Embodiment, collaboration, and challenge in educational programming games

While there are common design decisions in existing games for teaching Computer Science (single player puzzle based games for the touchpad/keyboard and mouse), recent work has suggested that alternative approaches such as collaborative play and physically embodied designs may also provide important benefits to learners. In order to explore how making interactions with an educational programming game more physically embodied could impact collaborative play, we created an educational programming game called Bots & (Main)Frames. We then conducted a preliminary study to examine if the level designs achieved desired challenge and explore how two versions of the game with different forms of physical embodiment/input (e.g., mouse vs. tangible programming blocks) impacted player interactions underlying collaboration. We found that game levels seem to provide desired increasing challenge, and that players often used the mouse and tangible programming blocks to aid communication/collaboration in distinctly different ways.