Steven created a programming system called Kokopelli’s World, a programming system to teach children with a learning disability about coding and writing, at the same time!
This system, based on Google Blokly, is aimed at children that have oral language ability and some reading ability, and had children play with Kokopelli’s world for 90 minutes each week. Variables and arithmetic were avoided, and the form of programming was originally storytelling, but Steven found that children liked game making better so they pivoted.
Interestingly, a third person declarative form was used.
Steven did an experiment in which children did coding and language. 12 pre-teen students participated for 3 months with a 90 minute session a week. On the top, children have to create sentences, and on the bottom, children have to create a program.
Despite the similarity of the activities, children reacted very differently.
