Expressing computer science concepts through kodu game lab

Abstract

Educational programming environments such as Microsoft Research's Kodu Game Lab are often used to introduce novices to computer science concepts and programming. Unlike many other educational languages that rely on scripting and Java-like syntax, the Kodu language is entirely event-driven and programming takes the form of 'when - do' clauses. Despite this simplistic programing model, many computer science concepts can be expressed using Kodu. We identify and measure the frequency of these concepts in 346 Kodu programs created by users, and find that most programs exhibit sophistication through the use of complex control flow and boolean logic. Through Kodu's non-traditional language, we show that users express and explore fundamental computer science concepts.