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'CodeSpells' Video Game Teaches Children Java Programming

Posted by samzenpus on from the get-in-upstairs-and-play-your-games dept.

CyberSlugGump writes "Computer scientists at UC San Diego have developed a 3D first-person video game designed to teach young students Java programming. In CodeSpells, a wizard must help a land of gnomes by writing spells in Java. Simple quests teach main Java components such as conditional and loop statements. Research presented March 8 at the 2013 SIGCSE Technical Symposium indicate that a test group of 40 girls aged 10-12 mastered many programming concepts in just one hour of playing."

1 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. not a complete success by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    38 of the 40 girls in the test group complained that, once they were written in Java, the spells took forever to execute.