Using Greenfoot and games to teach rising 9th and 10th grade novice programmers

Abstract

In a two-week residential game camp we used the Greenfoot IDE to teach java programming to rising 9 th and 10 th graders. Students created their own computer games which required learning how to write java programs, create a game design, and create art assets. In this paper we focus on the computer science pedagogy used and describe the initial design of an augmented game development framework for the Greenfoot environment. This framework includes classes for the following useful game elements: Animation, Projectiles, Side Scrolling Worlds, Text Boxes, Clocks and Timers. We describe these classes, discuss the effectiveness of each, and describe potential improvements to their implementation and design. We also report the results of a survey conducted during each of the camps. Categories and Subject Descriptors General TermsDesign, Human Factors, Languages. KeywordsComputer Science Education, Introductory Programming, Novice Programmers, Game Programming, Game Development. 1.INTRODUCTIONDuring July 2007 we delivered two-week residential summer game camps for rising 9 th and 10 th graders supported by National Science Foundation grant ESI-0624767. One camp was for young men the other for young women. The goal of each camp was to use student interest in games to increase interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines. Our camps piloted a new interdisciplinary project-based learning approach drawing together art, design, and computer programming.Each day included three 2.5 hour learning sessions: one in art, one in game design, and one in programming. The last 4 days were spent workshopping to realize the student games. These last few days also included some additional programming concepts driven by specific student need. A more modest camp using Flash/Actionscript was piloted in 2006 with results reported in a paper by Fajardo and Leutenegger [5].During the art sessions, students were introduced to visual asset development using traditional and digital studio practices. The curriculum focused on the figure and the scene. First, students made three-dimensional wire figures. Using these figures, two-dimensional space was addressed and gesture drawing introduced, resulting in picture planes loosely depicting the illusion of space through line weight, proportional shifts, placement, and horizon line. Gesture drawings of the human figure followed, as a live model enacted short, multi-step action poses. A move to the digital realm resulted in jointed characters ready to be programmed in an animated sequence.Students then focused on the scene, using construction paper and scissors to create narrative compositions taken from "Picture This" [2]. Relying on shape, placement, proportion and color to depict narrative, the collages offered a model easily transferred to the digital environment. Instruction on the basics of one-point, two-point and three-point perspective followed. Studio work concluded with an introduction to value, light and shadow.In the game design sessions, we employed the...

Using Greenfoot as a Tool for Serious Games Programming Education and Development

“…Several studies with Greenfoot have reported positive results, starting with 9th and 10th grade students in a two week game camp [18] and including even first year higher education students attending their first computing programming course based on labs and a capstone project utilizing Greenfoot [19]. However, the literature on utilizing Greenfoot as a tool for learning game programming or a tool for implementing SGs is much more limited.…”

Using game creation for teaching computer programming to high school students and teachers

“…Our goal is to get students excited about programming and the possibility of studying computer science by taking subsequent courses in high school and/or college. In a recent paper [1] we describe our specific programming approach and programming topics covered in more detail. In 2008 we shifted our focus and targeted our camp marketing toward young women.…”

“…Finally, object members are added to keep track of game counters such as timers and the number of objects remaining in the game. A more detailed description of our programming approach and some utility classes we added to Greenfoot to make game programming a bit easier can be found in [1].…”

A Family of Tools for Supporting the Learning of Programming

“…Over the last two decades, several tools for supporting the process of teaching or learning programming have appeared. Tools like BlueJ [3][4][5], Alice [6,7], DrScheme [8][9][10], Greenfoot [11][12][13] or Academic Java [14] address programming in their own unique way. For example, while both BlueJ and Alice target novices in object-oriented programming, BlueJ is based on UML and Java, while Alice uses a built-in drag-and-drop interface to program a 3D world with a high degree of interaction.…”