Agentsheets

Agentsheetsis an environment which allows novice end-users to quickly create simple games (based on classic games such as Frogger). A recent study investigated the extent to which teachers and college students could recognise computational thinking patterns after creating games with Agentsheets (Basawapatna, Koh, Repenning, Webb, & Marshall, 2011). This study involved a post-test ‘quiz’ where concepts are applied in real-world scenarios, distinct from Agentsheets. The results of this ingenious quiz suggest good transfer, although the findings may not apply to younger users, and there is no pre-test to allow measurement of learning gain. A study with middle-school children using Agentsheets did not use the quiz to measure transfer, and instead focussed on the computational thinking patterns demonstrated in the games created (Basawapatna, Repenning, & Lewis, 2013).

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