EAGER: Teaching Computational Thinking through Programming Wearable Devices as Finite State Machines

网络学习和未来学习技术计划资助的工作将有助于设想下一代学习技术，并推进我们对人们如何在技术丰富的环境中学习的了解。这个研究项目将使用手机技术和智能手表来训练公立学校的中学生的计算思维和数学，通过让孩子们创造这样的增强现实游戏，与数学相关的挑战。这种新型的嵌入式技术（包含运动和身体活动的移动和可穿戴设备）将允许孩子们创建增强现实数学游戏，并玩彼此的数学游戏。该项目旨在推进人们如何学习的科学知识，因为它调查了如何通过游戏和游戏设计来教授数学和计算。它调查了K-12学生如何将移动和可穿戴技术（智能手表和手机）编程为有限状态机，这是一个通常为计算机科学本科生保留的话题。这个项目超越了玩具象化游戏的想法，让学生成为数学游戏的创造者。在这个过程中，学生将他们的视角从消费者转变为生产者，思考他们可以立即看到和感知到的表面之下和表面之外的东西，在更高的抽象层次上思考。该项目介绍了一种理念，即通过可穿戴电子产品的形式，使用引人入胜的高质量体现技术向K-12学生教授有限状态机，同时通过游戏和游戏设计教授K-12数学。迭代设计研究将检查该方法的可行性，包括对教师相关专业发展需求的关注，可编程可穿戴设备提出的人机交互问题，面向学习者的编程环境的有限状态机隐喻，以及课程约束和嵌入数学学习的工作的支持。研究将评估干预的有效性，专业发展结构，以及作为计算思维和数学思维发展载体的游戏创造过程。混合方法研究设计将有助于收集关于课堂实施的定性结果（学生设计游戏的视频、焦点小组和访谈）和定量数据（学生游戏创作行为日志、调查问卷结果、有限状态机理解测试）。在制作游戏和编写可穿戴设备的过程中，将对测量方法进行三角测量，以获得有关学生和教师过程的丰富数据。研究问题集中在学生和教师在计算思维、参与、兴趣、自我概念方面的发展，以及教师的教学实践，这些将通过观察、计算思维框架、教师反思、课堂实施的工件和半结构化访谈来衡量。

The Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies Program funds efforts that will help envision the next generation of learning technologies and advance what we know about how people learn in technology-rich environments. This research project will use cell phone technology and SmartWatches to train middle school students in public schools in computational thinking and mathematics, by having children create such augmented reality games with math related challenges. This new genre of embodied technologies (mobile and wearable devices that involve motion and physical activity) will allow children to create augmented reality math games as well as play each other's math games. The project intends to advance scientific knowledge on how people learn, as it investigates how to teach mathematics and computing through game play and game design. It investigates how K-12 students may program mobile and wearable technologies (SmartWatches and cell phones) as finite-state-machines, a topic that is typically reserved for undergraduates in Computer Science. The project goes beyond the idea of playing embodied games to having students become creators of math games. In this process, students shift their perspective from consumers to producers, thinking about what is beneath and beyond the surface of what they can immediately see and perceive, thinking at higher levels of abstraction.This project introduces the idea of teaching finite-state-machines to K-12 students using engaging, high-quality embodied technologies in the form of wearable electronics, while teaching K-12 mathematics through game play and game design. Iterative design studies will examine the feasibility of the approach, including attention to the associated professional development needs for teachers, the human-computer interaction questions raised by programmable wearables, the finite state machine metaphor for learner-oriented programming environments, and curricular constraints and affordances of embedding the work in math learning. Research studies will evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention, the professional development structure, and the game creation process as a vehicle to the development of computational thinking and mathematical thinking. A mixed methods research design will help to collect qualitative results (videos of students designing games, focus groups and interviews) regarding classroom implementation and quantitative data (logs of student game creation actions, survey questionnaire results, tests of finite-state machine understanding). Measures will be triangulated to obtain rich data about students' and teachers' processes while creating their games and programming wearables. Research questions focus on students' and teachers' development of computational thinking, engagement, interest, self-concept, and on teachers' instructional practices that will be measured using observations, computational thinking frameworks, teacher reflections, artifacts from classroom implementation, and semi-structured interviews.