Children as Unwitting End-User Programmers

Abstract

Children who are active on the internet are performing significant design and programming activity without realising it, in the course of hacking little animations, game scripts and so on. What does such effortless learning suggest about how to support end-user programming? This paper presents observations of 'unwitting' design and programming activity by a small group of teenagers, aged 12-17. It analyses their adoption and appropriation of technology, and discusses how such practices are embedded in social networks.

Designing for End-User Development in the Internet of Things

“…However, there are some seminal works in the consolidated EUD scientific literature that still hold and are those that see the end user as someone interested in using digital devices just for the sake of it and not with the idea of becoming expert in the technology itself (e.g. [13], [17]). Also the definition of EUD given in [9] still sounds valid to describe the phenomenon: "a set of methods, techniques, and tools that allow users of software systems, who are acting as non-professional software developers, at some point to create, modify or extend a software artefact".…”

End users as co-designers of their own tools and products

“…Even if they use software applications that allow them to create or modify software artifacts, for example by creating a macro in Microsoft Excel™, they do this without being aware that what they are doing is programming. In other words, they are unwitting programmers [24], like the children analyzed in [25]. Indeed, children playing with a computer often use sophisticated programming skills, but this is embedded in an intrinsically motivated activity that they perceive as something easy and fun to perform.…”

Novice Programming Environments

“…Other researchers have remarked on the sorts of motivational and learning affordances which existing systems seem to offer young users, often unintentionally, a point also highlighted by Resnick (2017). Still others (Petre & Blackwell, 2007) have examined the patterns of activity engaged in by young users, noting those which, although occurring in informal contexts, are nonetheless characteristic of software development. In some cases, researchers have looked at how they can enhance the success of existing systems, such as Alice, or Neverwinter Nights 2, to offer further improvements, either in terms of motivation for specific user groups, in the case of Looking Glass, or further pedagogical support, in the case of Flip.…”

“…Certainly the research described by Resnick et al (2009) suggests that core computing topics do get covered in the course of project work. Of course, based on their observations, and those of Petre and Blackwell (2007), this approach begs the question, "If students don't know they're programming, does it count?" I would argue that the instructor's role would then become, rather than directly instructing students on topics, one of drawing out the implicit knowledge that the learners have acquired, helping them to reflect on it, and to see how it might apply in other situations.…”

“…In the original article, I stated: Guzdial (2004) provides an overview of their history since the 1960s, while Kelleher and Pausch (2005) (Petre & Blackwell, 2007 Resnick et al (2009) (Papert, 1980), the recent computational thinking drive has refocused attention on this as a significant issue in modern society (Wing, 2006). There is broad agreement that it is important to teach computational thinking skills from a young age, and to people who may never learn to program (Guzdial, 2008;Fletcher & Lu, 2009), but deciding which specific skills should be taught is still an emerging endeavour.…”