Visual StoryCoder: A Multimodal Programming Environment for Children's Creation of Stories

Abstract

Computational thinking (CT) education reaches only a fraction of young children, in part because CT learning tools often require expensive hardware or fluent literacy. Block-based programming environments address these challenges through symbolic graphical interfaces, but users often need instructor support to advance. Alternatively, voice-based tools provide direct instruction on CT concepts but can present memory and navigation challenges to users. In this work, we present Visual StoryCoder, a multimodal tablet application that combines the strengths of each of these approaches to overcome their respective weaknesses. Visual StoryCoder introduces children ages 5-8 to CT through creative storytelling, offers direct instruction via a pedagogical voice agent, and eases use through a block-like graphical interface. In a between-subjects evaluation comparing Visual StoryCoder to a leading block-based programming app for this age group (N = 24), we show that Visual StoryCoder is more understandable to independent learners, leads to higher-quality code after app familiarization, and encourages personally meaningful projects.