Working in ToonTalk with 4- and 5-year olds

Leonel Morgado (1) , Maria Gabriel Bulas Cruz (1) , Ken Kahn (2)

1 Department of Engenharias [Vila Real]
2 ToonTalk

We aim to find ways, tools and/or techniques that allow children in this age span to use programming language concepts to express rules and play with them. ToonTalk, with its visual, animated environment, and program-by-example methodology, seemed a very nice tool to start with. On this paper, we will present our experience using Portuguese ToonTalk with 7 children (5 were 4-year olds, 2 were 5- year olds), in Vila Real (Portugal) kindergartens, from May to June of 2000. The most encouraging results, including the children's enthusiasm and the robots they managed to program, will be presented, along with some of the hurdles that require longer, broader research.

Keywords: children programming; LOGO; Toontalk; kindergartens

Domains: Computer Science [cs]; Technology for Human Learning

Leonel Morgado, Maria Gabriel Bulas Cruz, Ken Kahn. Working in ToonTalk with 4- and 5-year olds. International Association for Development of the Information Society - IADIS International Conference e-Society 2003, 2003, Lisbona, Portugal. pp. 988-994. ⟨hal-00190132⟩