List of Educational Programming Languages - Children

Children

• AgentSheets is a game and simulation authoring tool that is simple enough to be used by middle school students to learn about computer science by making video games, yet sophisticated enough to allow NASA scientist to create simulations of Space Shuttle payload. AgentSheets is supported through a complete curriculum called Scalable Game Design starting with simple Frogger-like games all the way up to Sim-like games with sophisticated artificial intelligence. AgentSheets supports game (animation, interaction, sound, speech synthesis/recognition (Mac)) and science applications (plots, output to spreadsheets, 3D plot (Mac)). English, Greek, and Japanese versions are available. AgentSheets formed the basis for LegoSheets a programming language for the Lego Mindstorms. which had a less steep learning curve than Brick Logo.

• Alice is a free programming software designed to teach event driven object oriented programming to children. Programmers create interactive stories using a modern IDE interface with and a drag and drop style of programming. The target audience is middle school girls though most children with computer experience will find it entertaining and educational. A variant of Alice designed with an even stronger story telling bent called Story Telling Alice is also available.

• Baltie is an educational graphic oriented programming tool for children, youth (and adults). Baltie is also main character of this software a little wizard keen to execute miscellaneous commands and to conjure pictures (tiles) in his scene. With Baltie's help children will quickly realize what is a computer and how to master and program the computer. All that by playing. Baltie can be used also for exercising logical thinking. It makes no demands on childs knowledge, only playfulness and imagination are required. It is used in many countries in the basic schools. The new version of Baltie 4 fully supports C#. More usage information is at the (SGP Systems).

• Blockly is an open source web-based, graphical programming language where users can drag blocks together to build an application. No typing required. It is developed by Google. More information is available at the project home page.

• CiMPLE is a visual programming language for programming robotic kit for children. It is built on top of C as a DSL. ThinkLabs an Indian Robotics edication based startup has built it for iPitara Robotic kit. CiMPLE visual language bears strong resemblance to written C programming language. Approximately 5000+ students in India have brought the iPitara kit and programmed it using CiMPLE. More information is at (CiMPLE Original Developers Weblog) and (Robo.in).

• Code Monster from Crunchzilla helps kids learn about programming. It walks children (mostly ages 9-14) through how to program in Javascript, starting with early concepts like parameters, variables, and loops, moving through functions, eventually introducing some of the wonders of fractals, animation, and physics. It makes programming fun by using live code to show changes immediately and encouraging experimentation.

• E-Slate is an exploratory learning environment. It provides a workbench for creating highly dynamic software with rich functionality,by non-programmers. Educational activity ideas can be turned into software with minimal authoring effort in the form of interactive Microworlds which contain specially designed educational components. E-Slate components are provided as a kit of pre-fabricated, interoperable computational objects. Software Microworlds can be very easily constructed by plugging components in various configurations. The behaviour of both components and Microworlds, can be programmed in a Logo-based scripting language. E-Slate is currently based on the Java platform and related technologies. More information and download is at (RA-CTI / Greek Ministry of Education).

• Guido van Robot is a robot control program similar to Logo or Karel, with a minimal Python syntax. It is designed to be minimalistic and generic to any high level language. There is a variant that includes the full Python syntax and a canonical set of lessons called RUR-PLE.

• Laby, designed with education in mind (its primary function as a teaching tool), is a small application to learn how to code in various programming languages (OCaml, Python, Lua, Ruby, C, Java, Prolog and Perl) with ants and spider webs.

• PythonTurtle is a LOGO like turtle graphics made in wxPython. There is also Python standard Turtle graphics module (based on TK), and a Python Turtle Demo -- collection of 50+ demos, which are intended as examples for using Python and turtlegraphics in an educational setting.

• Pynguin is another Python Turtle Graphics Application. It is a unified editor, interactive console, and graphics display area written using Python and the PyQt toolkit (in contrast to the wxPython of PythonTurtle). Pynguin is meant to be an easy environment for introducing programming concepts to beginning programmers. The default avatar in Pynguin is a penguin, but other avatars, including a turtle, can be selected as well.

• Hackety Hack is a free Ruby-based environment aiming to make learning programming easy for beginners, especially teenagers.

• KidsRuby is another free Ruby-based environment meant for kids.

• Karel, Karel++, and Karel J. Robot are languages aimed at absolute beginners, used to control a simple robot in a city consisting of a rectangular grid of streets. While Karel is its own programming language, Karel++ is a version of Karel implemented in C++, while Karel J. Robot is a version of Karel implemented in Java. NCLab offers free Karel programming (albeit with a modified syntax closer to Python) through a web browser.
• Kodu is a language that is simple and entirely icon-based. It was incubated out of Microsoft Research as a project to reach younger children and especially girls into enjoying technology. Programs are composed of pages, which are divided into rules, which are further divided into conditions and actions. Conditions are evaluated simultaneously. The Kodu language is designed specifically for game development and provides specialized primitives derived from gaming scenarios. Programs are expressed in physical terms, using concepts like vision, hearing, and time to control character behavior. While not as general-purpose as classical programming languages, Kodu can express advanced game design concepts in a simple, direct, and intuitive manner. The Kodu tool is available in three forms: PC as a free download in public beta and academic forms, and as a low-cost Xbox 360 Live download.
• Learn to Program BASIC is a BASIC interpreter with an interactive course intended to teach the language to middle school students. Game-specific additions to the BASIC language include 2D sprite support. Programs written in "LTPB" could be executed on computers without the software by means of a freely-distributable "runner".
• Lego Mindstorms is a line of Lego sets combining programmable bricks with electric motors, sensors, Lego bricks, and Lego Technic pieces (such as gears, axles, and beams). Mindstorms originated from the programmable sensor blocks used in the line of educational toys. The first retail version of Lego Mindstorms was released in 1998 and marketed commercially as the Robotics Invention System (RIS). The current version was released in 2006 as Lego Mindstorms NXT. A wide range of programming languages is used for the mindstorms from Logo to BASIC to derivatives of Java, Smalltalk and C. The Mindstorm approach to programming now have dedicated physical sites called Computer Clubhouses.

• Mama is an educational object oriented programming language designed to help young students start programming by providing all the language elements in the student mother tongue. Mama programming language is available in several languages, with both LTR and RTL language direction support. A new variant of Mama was built on top of Carnegie Mellon's Alice development environment, supporting scripting of the 3D stage objects. This new variant of Mama was designed to help young students start programming by building 3D animations and games. A document about educational programming principles explains Mama's design considerations.

• Phrogram (the second generation product of Kid's Programming Language) is a commercial easy-to-learn programming language and Integrated Development Environment introduced in 2006. It emphasizes graphics and sounds, making it especially easy to develop games and entertaining educational material. Phrogram is a simplified structured language, and offers component-based development features such as classes and methods. It is modeled on modern IDEs such as Eclipse and Visual Studio. NET, and intends to prepare a beginner to graduate to these or other professional development environments.
• RoboMind is a simple educational programming environment that lets beginners program a robot. It introduces popular programming techniques and also some robotics and artificial intelligence. The robot can be programmed in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, German, English and Swedish.
• Stagecast Creator is a visual programming system based on programming by demonstration. Users demonstrate to the system what to do by moving icons on the screen, and it generates rules for the objects (characters). Users can create two-dimensional simulations that model a concept, multi-level games, interactive stories, etc.
• ToonTalk is a programming language and environment that looks like a video game. Computational abstractions are mapped to concrete analogs such robots, houses, trucks, birds, nests, and boxes. It supports big integers and exact rational numbers. It is based upon concurrent constraint programming.