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Online PBL-game for CS education

Is there a better way for elementary school students to develop CT skills than using Scratch?

CS education for young students has mainly focused on engaging learners in easy-to-use tools. Scratch is one of the tools that have been widely used in CS education worldwide. However, it is not without limitations: as a platform, Scratch provides students with an open canvas, but without any relevant contexts to students, where they can create coding projects with block-based coding, along with the opportunities to explore and remix others’ work. This philosophy underlying Scratch seems to include an implicit presumption that learners can develop their CT skills through self-guided exploration and discovery. In reality, however, many students don't know what to do when they look at the open canvas on Scratch. In addition, many students are likely to merely remix others' works without truly "upgrading" these works.

 

To overcome the limitations of Scratch, I developed an online PBL-based game for CT education. This game provides a clear goal and problems to solve (i.e., moving an avatar to a portal by building code blocks), in addition to the block-based coding, sharing, and remixing functionalities.

At its core, the game challenges students to design a playground and devise a solution to a given problem using block-based coding. The primary objective of each task is to guide an avatar towards a portal by appropriately stacking coding blocks. The game also encourages creativity by enabling students to use environmental blocks to create unique landscapes and place monsters on the playground, thereby adding complexity to the problem.

 

The game features two distinct problem types:

1. Maze: The most straightforward game type, where students design a problem involving an avatar, a portal, environmental blocks, and monsters.

2. Treasure Hunter: An advanced version of the Maze, where the avatar must collect all items on the playground before reaching the portal.

In-game screenshots

In-game video: Creating a problem and solve the problem to upload

In-game video: Remix or modify others' work!

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