Behavior Cards - ett programmeringsverktyg för barn

Sammanfattning: This thesis presents the work of developing and testing a programming tool specially designed for children. The purpose of this tool is to make children capable of creating visual simulations and games that consist of actors interacting in a virtual world. The name of the programming tool is Behavior Cards, which comes from the fact that actors are programmed by giving them cards representing different kinds of behaviors. Behaviors are to some extent pre-programmed and can include general events specifying how the actors should act in different situations, in contrast to specifying every possible situation that can occur. The idea is that Behavior Cards should be easier to use than a more traditional text based programming tool, but it should also be expressive within the domain of visual games. These goals can be accomplished by using different types of representations – such as icons, symbols and text – combined with an interaction technique based on direct manipulation of objects. Two versions of Behavior Cards have been developed and tested together with 11-year-old children. The results show that behaviors were useful for programming relatively advanced visual programs in a quick and effective manner, and that the children were able to learn and use the concept for creating simple programs. Further studies are needed to examine if children also can analyze and solve more complex programming problems.