Graphical Programming Language and Tool for Children

The existing programming tools for children have some limitations in graphical representation and interaction design.Moreover, there are barely no particularly well-designed tools for Chinese children.To this end, a graphical programming paradigm and a description method for graphical language are proposed in this paper.Based on the child-centered concern, a graphical programming language is designed for Chinese children aged 8 to 14.In the language, there are ten kinds of graphical programming blocks, which are described from logical, physical and interface layer respectively with attributed tuple.The syntax of the graphical programming language is defined based on the shapes and functions of these blocks.Finally, a tool supporting the language is implemented with the pen-based interaction technology.Two case studies and a preliminary user evaluation verify the usability of this graphical programming tool.