SBIR Phase II: A Cloud-Based Tutoring Software For Teaching Coding to K-12 Students through Integration with Popular Video Games

SBIR 第二阶段：一款基于云的辅导软件，用于通过与流行视频游戏集成向 K-12 学生教授编码

• 批准号: 1632539
• 负责人: Stephen Foster
• 金额: $ 75万
• 依托单位: ThoughtSTEM, LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-01 至 2020-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1632539&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Cloud; Based

This Phase II project proposes to develop a computer science (CS) educational software that has the potential to inspire millions of U.S. K-12 students to learn computer programming. This software will leverage the motivational power of a popular video game, to teach CS to students by teaching them to reprogram the video game itself. The United States currently has a severe deficit of students pursuing CS. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that over 1 million computing job openings will go unfilled by U.S. workers by 2022. By leveraging the power of a popular video game, the technology proposed in this Phase II project has the potential to expose millions of K-12 students to coding in the next 5 years. The commercial impact of the underlying technology developed in this Phase II project does not stop at the over 100 million users who currently play the popular video game with which the current educational software integrates. Because the underlying technology is transferable to any moddable (i.e. reprogrammable) video game, the technology has the potential to be used to teach CS with other popular titles from the rapidly growing video game industry.This Phase II project proposes to continue the development of a software product that is a web-based coding environment for novice programmers. This software goes beyond the state-of-the-art technologies in this space (i.e., scratch.mit.edu) in several ways: 1) It uses automated tutoring techniques to customize the educational experiences for novices, 2) it facilitates writing programs that manipulate objects and terrain in a 3D environment, 3) it allows the novice user to reprogram a popular video game, 4) it has an in-browser, WebGL-based 3D runtime environment, 5) it supports both a novice-friendly visual programming language (Blockly) as well as a text-based language (JavaScript), 6) it leverages gamification techniques such as badges, points, and unlockable items, and 7) it supports multi-user, collaborative coding. The objectives of this Phase II project concentrate on improving student experiences in order to increase customer retention and acquisition and to finish the development of a marketable product that will teach 5 million K-12 students in the next 5 years. The first objective of this project involves developing and extending the browser-embedded game engine. The second objective focuses on improving systems that match students with appropriate educational content and motivate students to continue learning. Finally, the third objective involves implementing new systems that incentivize students to create and share with the community.

这个第二阶段的项目计划开发一种计算机科学(CS)教育软件，该软件有可能激励数百万美国K-12学生学习计算机编程。这款软件将利用一款流行视频游戏的激励力量，通过教学生重新编程视频游戏本身来教授CS。目前，美国攻读计算机科学的学生严重不足。劳工统计局预测，到2022年，美国工人将填补超过100万个计算机职位空缺。通过利用流行视频游戏的力量，这个第二阶段项目中提出的技术有可能在未来5年让数百万K-12学生接触编码。在这个第二阶段项目中开发的基础技术的商业影响并不局限于目前玩当前教育软件集成的流行视频游戏的1亿多用户。由于底层技术可以转移到任何可修改(即可重新编程)的视频游戏上，因此该技术有可能用于教授CS和来自快速增长的视频游戏行业的其他流行游戏。这个第二阶段项目建议继续开发一种软件产品，这是一个面向新手程序员的基于Web的编码环境。这款软件在以下几个方面超越了该领域的最新技术(即scratch.mit.edu)：1)它使用自动辅导技术为新手定制教育体验，2)它简化了编写在3D环境中操纵对象和地形的程序，3)它允许新手用户重新编程流行的视频游戏，4)它具有浏览器内、基于WebGL的3D运行时环境，5)它支持新手友好的可视编程语言(Blockly)以及基于文本的语言(JavaScript)，6)它利用诸如徽章、积分、和可解锁的物品，以及7)它支持多用户、协作编码。该第二阶段项目的目标集中在改善学生体验，以增加客户留存和获取，并完成一个适销对路的产品的开发，该产品将在未来5年内教授500万K-12学生。该项目的第一个目标是开发和扩展嵌入浏览器的游戏引擎。第二个目标侧重于改善系统，使学生与适当的教育内容相匹配，并激励学生继续学习。最后，第三个目标涉及实施新的制度，激励学生创造并与社区分享。