David Bau

Pencil code: block code for a text world

Pencil Code is a block-based coding tool that helps beginners work with text-based web programming languages. It has been used to allow help first-time programmers of all ages create programs in JavaScript and CoffeeScript. Pencil Code allows students to toggle between text code and blocks freely. This approach allows students to transition smoothly from blocks to text as they become familiar with syntax. It also allows educators to create block vocabularies for specific lessons without working with an entirely new programming language.

A Preview of Pencil Code: A Tool for Developing Mastery of Programming

Pencil Code is an educational programming tool designed to help students overcome common obstacles to advancing to open-ended work with real world languages and libraries. It transitions from visual code to text code with a dual-mode block and text editor; it smooths the leap from guided to open-ended work by integrating tutorials with a general-purpose programming tool; and it bridges the gap from educational functions to standard APIs by including a turtle library that subclasses jQuery.

Using Pencil Code to Bridge the Gap between Visual and Text-Based Coding (Abstract Only)

This workshop introduces a new educational programming environment Pencil Code, which helps bridge the learning gap between visual programming and text-based coding. The free open-source online tool allows students to work with programs using either blocks or Coffeescript or Javascript text code. Students can switch between visual and text modes at any time. The workshop will begin with a collaborative discussion of the opportunities, challenges, and differences presented when learning with block code and moving to text code. Then we will give a short presentation of how Pencil Code is used in classrooms, with some preliminary findings. The main part of the workshop is a hands-on activity where participants gain experience with Pencil Code. Participants will use the tool with lessons in a curriculum framework, for teaching functions and interactivity using both text code and block code. Finally, there will be a discussion of best practices for teaching students in the transition, and an opportunity to create your own lessons using Pencil Code or other tools. Attendees will come away with an understanding the issues faced by students transitioning to text code for the first time, and they will gain practical experience with teaching lessons with Pencil Code. Participants will receive curriculum material appropriate for middle-school and high-school classrooms. The tool is open-source and free to use at http://pencilcode.net/.

Supporting the Computer Science Learning Process

How do students learn computer science? Successful students climb a ladder of learning and meta-learning. Not only do they learn content, but also they gain proficiency with new processes that aid their learning. Each learner takes her/his own path, of course, but the beginning CS student must clear a number of hurdles that we can identify and help them with. In programming, for example, one might struggle with the leap from visual programming to text programming, or from using well-designed integrated tutorials while learning one language, to the chaos of the Internet when learning another. Numerous ongoing efforts in computer science education and professional development [5, 6] have contributed to tremendous increases in the numbers of students studying computer science at all levels. These efforts have included academic innovations as well as partnerships with industry, government, and non-profit organizations [7]. Expanded access means that more students have the opportunity to study computer science, but also that the diverse needs of many new learners need to be understood and addressed.