Tuesday, March 13, 2012

NCCE 2012 -- Day 1 -- Seattle

Kodu: Learn How to Excite Middle School Girls to Game Programming
Presenter:  Brad Gibson/Senior Program Manager
Microsoft Research FUSE Labs
This evening workshop was a great way to start my 2012 NCCE experience.  Kodu is a programming option I had never heard of.  The presenters, which included a panel of middle-school aged young women from two schools, made a fairly convincing case that Kodu is a must-consider option when one is weighing various options for teaching programming and the principles of computer science.
As valid as Scratch and LOGO are as options for giving students, especially middle-school aged kids, experience in this realm of computer science, the 3D and narrative possibilities offered by Kodu are difficult to resist.