Abstract
Computer science is about learning how to think. It is applicable to everything. Most industries in the 21\(^{st}\) century are directed towards digitized processes using up-to-date technologies. This increases the need for students to know how these technologies work, especially with the availability of smart and handy devices. As a preliminary step to learning programming, students should learn basics of logical and computational thinking. Computational thinking compromises the skills, concepts, and behaviors used to solve problems. Some visual platforms, such as Scratch and Alice [6, 17], were introduced to teach children programming. The platform introduced in this paper aims at teaching young children (in the age range of 8–9 years old) the preliminary concepts of programming including sequential blocks, conditional blocks, and iterative blocks. This is achieved through an interactive, gesture-based game, where the Kinect Sensor device is used to control the gameplay instead of playing it using a normal PC. The game was tested using a between-group experimental model with two subgroups; an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group used the game whereas the control group was taught using a traditional educational method. The results showed a significant difference between the two groups with a P-value of < 0.05 for both the learning gain and the engagement level.
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- 1.
A field of study focusing on the design of computer technology and, in particular, the interaction between humans (the users) and computers.
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Ayman, R., Sharaf, N., Ahmed, G., Abdennadher, S. (2018). MiniColon; Teaching Kids Computational Thinking Using an Interactive Serious Game. In: Göbel, S., et al. Serious Games. JCSG 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11243. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02762-9_9
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