Good, J., 2011. Learners at the wheel: novice programming environments come of age. International Journal of People-Oriented Programming (IJPOP), 1(1), pp.1-24.

Summary

Type: Other

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to examine five exemplary novice programming environments that engage young people in programming. The five environments discussed in this paper are: Alice, Flip, Greenfoot, Looking Glass, and Scratch.

Findings: According to Good (2011), several themes are shared across the five environments. First, within each environment young people are able to create a small program relatively quickly because the "computational floor has lowered dramatically" (p. 18). Second, all the environments provide feedback on whether or not the program works correctly and if changes are needed. Third, each environment can capture individual interests. For example, not every student needs to create a game, instead the students can create something of value to them. Finally, all environments are highly interaction. These types of environments lend themselves toward collaboration and sharing ideas with other peers. The author also describes implication for teaching which include teachers should focus on students' projects not on the teaching on different topics around programming. Student motivation will diminish if the teaching of programming topics is mostly emphasized. Also, teachers should focus on the processes that students arrived at an outcome rather then focused strictly in the final product.

Recommendations: