Summary:
The educational benefits of programming have been increasingly recognized in recent years by the educational community, as is the pedagogical value of integrating programming languages into the educational process. The value of programming in education is also evident from the fact that learning to code is related to the number of people who decide to study science, with a direct impact on innovation and the development of the economy. The great value of teaching programming is now accepted among educators and scientists who develop educational programs. Developed countries have been led to place an emphasis on coding in compulsory education, while countries around the world have moved towards integrating programming education into their national school curricula. In Greece, the New Curriculum of the Institute of Educational Policy for the year 2023 includes Algorithmic and Computer Systems Programming as subject areas.
Programming can be taught from a very young age as long as it is done in a playful and motivating way. Visual programming languages such as the Scratch programming environment are ideal for gently introducing programming concepts to beginning students, as they limit syntax errors by using appropriate blocks that represent ready-made basic programming structures, within a simple drag-and-drop environment of those structures.
Designing a game appeared to be a pedagogically important way of engaging students in knowledge, sparking students' motivation to learn, and enriching the learning environment. Creating a digital game can be a suitable motivation to engage students in the learning process and learning programming. In particular, as it emerges from extensive literature research, the utilization of an existing educational programming tool such as the visual programming language Scratch seems to contribute particularly to the learning and development of programming capabilities and its basic concepts, to improve computational thinking skills, to motivate students in particular and encourage them to continue their studies in programming.
In order to make clear the contribution of the visual programming language Scratch to the development of students' programming capabilities, this paper examines the achievement of students' creation of their own digital game, using the Scratch programming language as a tool, and consequently the degree of understanding and use by the students of simple commands as well as more complex programming commands.
The sample consisted of ten (10) students of the 4th, 5th and 6th grades of the Primary school, boys and girls, with no previous knowledge of programming nor previous familiarity with Scratch visual programming language. The present research follows the case study methodology and as data collection tools uses a relevant questionnaire before the start of the research and after its completion, an activity sheet of learning programming commands and finally the digital games themselves that the students managed to create.
As in any educational process, when creating a digital game with a programming language it was necessary to provide the students with the knowledge that would later enable them to reach their goal. Therefore, before the students were asked to create a digital game, a relevant activity was carried out through which the students first came into contact with the basic programming concepts of the Scratch language by implementing relevant teaching and learning steps of these commands.
The results of the research were positive and encouraging. After completing the intervention, the majority of the students managed to create their own digital game with the Scratch visual programming language, which proved to be a competent and sufficient tool for understanding basic but also more complex programming commands by the students. The digital game mobilized students' interest, engagement and desire to be involved in its design process. Thus, through an interesting activity for the students, it was possible to make the process of learning Scratch commands more enjoyable for them. Finally, the majority of students asked to deal with the Scratch application again.
Keywords:
Programming, Scratch, Creation, Digital Game, Commands, Visual Programming Language, Curriculum, Elementary.
