Sun 4 Nov 2018 16:15 - 16:20 at Beacon Hill - Implementers’ Campfire

Many current novice programming environments offer a “sprite”- based microworld, in which cartoon-like actor objects interact with each other and the user by way of events triggering the execution of stacks of “blocks” representing programming statements. While such “sprites” can be seen as something akin to “objects” in professional programming languages they are for the most part lacking features that are widely considered essential for learning about “real” OOP, in particular the concepts of classes, inheritance and polymorphism. We have tried to address this void by extending our Snap! programming language with prototypical inheritance for sprites. In this talk we will demonstrate how learners can explore traditional OOP concepts for abstraction beginning from concrete sprites, clones and prototypes. We will also share some preliminary thoughts and experiments on a revised curriculum pathway for introducing OOP in schools.

Sun 4 Nov

Displayed time zone: Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey change

16:15 - 17:00
Implementers’ CampfireBLOCKS+ at Beacon Hill
16:15
5m
Talk
Rethinking OOP in Snap!
BLOCKS+
Jens Mönig SAP SE, Brian Harvey University of California, Berkeley, Jadga Hügle SAP SE
Pre-print
16:20
5m
Talk
Custom Blocks in StarLogo Nova: A Template-Based Approach to Abstraction for Improved Ease of Use and Expressive Power
BLOCKS+
Hyeonsu Kang MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program, David Wu MIT, Daniel Wendel MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program
Pre-print
16:25
5m
Talk
Two New Block Features in GP
BLOCKS+
16:30
5m
Talk
JSON Interoperability in MIT App Inventor
BLOCKS+
Evan W Patton Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Danny Tang Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Pre-print
16:35
5m
Talk
Scratch 3.0 Design Notes
BLOCKS+
16:40
20m
Other
Implementers’ Campfire: Whole group discussions
BLOCKS+