research-article

CodeSpells: embodying the metaphor of wizardry for programming

Authors:

Stephen R. Foster,

William G. GriswoldAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '13: Proceedings of the 18th ACM conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

Pages 249 - 254

https://doi.org/10.1145/2462476.2465593

Published: 01 July 2013 Publication History

Abstract

This paper addresses how CodeSpells uses the metaphor of wizardry, along with an embodied API to engage students in learning to program in Java. Giving novice programmers a concrete representation of code has been encouraged and shown to help students understand the concepts with more ease. There have been many attempts to improve the novice learning experience by providing: a visual programming language, a hardware component or an application that is more approachable. The benefit of this research is that students are better able to understand how abstract code effects the environment.

We build on this work through CodeSpells by immersing novices in the abstraction of code through embodiment to allow them to understand complex and abstract programming problems as if they were being affected by what they wrote. In this paper we present a new approach to novice programming environments, one that embodies the user and encourages a quick grasp of introductory concepts followed by a deep understanding through exploration.

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Di Nardo VFino RFiore MMignogna GMongiello MSimeone G(2024)Usage of Gamification Techniques in Software Engineering Education and Training: A Systematic ReviewComputers10.3390/computers1308019613:8(196)Online publication date: 14-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/computers13080196
Del Carpio Gutierrez ADenny PLuxton-Reilly AStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Evaluating Automatically Generated Contextualised Programming ExercisesProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630863(289-295)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630863
Gomes AMota VOliveira P(2024)Code Legends: RPG Game as a Support Tool for Programming in High SchoolApplied Informatics10.1007/978-3-031-75144-8_19(281-294)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75144-8_19
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Index Terms

CodeSpells: embodying the metaphor of wizardry for programming
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

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cover image ACM Conferences

ITiCSE '13: Proceedings of the 18th ACM conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

July 2013

384 pages

ISBN:9781450320788

DOI:10.1145/2462476

General Chair:
Janet Carter
University of Kent, UK
,
Program Chairs:
Ian Utting
University of Kent, UK
,
Alison Clear
Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, NZ

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Bilkent University: Bilkent University
SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 01 July 2013

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ITiCSE '13

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Bilkent University
SIGCSE

ITiCSE '13: Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education conference 2013

July 1 - 3, 2013

Canterbury, England, UK

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ITiCSE '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 51 of 161 submissions, 32%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 552 of 1,613 submissions, 34%

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Cited By

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https://doi.org/10.3390/computers13080196
Del Carpio Gutierrez ADenny PLuxton-Reilly AStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Evaluating Automatically Generated Contextualised Programming ExercisesProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630863(289-295)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630863
Gomes AMota VOliveira P(2024)Code Legends: RPG Game as a Support Tool for Programming in High SchoolApplied Informatics10.1007/978-3-031-75144-8_19(281-294)Online publication date: 19-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-75144-8_19
Debloos JJost CArchambault D(2024)Programming Learning Difficulties: How Can Naive Users Create Human-Machine Interaction Scenarios?Computers Helping People with Special Needs10.1007/978-3-031-62849-8_30(241-248)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-62849-8_30
Druga SBall TKo A(2022)How families design and program games: a qualitative analysis of a 4-week online in-home studyProceedings of the 21st Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3501712.3529724(237-252)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2022
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Winter VHickman HWinter I(2021)A Bricklayer-Tech ReportWSEAS TRANSACTIONS ON COMPUTERS10.37394/23205.2021.20.1220(92-107)Online publication date: 16-Jul-2021
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Leinonen JDenny PWhalley J(2021)Exploring the Effects of Contextualized Problem Descriptions on Problem SolvingProceedings of the 23rd Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3441636.3442302(30-39)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2021
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Saito DSakamoto KWashizaki HFukazawa YUchiyama SRamzi R(2021)Development of a Game to Foster Programming Thinking for Learning through Reading Program2021 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology & Education (TALE)10.1109/TALE52509.2021.9678619(01-06)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2021
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Kroustalli CXinogalos S(2021)Studying the effects of teaching programming to lower secondary school students with a serious game: a case study with Python and CodeCombatEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-021-10596-yOnline publication date: 31-May-2021
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Sanmugam MMohamed HZaid NAbdullah ZAris BSuhadi S(2020)Gamification's Role as a Learning and Assessment Tool in EducationLearning and Performance Assessment10.4018/978-1-7998-0420-8.ch038(812-822)Online publication date: 2020
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