Yang Zhang

E-Block: A Wireless/Infrared Tech Based Tangible Programming Tool for Children

Danli Wang, Yang Zhang, Tianyuan Gu, Liang He, Hongan Wang (UIST 2012)

E-Block is a tangible programming tool for children aged 5 to 9 which gives children a preliminary understanding of programming. Children can write programs to play a maze game by placing the programming blocks in E-Block. The two stages in a general programming process: programming and running are all embodied in E-Block. We realized E-Block by wireless and infrared technology and gave it feedbacks on both screen and programming blocks. The result of a preliminary user study proved that E-Block is attractive to children and easy to learn and use.

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Reference

Wang, D., Zhang, Y., Gu, T., He, L. and Wang, H. 2012. E-Block: a tangible programming tool for children. In Adjunct proceedings of the 25th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology (UIST Adjunct Proceedings ’12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 71-72.