Be a Lighting Programmer: Supporting Children Collaborative Learning through Tangible Programming System

In order to cultivate children's computational thinking, researchers have developed many excellent programming systems. Among them, the tangible programming systems combined with graphic output have been widely accepted because of the intuitive input method and diversified visual feedback. However, few of them support collaborative learning or programming. Little is known about children's experiences, emotional states and behaviours on collaborative programming. Motivated by this gap, we present a novel tangible and collaborative enabled programming system named Lighters, which designed for children aged 7-10 and had two types of collaboration modes (block-based and role-based). We conducted an user experiment with 24 children, and collected physiological (EDA), questionnaire, video recording and interview data for analysis. Based on our experiment results, Lighters are effective in helping children learn to program collaboratively. In addition, Lighters can mobilize children's positive emotions and enthusiasm to learn programming. Compared with block-based collaboration, role-based collaboration is more likely to stimulate children's emotional states and has a better effect on learning programming.

Automated summary

To cultivate children's computational thinking, researchers have developed various programming systems. Among them, tangible programming systems combined with graphic output have gained popularity due to their intuitive input and diverse visual feedback. However, few of these systems support collaborative learning or programming. In response to this gap, we present a novel tangible and collaborative enabled programming system called Lighters, designed for children aged 7-10, with two types of collaboration modes (block-based and role-based). Through a user experiment with 24 children, we collected physiological (EDA), questionnaire, video recording, and interview data for analysis. Based on the results, Lighters are effective in facilitating collaborative programming learning for children. Moreover, Lighters can evoke positive emotions and enthusiasm for programming. Role-based collaboration is found to be more likely to stimulate children's emotional states and have a better effect on learning programming compared to block-based collaboration.