Playground: An Object-Oriented Simulation System With Agent Rules for Children of All Ages

Abstract

Programming languages for children have been limited by primitive control and data structures, indirect user interfaces, and artificial syntax. Playground is a child-oriented programming language that uses objects to structure data and has a modular control structure, a direct-manipulation user interface, and an English-like syntax. Integrating Playground into the curriculum of a classroom of 9- to 10-year-olds has given us valuable insights from the programs intended users, and confirmed many of our design decisions.