GATELOCK as one game authoring application, we decide to make it as one of the features in etoys. In other words, embedded the game making elements in etoys. Maic gave us his ideas - first open etoys - click game making project - then the game making features will appeared.

5. OLPC Foundation have 3 version of OLPC board until today - B1 (256 MB), B2 (128 MB RAM and B# (strong processor, 20% faster and 256 MB RAM). The Head of Sofware Designer at OLPC did mentioned the tremandous developers all around the world are working with it and they are very restricted in giving any. Therefore, we should work with what we have ;)

6. Scratch is not really focusing towards OLPC. Scratch is concentrating on Web community and they idea is more on sharing via Web. The interface is good and focus on mediated presentation and simulation activity. But it is not purposely for game making and they didn't focus on using any game creation features.

At the end of the discussion, we agreed that the aim of our thesis is to have a building blocks of game engine and not designing an application but prototype that is usable right away. Then, Maic showed us JiVE project.

2007-05-09T23:45:00.000-07:00

Received an e-mail with some attachments confirming the approval from EPU, MOE and EPRD but the approval is with condition - not to be include 12 years old children since they are having a test but I think they actually didn't read the application. In the application I have mentioned clearly indicate that my study will be treat as one of after-examination activity which is obviously conduct after the examination week. Well, we'll see about it.

2007-05-09T02:43:00.000-07:00

I found a statement that conclude the core or main problem of PBD - "the software must infer the intention of the user; a difficult process which is prone to error". I guess the developer should think multiple solution and give multiple possible suggestion so that the user can really perform what actually he/she wants. On top of that, it is surely difficult and takes a lot of time.

2007-05-02T01:31:00.000-07:00

Programming Structure in Etoys

The painted object presents the user with an iconic representation. The manipulation and the change of characteristics or behaviors of object can be done by changing its values and settings in its viewer.

Through exploration, children will realize each value they changed or made can set the foundation for further action. Since the children keen to look upon what will happen to their object. What interest the children most is the 'before and after effects'. This concept is also been implemented and discussed in the Comics and Programming project.

2007-04-18T04:49:00.000-07:00

I have been submitting an online application to conduct a research in Malaysia through Prime Minister's Department (EPU), but still haven't received any news from them. Have to call them back next week. Send an e-mail on May 08, 2007 and hopefully they reply with a positive feedback.

2007-03-23T01:07:00.001-07:00

Things other people accomplished

Andrea diSessa (Boxer)

Andrea diSessa successfully taught children (sixth grade) Galileo's principles of motion by teaching them Boxer (a specific computer programming language). He describes it "programming turns analysis into experience implications that algebra and even calculus can't touch".

2007-03-20T00:59:00.000-07:00

Received an e-mail from Dr. Soon from EPRD yesterday. He suggests that the application to conduct the research study should be apply to EPU instead of EPRD since I'm studying in a tertiary institutions overseas and the EPRD only grants permission to researchers from local institutions. Today I have submitted the application through EPU's Web site via online. Tomorrow I have to post the original printed form to the Director General of EPU. Too many steps, afraid I will fall-down...you know what I mean.

2007-03-16T01:57:00.000-07:00

Programming Language for Children

Programming language is just like a natural human language but the language used is either strongly different, slightly different or totally different. It goes the same as our culture. We have multi culture in the world and we speak differently. So, programming language is also favors in certain aspects - the metaphors used, the GUI, the images, the semantic language and most important of all is the ways of thinking.

Programming language for children is another story to talk about. It has been discussed over 30-20 years ago and yet it still remain as the favourite topic for those who are interested in children and computer field, including me.

BASIC has established as the obvious programming language introduce to children in American on how to program a computer. It contains only few of small vocabulary (just 50 word) and was found quite easy to learn (refer here to know more on the advantages of BASIC). One issue occurs in BASIC was how to use it. People who developed BASIC were working generally as engineers and they were the one that made the decision which and what languages best fits the computer during that particular time. Most educators rejects the idea of using BASIC in classroom because the language represents as 'too mathematical'. Nevertheless, the language has become the root of many existing end-user programming languages.

2007-03-14T02:38:00.000-07:00

Again on Sugar

Another thing, the Sugar developers tries to eliminate the usual interface that people use to used. For example, the pie menu as the organizing concept. Let us see how it works. It is a ring of running activities around a user (or so-called as XO). Watch a video on how to use the new paradigm of interface (by starting teaching it to children at their early age) here.

There are different opinions on the subjects of changing the common-normal interface in personal computer and yet, OLPC tries to adapt a new interface. A blog by 'Coding Horror' have discuss on the potential of OLPC project and the possible nightmare to face. Emmmm...People also argue on the idea of changing the way things now and some of them differentiate between the capability of Western kids with children from the 3rd world countries. I guess sometimes we should stop thinking and straight away doing it. Take the risks and don't afraid of losing. That is also a way to learn. A blog discuss on Sugar's interface.

Then I remember reading about the QWERTY phenomenon in Papert's famous book "Mindstorms". It illustrate how skeptical and critical people are when it comes to a new transformation of technology (#33). I guess it goes the same when people argue about Sugar and perhaps the wheel is turning again and again.

2007-03-14T00:34:00.000-07:00

Sugar in OLPC

Sugar works as the main operating system in the OLPC environment. It is used to promotes sharing and learning concurrently, within a fun and easy to use (child-friendly). Once you have an OLPC laptop, the Sugar is already installed. You can check more on instructions in using Sugar here. Sugar also uses different terminologies. For instance, it uses 'activities' instead of 'applications' or the 'ring' means 'active application or activity'. It also have a word processing named AbiWord that simplify other word processing and only have limited features.

Sugar have four different types of 'zoom' - Neighbourhood Shows, Friends Shows, Home Shows and Bulletin Board. They called it 'zoom' to show other people who also available and active on the local network. The idea of collaborative and cooperative learning can be done using the OLPC is what impress me the most. Since the collaboration can be control in a local network for a particular activity running, perhaps, it must be the best tool to be incorporate in teaching and learning in the classroom.

The design guidelines for Sugar subjectively focus more on aspects:
1 - Know Your Audience (a.k.a children)
2 - Performance
3 - Usability
4 - Simplicity
5 - Reliability
6 - Security
7 - Adaptability
8 - Recoverability
9 - Interoperability
10 - Mobility
11 - Transparency
12 - Accessibility

2007-03-13T00:53:00.000-07:00

Constructionism (Seymour Papert)

Seymour Papert is the guiding philosopher emphasis on children as designers of their own activity involving new technological tools for learning. He describes both a theory of learning and a new strategy for education section. The theory of constructionism is based on the constructivist theory of Jean Piaget, a psychologist who studied children's learning development.

Piaget argued children construct their knowledge during learning and it is not simply transferred from one person to another (biological transfer). Whilst Papert expends Piaget's idea by stating that a good way to construct new knowledge is by constructing tangible objects that children can reflect and share with others.

If it is good for children to engage in design activities, then a good construction kits or tools should be provided to them. One of the earliest environment was LEGO/Logo. The environment combined two types of design - using LEGO blocks as the mechanical design tool and Logo programming as the software design tool.

The idea to integrate physical activity with programming has explored different aspects of benefits in learning:

1. engage children as active participants by giving them greater sense of control and responsibility over the learning process

2. encourage creative problem solving and suggesting multiple strategies and possible solution

3. facilitate personal connections to knowledge and develop a sense of ownership for their ideas that they design

4. offer interdisciplinary activities and bridging together the concepts in maths, science and arts lesson

5. provide a context for reflection and discussion to enable children to gain deeper understanding of the ideas underlying hands-on activities

2007-03-06T04:22:00.000-08:00

Bringing Programming to End-User

In the 1960s, computer users were either programmers or had programmers who actually write programs specifically for them (custom-made application). Time change starting the invent of PC (Personal Computer). Instead of using custom-made application, people nowadays use a generic application to develop an application by themselves. They use the term 'end user' to refer to those who are at the end of the process of computer programming. The issue to be think by software developers is the appropriate tool for the end user to use in developing the application.

Various techniques for achieving this goal are used and can be categorized into 4 - preferences (pre-defined alternatives), scripting languages (simple programming language specifically tailoring to a particular application such as Lingo in Macromedia Director), macro readers (a way for users to record their action such as Macro in MS Word) and programming by demonstration (users instruct the system and the system creates generalized programs from the recorded actions).

Quote from “Your Wish is My Command: Programming by Example” edited by Henry Lieberman.

What do users want to program? To make little changes in an application so that it more closely fits one's personal needs; for automating repetitive activities and for building mini-applications.

Here is a link that describe the ideas of programming behind Papert's Logo environment.

2007-03-06T02:02:00.000-08:00

Sections Planned:

The focus is on ways to create the appropriate HCI so that end user (in this case, children) can gain more control of their personal computers.

Section 1 focuses on the motivation and method used
- edutainment
- games in schools
- educational programming languages
- existing tools
- initial study

Section 2 discusses particular aspects of GAT and emphasis will be on the 'process' rather than the outcomes
- development
- features
- example

Section 3 provides broader perspectives on the GAT field
- field study
- research findings
- outlook

2007-03-06T01:52:00.000-08:00

Problems with PBD or PBE:

How to infer the user's intent. The user's intent as expressed in examples is to be divined by the system and turned into a useful generality. Since human have a very large range of intents with extreme context restrictions, overlapping window interface serve to restrict context while giving the user the illusion of freedom. The process of inferring a user's intent in selecting a particular object has been described by Dan Halbert as 'data description'. For instance, the user are interpreting the interface in terms of their goals and sometimes they are imperceptibly in making decision. Another influence is complication in the flow of control. Since repetitive activities often include special cases, therefore, it mus be handled differently. For example, redo the activity or deciding which way to follow in order to get the tasks/actions in a minimal time and accurate.

2007-03-05T00:52:00.000-08:00

Problems with the existing tools:

1. Logo and all-turtle-like programs

Young children (below 10) have difficulties in typing the commands and orientation. They had problems and confused with the right-left orientation. Sometimes, they did not understand degrees and thought move commands meant move-and-turn instead of turn-and-move. Children's understanding of the 'turn' commands was hindered by the change of turtle's direction. The requirement was to make turtle-graphics programming easier for young children and more fun for older ones. Therefor, the designers incorporated with guidelines tips found in the field of children and design.

2. Stagecast Creator

The graphical rewrite rules is based on a grid of discrete locations but the problem is the agents movements are restricted. Means, agents cannot move smoothly in any direction (it move in discrete steps). In addition, the agents size and location are limited due to the resolution of the gird. Another problem is the limitation happens in the program expression. Since it uses before-and-after effect rules, it is difficult to describe the rules graphically especially when it comes to numbers and other symbols that have to be specified in a textual representation.

Because of the grid, objects must have fixed sizes and must be located at discrete locations. Interacting among objects that are confined to the grid, following with direct manipulation style is impossible. In addition, it is problematic to refer to non-adjacent objects and objects that can be located at any position in the world. Last but not least, symbolic representation such as text and number expression do not fit within the graphical representation in an integrated way.

3. ToonTalk

ToonTalk is an animated program but yet the dynamic representation in animation is too difficult to edit. This explains why the dynamic robot in ToonTalk has to be retrained if the user wants to make any changes or to modify the error in the program (in case any bugs found). One thing that bother users in training the robot is it's action do not resemble the actual picture behavior. After watching the robot perform operations, yet the final program robots are being hide from actual view.

4. Squeak Etoys / Scratch

Tile-scripting representation of programming is not analogous with the run-time. It did not resemble the result seen when user actually execute or run the program. The scripting is scatter in categories order. This make the scripting activity mor difficult since the children have to memorize which action scripts to be choose in which category. They have difficulty in memorizing the exact location and understanding the abstract meaning of each category. For instance, the script for observing the car's movement (trail) is inside the 'pen use' rather than 'motion' category.

5. KidSim

Two problems identified by the creators of KidSim - 1) the 'rule-generality' problem that has to do with the difficulty to generalize pictures and 2) the 'rule-semantics' problem that has to do with the difficulty to specify how the computer is to perform the transformation of a rule.

2007-03-05T00:18:00.000-08:00

Visual Programming (VP)

Visual Programming is programming language that lets users manipulating program elements graphically rather than textually. It use visual expressions, graphical symbols, arrangements of text or may be icon-based languages. The aim is to let the users manipulate programs in an interactive way prior to grammatical problems in programming languages for any program construction.

Game authoring tool that use VP: Alice, Agentsheets, ToonTalk, StageCast Creator, Squeak Etoys, Scratch

2007-03-02T02:08:00.000-08:00

The Peter System (1999)

The Peter System is a visual programming tool designed for a simple and fast generation of the programs for all children.

2007-03-02T01:15:00.000-08:00

Programming by Demonstration (PBD)

Learn about programming should be like teaching someone how to perform a step-by step task by following rules and methods. Basically, the goal is to get the computer to learn some new behavior and the best way to teach it is by showing or demonstrate example. This is what PBD is all about which impacts both fundamental research and application-oriented studies. PBD allows the user to instruct the computer to 'watch what I do", and the computer

PBD has two core ideas.

Example-based programming or sometimes also known as programming by example (PBE). It works when example data is used during the development of a program. One of the benefits is that concrete examples are easier for people to work with than the abstractions of programming languages.

Programming in the user interface. This type of PBD is common today when the statements in the program are the same as the commands the user would normally give the system. The benefit is user can compose the program from commands that are already familiar, both in terms of their functionality and their form.

Game authoring tool that use PBD: ToonTalk, Stagecast Creator, Logo

Some of the points are taken from the book “Your Wish is My Command: Programming by Example” edited by Henry Lieberman.

1. Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad (1962) became the example for what interactive computing should be like.

2. Cliff Shaw's JOSS (1963) for being the first real 'end-user' language and the first attempt at a really 'user friendly' interface.

3. Alan Kay's Dynabook (1977) idea was a prime focus for being able to 'read' and 'write' in it would be as universally (computer literacy). He insists of saying that the most important issues regarding end-user programming and PBE are pedagogical and ethical. In addition, it takes a very special value system for children and adults to be able to exist as learning creatures in the presence of an environment that does all for them.

4. Seymour Papert had an idea on how computer programming can be act as learning in end-user computing and some effort should be put in designing a system that have pedagogical aspects.

5. Jerome Bruner supplied the idea of 'middle' mentality as a bridge between infancy and adolescence, which he called the iconic programming.

6. Dave Smith's Pygmalion (1977) was the first example for what iconic programming by example might means and he is the first person who coined the term 'icon'.

7. Ben Shneiderman's Direct Manipulation (1981) term was coined together with the identification of its foundations and components.

2007-03-02T01:06:00.000-08:00

Epistemic Games

David Williamson Shaffer, the author of the book “How Computer Games Help Children Learn,” described:

…computer games that can help students learn to think like engineers, urban planners, journalists, lawyers, and other innovative professionals, giving them the tools they need to survive in a changing world. When students play epistemic games, they participate in simulations of a society that they might someday inhabit. These games help them to develop ways of thinking and knowing that are valued in the world, giving them a way to imagine who they might someday become.

"Epistemic games are games that help players learn the ways of thinking–the epistemologies–of the digital age". I would like to add, making games can help children to learn the ways of thinking...and hopefully this goes into the same faculty, the faculty of epistemic games.

2007-02-23T01:59:00.000-08:00

Grassroots Learning Innovations Application

Right now, I'm putting my brain to come out with a proposal application to get at least 10 OLPC for the sake of the project. The most important part is to calculate the man-month to really estimate the total cost for this project. I will present this to Prof. Masuch this Monday and he agreed to become the leader of this project. ;)

The OLPC are planning a contest for the best etoys designed to work on the OLPC machines. They are going to replace the existing etoys in OLPC with the new one. Come back to OLPC's etoys page for more information...

2007-02-23T01:54:00.000-08:00

Iengine with OLPC project

Received an e-mail from Prof. Masuch. Impara agrees on the use of iengine for Sergej's master project. Sergej has just tested by putting his game on Bert's OLPC. Surprising, the game ran smoothly in 32 bit resolution. I guess this make the starting point of our project. ;)

2007-02-20T23:28:00.000-08:00

OLPC Project

We have decided to aim the tool to be used in OLPC. The tool will have a minimum requirement suitable with the minimum specification of the OLPC itself. But first of all, we have to look at the OLPC and have some test with it and then make some guidelines on the tool's specification and things that we should or should not focus with.

Received a IEEE's Spectrum magazine (Feb 2007) yesterday. In page 22, there is a column on Mary Lou Jepsen, CTO of OLPC project. The column is about how she coming involved in the project and what will happen next.

2007-02-19T00:30:00.000-08:00

Meeting with Impara

Together with Maic, Marco and Sergej, we went to Impara to discuss issues on the AI engine (to make it opensource) and to get fully cooperation with them to pursue the project to be put into the OLPC laptop.

2007-02-16T05:16:00.000-08:00

Meeting with Marco and Sergej

We have came upon agreement on the basic stuff on the tool. We will have a meeting on Monday with the Impara guys.

2007-02-09T08:24:00.000-08:00

Scratch (2007)

Scratch is a programming language for creating multimedia content developed at MIT Media Lab; the project was led by John Maloney.

2007-02-09T07:43:00.003-08:00

AquaMOOSE 3D (2005)

AquaMOOSE 3D is a desktop 3D environment that lets you play with the behavior of parametric equations in three dimensions. You can create things that are beautiful both mathematically and artistically.

2007-02-09T07:43:00.001-08:00

Icicle (2005)

Icicle is a programming environment that allows children to produce games and simulations. It features programmable objects that have more realistic behaviour
than those in similar systems and uses a parallel production system approach to programming.

2007-02-09T07:42:00.001-08:00

Baltie (2003)

Baltie is an educational graphic oriented visual programming tool for kids, children, youth and adults. Baltie is also main character of this software a little wizard keen to execute miscellaneous commands and to conjure pictures (tiles) in his scene. With Balties help children will quickly realize what is a computer and how to master and program the computer. All that by playing. Baltie can be used also for exercising logical thinking. It makes no demands on childs knowledge, only playfulness and imagination are required.

2007-02-09T07:36:00.001-08:00

Comikit (2003)

ComiKit is an experimental visual programming system based on comic strips. Children have always created their own toys, often from left-over materials that happen to be available. A child-made doll or car may not be as fancy and polished as one you would buy in a store, but nonetheless, kids often find great satisfaction and joy in making their own toys. Computer games and interactive software toys are different, however. The programming required to create your own game, even a very simple one, is just too difficult for most children to learn. The consequence is that kids are limited to the role of consumers of ready-made software.

One approach for making programming easier is to use a program representation that is similar to the runtime representation. If the source code of the program looks similar to what is seen on the runtime display, the mental gap between the two representations could be reduced. If programming could be done in a direct and concrete way, the need for mastering complex symbolic representations would be reduced. A representation that is interesting in this respect is comics. Just like a program, a comic is a static representation of something dynamic. The medium of comics gives a very direct impression of the action going on in the story. To the comic book reader, the characters in a comic almost look like they are moving and they almost sound as if they are speaking. For programs that consist of interactive graphical objects, comics have the potential to describe the behaviour of the objects in a way that strongly resembles the visual result of running the program.

ComiKit is a software tool for children that uses comic strips to program the behaviour of graphical characters. In comics, the events in the story are shown in strips of panels, where each panel shows a part of the action. If we introduce the notion of conditional strips, comic strips can be used to describe events in a program. In an event strip, the first panel is a precondition for the actions in the subsequent panels. In ComiKit, a program is created by drawing pictures of characters and making event strips for their actions. The event strips are monitored and executed when the game is played. Comic strip events are similar to graphical rewrite rules, but are in many ways potentially more expressive and flexible.

Several prototypes of ComiKit have been tested together with 4:th and 5:th grade school children. The results showed that children still had to learn programming concepts such as conditional events, but most children could create meaningful interactive stories and simple games in one to two hours. The studies also showed that girls and boys where equally creative with the programming tool.

ComiKit is developed in Squeak. A first, Java was used, but moving to a Smalltalk-based system proved to be a tremendous benefit, among other things because of the dynamic nature of Smalltalk and the expressiveness of the language.

2007-02-09T07:14:00.003-08:00

HANDS (2002)

HANDS is a new programming system for children. HANDS provides a concrete model for computation as an alternative to requiring beginners to learn a whole new set of programming concepts like procedures, variables, parameters, scoping, flow of control, etc. In HANDS, the computation is represented by a character sitting at a table, reacting to events and manipulating cards that contain all of the program's data. The HANDS language provides primitives that closely match the language we observed in our studies of children, who were solving problems before they had learned how to program. For example, queries and aggregate operators in HANDS allow many tasks to be specified more naturally than in other languages that require the use of search and iteration. HANDS also includes built-in support to help the programmer create interactive simulations and games.

2007-02-09T07:14:00.001-08:00

Curlybot (2000)

Curlybot is an toy that can record and playback physical motion. As one plays with it, it remembers how it has been moved and can replay that movement with all the intricacies of the original gesture; every pause, acceleration, and even the shaking in the user's hand, is recorded. curlybot then repeats that gesture indefinitely creating beautiful and expressive patterns.

2007-02-09T07:13:00.006-08:00

Alice (2000)

Alice has a different paradigm of programming in an interactive 3D worlds. According to the developers, Alice was designed for undergraduates with no 3D graphics or programming experience. One thing that I like is the Alice Command Box concept - "Commands are Always Animated".

2007-02-09T07:13:00.005-08:00

Game Maker (1999)

It is a game design toolkit build as an application for making and creating games. Gamemaker is a free game programming software. Its simple drag and drop interface provides an easy entry into computer progamming while its powerful scripting language challenges to year 12. It is typically used to teach programing in secondary school and to teach literacy and numeracy in primary school.

2007-02-09T07:13:00.001-08:00

Moose Crossing (1998)

The tool allows the user to build and interact in a text-based virtual world.

2007-02-09T07:12:00.004-08:00

Bongo (1997)

Bongo is a programming language and environment that claims to bring the power of Java to kids. A construction kit written in Bongo will enables kids to build their own games, and to share them on Web. The developer support the idea of Papert's constructionism by getting children engaged in design and construction activities.

2007-02-09T07:12:00.003-08:00

Squeak Etoys (1997)

Squeak Etoys is an open-source project created by Alan Kay using Smalltalk language and claims to be a more modern approach to textual programming for children. It combines object-oriented programming with a tile-based scripting structure. It is designed in an object-oriented paradigm since the developers believe that it is an easy accessible way for children to program objects visually with its behavior. Program statements are represented as tiles and scripts are created or edited by drag-and-drop tiles into a script. Squeak Etoys was inspired by Logo and enhanced it with modern media capabilities.

Squeak Etoys is a "drag-and-drop tile" scripting language written on top of Smalltalk. Novices can create animated storybooks, active-art, simple computations and simulations, computer games, and, well,... anything they imagine... as they grow with this quick-on-ramp programming platform.

On the Squeakland list there is an ongoing thread about Etoys documentation and how to use it for teaching. Squeak Etoys seems ideal for these kids, except that I’m frustrated by the lack of documentation. However, you can find more complete documentation in Japanese and Spanish. A lot of these documents are step by step tutorials to produce specific Etoys project. Also most of the time the related Etoys .pr projects can be downloaded directly to your plug-in.

Etoys is all about children being able to make fun working versions of interesting ideas from scratch, and learning much more about the ideas than when force-fed with them. Considerable thought on the part of the children’s mentors is often required to set up a curriculum that is a nice balance between the way children think and do, the ideas, and what is most natural to do in Etoys.

2007-02-09T07:12:00.001-08:00

Leogo (1997) - Cleogo(1998)

Leogo is a novel programming environment supporting an `equal opportunity' user interface which allows users to express their programming tasks through any mixture of three concurrently active programming paradigms: by direct-manipulation using `programming by demonstration', by clicking buttons and dragging sliders in an iconic language and by typing commands in a normal text-based language. Equal opportunity ensures that the effects of any interface action are simultaneously displayed across each of the three paradigms-input expressions in one paradigm cause output of equivalent expressions in the other two paradigms.

Cleogo is a novel groupware environment that allows several users to simultaneously develop programs through any mixture of three alternative programming metaphors: a direct manipulation language for programming by demonstration; an iconic language; and a standard text-based language. Cleogo is motivated by the pedagogical values of peer-learning and of collaborative problem solving, and by our desire to investigate flexible and appropriate user-interfaces for programming, particularly for youthful users.

2007-02-09T07:11:00.001-08:00

ToonTalk (1996)

Toontalk is different from any other programming tool for children because it combines the idea of a programming language with user interfaces of a video game. It provides concrete representations of computational abstractions. For example, it uses a modern city as a metaphor, houses as programs and a character in the world as programmer. The children will act as programmers by moving the character, walking around the city and enter any houses. Programming is done inside the house and represented by robots working on data in toy boxes. The robots are programmed by example and can remember the actions performed by the programmer when they have been trained.

2007-02-09T06:32:00.000-08:00

Programming: Methods and Rules

These tools show us that children can program a system by manipulating the interface without having to middle with the programming language. Some of the strategies used and applied in these tools, in order to minimize the difficulties in programming for children are:

• programming by rehearsal,
• programming by demonstration,
• programming with contextual signs,
• programming by example,
• object-oriented programming, and
• rule-based programming.

It is difficult to consider how to create a new programming tool for children that is easy to use, appropriate for various ages in content and fosters exciting learning experiences. This paper discusses the development of a game authoring tool for children and is organized starting with a background approach with a particular focus on children and programming. Then we propose the concept of the game authoring tool in general to enhance problem solving skills among children. The paper concludes with our plan and future work on the tool.

2007-02-09T06:29:00.000-08:00

Teaching Children to Program

One of the major difficulties in the field of children and programming is to express intention in the programming language itself. Yet, the programming activity intends to reinforce creative thinking and problem solving skills that nowadays become more and more important. Although children are not programmers, they still have the desire to create and develop their own programs; especially those that have to do with games and simulations. With a suitable environment, we believe it bears a great potential to engage children in learning and enjoying their interaction with technology.

According to constructive learning theories, children learn while actively being engaged in problem solving activities. Constructionists have noted that, instead of embedding the educational part directly into the games, children can learn more and better by creating the games for themselves. Then, the opportunity to construct their own games facilitates the motivation to design and develop games and eventually learn how to program. In game-making activities, the children do not only act as players, but also as games producers. They start begin to develop computer literacy, knowledge about software tools and develop new ways of thinking and creativity.

Typically, children can polish their creative thinking and problem solving skills with the help of appropriate tools. But to develop suitable tools for children is not easy. Nearly all commercial and powerful programming environments are clearly inappropriate because they have been designed for formal learning rather than for exploration and discovery learning and are far to complication for children.

Since the early 60’s, numerous programming language environments have been built by researchers with the motive to make programming accessible to novice programmers of all ages. In the field of interaction design and children, the focus was on programming tools especially claimed to be designed for children.

2007-02-09T06:27:00.001-08:00

AgentSheets (1995)

Agentsheets use a graphical rule-based programming. It is a revolutionary tool that lets anyone create interactive simulations through a user-friendly drag and drop interface. Running simulations is an effective means of learning, but creating your own simulations challenges you to develop a thorough knowledge and understanding of your own ideas about a subject. Designing your agents' behavior and setting the conditions they encounter gives rise to questions you might otherwise overlook. Running your simulation will often prompt you to come up with new theories and scenarios.

2007-02-09T06:26:00.001-08:00

KidSim (1994) - Cocoa (1996) - Stagecast Creator (1999)

Stagecast Creator, originally from KidSim and Cocoa was produced at Apple Computer and released as a commercial product by the Stagecast company. Stagecast Creator is a rule-based system, which means, the program behavior is caused by matching rules with the current state of the program and executing the instructions of the matched rules. It uses rules known as ‘before and after’, similar to ‘if-and-then’ rules, and they are graphically defined. It was observed that this method works well in the intended domain of a programming environment for children.

2007-02-09T06:25:00.003-08:00

SmallTalk (60's)

Smalltalk is a computer language designed specifically for a wide range of humans rather than a narrow group of computer specialists. In Smalltalk program flow control structures are simply methods in the class library and most have full source code available for browsing or creating your own variations. As a result of shifting "reserved words" from the language syntax definition into the class library a more flexible and expandable system was realized.

Twenty five years after Smalltalk-80 was released the designers of most other languages (C++, Java, C#, ...) are still not taking advantage of this important dimension of expandability, which means that those other languages lack this important dimension of expandability that Smalltalk not only allows but encourages, extensibility of basic capabilities of the language. The biggest benefit is that it's possible for you to extend the language simply by adding new program flow control structures. At least twenty or so of these extensions have been adopted widely across the various smalltalk versions.

2007-02-09T06:25:00.001-08:00

Logo (60's) and its precedents

Papert’s pioneering work on Logo has become the ancestor of all other programming environments for children and certainly one of the earliest programming languages designed for children. It became an influential programming language and was used to gain a better understanding of real-world phenomena. The use of turtle-graphics was added to provide a mathematical microworld fun to explore. It was said that the turtle-geometry is a computational style of geometry. However, since Logo was a completely text-based language with procedures either typed at a command line or entered into an editor. Children had difficulties in typing the commands and difficulties in orientation (confusing between left and right). Consequently, Logo needed to be redesigned and yet, the idea of children programming is no longer restricted to a textual interface.

A simple improvement was LogoWriter (1980) that allows children to create turtle-graphic procedures by converting mouse drags into turn and more command. Later, researchers developed visual representation features in enhancing the performance of the earlier Logo.

Boxer (1986), for example, provides simulation parameters in microworld on a high level of interfaces with sliders, buttons and number entries to control those parameters. Others advancement from Logo, LogoWriter and Boxer are MultiLogo (1991) and Microworld (1992).

StarLogo (1994) is a programmable modeling environment for exploring the workings of decentralized systems — systems that are organized without an organizer, coordinated without a coordinator. With StarLogo, you can model (and gain insights into) many real-life phenomena, such as bird flocks, traffic jams, ant colonies, and market economies.

Elica (2000) is a modern Logo dialect that provides a cohesive link between procedural, functional and object-oriented styles of programming through a small yet elegant Logo core. The main difference at first sight is that Elica can do 3D graphics in real-time.

2007-02-09T06:23:00.000-08:00

Spiral Diagram of the Authoring Tool (including some programming language designed for children)

2007-02-09T06:21:00.001-08:00

Children and Programming

A challenging task is to understand the relationship between children and programming. The prime reason in teaching children how to program is not memorizing syntax rules of programming languages but to let the user acquire logical thinking and algorithmic problem solving. It is argued that the skills gained in programming activity have a strong relation to the mathematical concept. Early research indicates the expression of mathematical concept in the form of computer programs that suggested line enquiry (Logo and BASIC are the most obvious examples).

Nowadays, the notion of programming has fundamentally shifted to include visual aspects and manipulations by point-and-click. The shift aims at providing children with an environment tolerant towards syntax errors and an intuitive usability. Recently, a great interest in tools that use graphics to support the programming activity emerged. Visual programming, programming by example and programming by demonstration are the example of exciting areas in programming research for children and promise to improve the user interface to programming environments.

However, some people believe that these tools do not only enable the children to use it, but also prevent them to think for themselves. Most of the children are bothered to memorize the programming syntax and depend on a teacher to construct a program with their own ideas. But, recent research on children as programmers, found out that language constructs do not pose major stumbling blocks for novices learning to program. Furthermore, the important aspects of programming activities have become a medium for creative expression for children and offer a rich environment for them to become engaged and learn more aspects of programming.

2007-02-09T06:16:00.000-08:00

Features of a Combined Tool

With these design contexts, I've plan to design and build a game authoring tool with the following set of main elements in design:

Dynamic representation
In this tool, the choice of appropriate metaphors is a vital design decision. Visual programming can provide an ideal testing basis for the visualisation of object oriented concepts. By using iconic authoring environments, the tool will represent a program structure in a flow chart metaphor. Together with multimedia techniques especially animation, the tool will provide a way to illustrate the nature of building a program by children.

Drawing activity
The tool will include a drawing activity, where the children will draw what they intend to do and turn their intention into realization. By using drawing sketches and images as object of the program, the children will then identify the behavior of their object according to the story of the game they want to produce. They will use drawings as a creative way of expression for learning while designing a game. This activity has been explored in JiVE and proven to be a powerful way of generating simple 3D content for children.

Game workflow
The tool will provide a typical workflow on how to create a game derived from the game production pipeline of the LeGaCy tool. After drawing objects (character or background), they can be dragged from the “pictures menu” to the options menu which are either global or level properties. These options menu are responsible for elements in the game or in the related level. These elements can be programmed to perform certain actions thus exhibiting a gaming behaviour.

Rich media manipulation
Initial activities in traditional programming environments typically involve the manipulation of objects, or simple graphics. In contrast, the tool will manipulate images, animations and sound as it is done in Squeak via attribute manipulation. By giving the children the possibility to control rich media, hopefully, the tool will support programming activities that strongly correspond to their interest.

2007-02-09T06:08:00.000-08:00

Guidelines for Designing Authoring Tools for Children

Developing a new authoring environment for children is a challenging task. To build the tool, I'm going to base on the lesson learned from existing tools and to incorporate the latest ideas from the research in the child-computer interaction field. A set of guidelines for designing the authoring tools for children, especially for game making is formulated. These guidelines are summarized as follows:

a) Consistency. Ease of use with the help of strong-consistency visual, content-specific metaphors usage and as minimum text as possible.

b) Child-friendliness. Putting together the concept of game design and interface design for children including children’s familiarity, consistency, recoverability, instruction, and age-appropriateness.

c) Degrees of functionality. High-level of instructions corresponding to the things children want to represent in their games including producing games that have been supported by the collection of resources such as pictures, animations, sound and interactivity.

d) Staying in the flow. Providing the leverage and exciting environment for children to explore different domains of knowledge in order to capture their individual interests.

e) Reflection. Indication for children to refine their ideas about the games they are making.

f) Familiar conceptual model. Emphasis on the content-area skills including game design, control design, elements design and game mechanic.

g) Familiar way of programming. Understandable style of scripting and authoring that is appropriate for their task.

2007-02-09T05:50:00.001-08:00

Project 04: Testing the New Direction of Game Authoring Tool

INFORMATION:
Expected Date: 10 Sept – 28 Sept 2007
Venue: Taman Senangan Primary School, Penang, Malaysia
Expected Participant: 90 children (Age: 10-12 years old)

BACKGROUND:
Students from the selected school will be invited to attend a demo session, occasionally student age ten and twelve will be targeted specifically. Students who are interested in participating after attending the demo session will complete an application form that will be used to determine the participants. Based on their responses on the application form, students will be divided into four groups: high math interest, high art interest, high math and art interest, and low math and art interest. Representatives will be selected from each of the four categories via purposeful sampling.

2007-02-08T02:27:00.001-08:00

Project 03: Teaching Children Game Authoring Tools (GameMaker and Squeak eToys)

INFORMATION
Date: 22 – 25 August 2006
Venue: Multimedia Lab 3, UPSI, Tg. Malim, Perak, Malaysia
Intended Participant: 5 children (Age: 9-10 years old)

BACKGROUND
I believe that the children learn to play and play to learn. they are very passionate and motivate when it comes to computer technology. They see computer itself as a toy that belong to them. And one of the computer applications that have the most effect is the electronic games application.

Electronic games are games that are played using games consoles (arcade games, Sony' PlayStation, Microsoft's XBox or Nintendo's GameCube), handheld devices (mobile phone, Sony's PSP, Nintendo's Gameboy) and computer. For this study, the term computer games are used due to the availability of computer in the school and mainly for this research purposes. With computer games software industry representing hundreds of millions of dollar in sales each year, people such as parents, educators, students as well as game designer would be wise to consider the importance of educational gaming. The study will be divided into two sessions ~ playing games and making games.

GAME AUTHORING TOOLS
In making games, I have used two types of games authoring tools - Squeak eToys and GameMaker 6.1. Both tools can be download through their Web site.

In Squeak eToys, I taught the children the most basic tutorial of eToys which is drawing and driving a car, but this time, instead of a car, I taught them to draw two cars and control the cars with keyboard, for red car and joystick (mouse), for blue car.

In GameMaker, I have taught them how to create ghosts that move around randomly in a room, and the player has to catch the ghosts by clicking the mouse. Here, the children felt some new experiences whereby the tool gives them opportunity to set the points and time speed in their game.

2007-02-08T02:26:00.000-08:00

Project 02: Integrating Computer Games in Education Through Teacher Professional Development and Pre-Service Training

INFORMATION
Date: 14 – 17 August 2006
Venue: Multimedia Lab 3, UPSI, Tg. Malim, Perak, Malaysia
Intended Participant: 89 students/pre-service teachers (Fourth Semester)

BACKGROUND
The future of learning technologies have become well-known and used by educators around the world. But most of these gadgets take place in schools, or to be precise, in the classrooms, where the teachers play important roles of the 21st century literacy and technology. Teachers must adopt (accept), adapt (settle in), and adept (skilful) some - may be all - the teaching and learning tools, from the agile technology such as blackboard, whiteboard, books, pencil and paper to the up-coming digital technology such television, projector, computer, and electronic games.

The central idea of this study is that “the tremendous contribution of these new technologies in the enhancement of learning in the classroom is the priority of teacher’s perception in supporting a wide range of teaching styles”. The study uses a multi-facet research methodology to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data from the potential participants. The study began with a review of the relevant literature on effective computer games practices and future directions in order to define the study’s major themes and create a working set of hypotheses to be tested. The selected students participated in some game play and made their responds to the questions, and these inputs have been analyzed. To support the study, interviews have been conducted to get details of some key findings derived in the quantitative research, for clarification and further description of some topics. It is noted, 95% of them agreed that integration of computer games in classroom will creates a new dimension on a new educational teaching and learning tools.

EQUIPMENT USED
One computer lab (equipped with multimedia computers and Internet facilities) including desks arrangement, bench or general workspace.

2007-02-08T02:25:00.001-08:00

myRESEARCH MOTIVATION:
My personal research interests are broad and reach beyond the disciplines of Human-Computer Interaction and Children Education. Some of the research areas include usability and software testing (software engineering), edutainment, IT project management, electronic games, motivation and engagement, serious games and also gender inclusive in game design and game play. My focus area is the usability testing in developing and designing computer games for children with children. And I am currently at the early stage of the research.

Electronic game
Electronic game is a general definition used to refer to any electronic games played either in games console (such as Sony’s PlayStation, Nintendo’s GameBoy, Microsoft’s XBox), computers or handheld devices such as hand-phone, PDA, game pad). While the terminology of video games have been used in the 70s, 80s and still used until today. The terms always used tentatively with computer games and electronic games. For this research, I will only use computer games platform for the children to used as user, designer, tester and evaluator partner roles.

Edutainment
Edutainment is a combination of the terms ‘education’ and ‘entertainment’. The word edutainment has been coined to refer to the integration of educational principles with entertainment values. Edutainment software seems to be accepted more as an entertainment application rather that as an educational tool. This skewed perception makes the importance of an edutainment in learning less appreciated and acknowledged. Some believers do belief that the word edutainment should be replaced by ‘playful learning’. For me, the terminology of ‘edutainment’ is the best terms to use in this research since it has been the term labels for games with pronounced educational ambition. In fact, the closest examples of such edutainment software are the computer games.

Learning versus playing can create the same and on-going discussion as what ‘chicken-and-egg’ issue did. Until today, people still argues with their supporting evidences and proclaims. I do belief in the case of learning versus playing; edutainment can only be successfully implemented if it is possible to open up playful, creative and anxiety-free approaches to acquiring knowledge. As long as the edutainment software have the proper instructional design, education approach, pedagogy and cognitive psychology, and not forgetting the fun and excitement for players.

Classroom
By looking around in primary schools where the ICT is being used, I can suggest that new styles of learning should be implemented. Since the ICT technology is all around us, the education systems can get lots of benefits and explore the potential impact of these technologies on learners in this generation and the next. Classrooms are the best place to empower people to use ICT technologies to learn and explore new ideas. Computer games are one of it. Many questions appear in my mind – Are computer games can only be the teaching and learning tools? Can we use games to motivate children to learn? How might we design games so that educators can actually use them within classroom environments?

Children
Children are always been the participator of any research related to them. Until recently, there are some incentives on expanding the children roles. In this research, I will be focusing on the role of DTE partnership (designer, tester, and evaluator) which are actually different but yet they do have some similarity. The experience and knowledge acquired through the observations of children behaviors and activities as DTE in software development will provide useful input and understanding in developing the best edutainment software. I also expect that the product and experience in this research can be beneficial towards the area of edutainment games ~ learning, its potential, funology (is that the word?) and usability. So, after reading some papers and looking at related work, I have lots of questions to be answer concerning children.

Age: Many researchers do not recommend children under 3 years old to use the computer because they proclaimed that it does not match their learning styles. BUT schools and kindergartens are steadily increasing accessing the technology. There are also researchers saying that children 3 – 4 years old are developmentally ready to explore computers. This also was supported by the increasing amount of application being designed to teach the kids with variety of skills.

Programming & SQUEAK: Children as been a programmer since the LOGO project. Alan Kay, introduced Squeak using SmallTalk programming environment and claimed that Squeak are scalable to all ages and it was approved by many researcher. Children under 8 have limited understanding of what computer programs actually are and how they are produced. BUT they are very keen to learn how to program. Elder children start to lose their enthusiasm. The children behaviour and active participation should also be measure and analyse.

Setting: The research have been conducted in Magdeburg, Germany and Malaysia. Another point is the research setting. I have conducted the research in computer lab.

Usability
The research is a multi-disciplinary research by exploring the shared culture of a group of children (ethnographic research). More towards a qualitative research includes exploration, discover, understanding and describing phenomenon. Research tools are basically some experiment, observation and interview. The research design is to develop a prototype edutainment games with children and evaluate by children partnership values. The principles used to support usability are learn ability, flexibility and robustness. This research basically will focus on the usability testing for children and computer games (focusing on the edutainment games).

2007-02-08T02:19:00.000-08:00

myFIRST NOTE:

I have been putting my studies story in myWeb before and after one year, I started to transform and convert it to 'a blog'. I hope that my reflections of experiences and plans on this site would be a pleasant experience as you surf and browse.

I am a PhD student in the Department of Simulation and Graphics (FIN), Otto-Von-Guericke University of Magdeburg for the Computer Games Research Group. My research interests include educational games, children and programming, game authoring tools and multimedia / instructional design.

After receiving my BIT and MIT(Science) from Northern University of Malaysia, I was hired as a lecturer in Multimedia Education Department, Faculty of Information and Communication Technology (FTMK), Sultan Idris University of Education. There, I have been teaching subjects such as Human-Computer Interaction, IT Project Management, Management Information Technology, Multimedia in Education, Data Structures and Management Information System. I have supervised undergraduate and postgraduate students on their research and projects (especially those involved with children and designing multimedia application). After finishing my study here, I will go back to Malaysia and continue my career.

I got interested in children and programming skills after reading Seymour Papert's book entitled "The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer". Soon afterwards, my supervisor, Prof. Dr. -Ing. Maic Masuch introduced me to Squeak (works of Alan Kay and his development team). And now, my research focuses on building game authoring tool that utilize children's learning and thinking as a scaffold to help them to learn and acquire programming skills that we want to teach at schools (and appropriate with their age).

Now, I'm working with some students in designing and developing some prototype tools (games and game authoring tool) using Squeak.

2007-02-08T02:11:00.005-08:00

Still thinking...mmmmm

2007-02-08T02:11:00.003-08:00

Planned to analyze the tool between September and October 2007 at one of the school in Penang. I have submitted the ERPD's form in order to conduct the study at the school. Verbal confirmation has been done thru telephone conversation with the headmaster of the school. She insisted me to do the game making workshop for the pupils who just recently finished their national UPSR examination. The exercise is told to be good for the children since they have nothing to do aafter the examination but still have to come to school until the semester break.

2007-02-08T02:10:00.003-08:00

Design and Development

The design and development of the edutainment game authoring tool is being guided and influenced by the needs and the ability of the tool itself to address the problems indicated in the previous section. We have identified the following three contexts as most relevant to initiates our tool design – programming context, computer game context and game design context.

Firstly, in the programming context, we want to shape the process of programming more like the thinking of children. Children will be given programming tasks designed to investigate their understanding of mechanisms in a form of game making that they have to program and design. The purpose is that children could develop skills that are related to programming including learning about mechanisms and behaviors. These programming skills can be seen as the target domain of the children’s way of learning.

Secondly, in computer games, children will learn the basic aspects and rules of the game itself very fast. By creating edutainment games, children do not only gain authoring or programming skills whilst participating in the development process, they will also learn about many aspects of the edutainment domain, such as physics, mathematics, arts and science. In other words, learning programming while creating a game is not only good for increasing their problem solving skills, but also good because it requires knowledge about the games’ topic and thus motivates learning.

Lastly, in game design, children will use the basic elements of project management in their game making. These elements include planning the games, design, build, gameplay testing, and re-design. Designing a game perhaps can help children to validate their game requirements and explore possible ways for particular solutions.

2007-02-08T02:10:00.001-08:00

Firstly...

I'm convinced that in identifying design features that would make game authoring tool fun and motivating, some design issues especially on game authoring tool should be discovered first.

To address the design issues, four elements of design that I think should reflect the learning process will be focused. These elements are:

1. representation of the dynamic representation at the interface level;
2. drawing activities to enhance the children’s ways of expressing their creative thinking;
3. game workflow that leads themselves to the promotion of problem solving skills; and
4. involvement of rich multimedia elements that will support programming activities.

2007-02-08T02:08:00.000-08:00

Project 01: Computer Games Workshop for Children

INFORMATION
Date: 08 June – 13 July 2006
Venue: Zone, Magdeburg, Germany
Intended Participant: 31 children (Age: 8-13 years old)
Teaching Partner: Henry Sonnet

BACKGROUND
The workshop was done for every two hours per week for a total of six weeks (12 hours). The participants (children) were divided into two groups - Group Win and Group Mac. Children from Group Win were learning GameMaker in PC-based lab while the rest were experiencing Squeak eToys using Macintosh. During the half of the workshop schedule, these children were changed their place and shifted to another lab to experiencing another game authoring tool. This happened due to the condition of one of the tools that can not be installed in Mac-platform (during that particular date). At the end of the workshop, the children were asked questions regarding their experiences and knowledge in learning how to make games using both tools. Their opinions and suggestions were recorded and analyzed. Some of the children also participated answering questionnaires given to them at the end of the workshop.

GAME AUTHORING TOOLS
In making games, we used two types of games authoring tools - Squeak eToys and GameMaker 6.1. Both tools can be download through their Web site. In Squeak eToys, we taught the children the most basic tutorial of eToys which is drawing and driving a car, but this time, instead of a car, I taught them to draw two cars and control the cars with keyboard, for red car and joystick (mouse), for blue car. In GameMaker, we taught them how to create simple arcade game, Pacman. The children were asked to design the Pacman game and at the same time acquire programming skills in knowing the object-oriented terms - the object (sprite) and their behavior (event).

2007-02-08T02:07:00.003-08:00

Programming vs Authoring

The ability to manipulate programs and their interactivity was seen essential in a programming language for children. In order to gather information that would assist in designing a programming environment for children, an attempt was made to find out what children are able to understand about programming. We distinguish between authoring and programming. Whilst authoring is the easier process of arranging and structuring content in an interactive environment, programming is the more advanced technique of writing source code of a computer program. An ideal tool would scale in programming ‘granularity’ in order to grow in capability along with the user’s capability of programming.

Further properties of children programming tools are an appropriate computational metaphor and the support of recognition rather than recall, minimizing programming efforts by using computational media, and providing high-level instruction and collection of resources as part of the programming environment. Furthermore, constructivist believe that children can be taught to use their iconic and symbolic mentalities when solving problems. These properties can be valuable in creative thinking.

2007-02-08T02:06:00.000-08:00

myRESEARCH TITLE:
Computer, Creativity and Children (CCC): Usability Research in Developing and Designing Edutainment Courseware (Edutainment Game Authoring Tool)

myOBJECTIVE:
a) to develop an edutainment games authoring tool for children.
b) to optimize the usage of multimedia technology.
c) to conduct usability testing with children.
d) to produce a theoretical framework for edutainment games authoring tool.