ITR: Universal Access to Programming--A Cross-Generation Learning Community

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EIA-0081102Rosson, MaryVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State UniversityITR: Universal Access to Programming-- A Cross-Generational LearningCommunityIssues of lifelong learning can be addressed by informal education--voluntary and self-directed learning activities taking place in diversesettings (often outside traditional classrooms) that incorporate a varietyof learning methods and are motivated by intrinsic interests such ascuriosity, completion of a task itself, or social interaction. Thevoluntary and self-directed nature of these informal activities make themideal for reaching populations outside traditional education settings.With respect to informal education on programming, modern visual simulationenvironments have many features that make them appealing. This researchwill investigate the effectiveness of a state-of-the-art simulationprogramming environment as support for informal education of a diversepopulation of end-user programmers within the context of an ongoingresearch project on community network infrastructure. Key researchobjectives include:* Characterization of the programming literacy gained through visualsimulation programming and a determination of how this knowledge and itsaccusation is mediated by the maturity and background of end users.* Analysis of the role of the existing local community as a learningcommunity in building and maintaining the programming skills of end usersof varying ages and roles.* Prototyping and evaluating a framework for cumulating and sharing theartifacts and practices of end-user programming within the learningcommunity.