The Appropriateness of Scratch and App Inventor as Educational Environments for Teaching Introductory Programming in Primary and Secondary Education
ARTICLE
Stamatios Papadakis, Secondary Education Teacher, Crete, Greece ; Michail Kalogiannakis, Department of Preschool Education, Faculty of Education, University of Crete, Crete, Greece ; Vasileios Orfanakis, Secondary Education Teacher, Crete, Greece ; Nicholas Zaranis, Department of Preschool Education, Faculty of Education, University of Crete, Crete, Greece
IJWLTT Volume 12, Number 4, ISSN 1548-1093 Publisher: IGI Global
Abstract
Teaching programming is a complex task. The task is even more challenging for introductory modules. There is an ongoing debate in the teaching community over the best approach to teaching introductory programming. Visual block-based programming environments allow school students to create their own programs in ways that are more accessible than in textual programming environments. These environments designed for education allow students to program without the obstacle of syntax errors (errors in typing commands) found in traditional text-based languages. In this paper, the authors focus on the use of App Inventor and Scratch as blocks-based programming environments designed explicitly with novices in mind. In the authors' analysis, both Novice Programming Environments (NPEs) seemed to be attractive platforms for introducing fundamental concepts in computer programming and both look appealing for both majors and non-majors.
Citation
Papadakis, S., Kalogiannakis, M., Orfanakis, V. & Zaranis, N. (2017). The Appropriateness of Scratch and App Inventor as Educational Environments for Teaching Introductory Programming in Primary and Secondary Education. International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, 12(4), 58-77. IGI Global. Retrieved February 27, 2021 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/185912/.
