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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."

2 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How about Python or something? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    no one uses python in the real world outside of linux nerds, and your not going to teach kids that confusing bullshit whitespace formats, fuck programmers hate it too

  2. Let me read that again by Dunbal · · Score: 0, Troll

    It takes a whole hour to teach 10 year olds loop and conditional statements, something that could be taught in 5 mins and mastered in 10? Why yes, sign my school district up for this, how many millions will it cost?

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    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.