With the increasing need to teach programming to novices using collaborative methods like pair programming, it is important to understand how different input devices can help support collaborative learning. In this paper we present Multi-Device Grace, the first application to explore block-based programming in a cross-device environment consisting of digital tabletops, mobile tablets, and laptops. We conducted a user study (n = 18) to explore how cross-device environments can support co-located collaborative block-based programming. The study used Tiled Grace, an existing block-based programming language, and our extensions: Tabletop Grace (designed for tabletops) and Mobile Grace (designed for tablets). Our results show that the majority of participants felt they were able to collaborate quickly and easily, and the cross device interaction would be particularly beneficial in an education setting.
Pedro Paredes Barragan, Maximiliano Paredes Velasco, Jaime Urquiza-Fuentes, Guillermo J. Garcia-Delgado Alvarez, Craig Anslow, and Michael Homer. Designing Collaborative ScratchJr for Multi-touch Tabletops. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Computers in Education (SIIE), A Coruna, Spain, 2024.
Co-located Collaborative Block-Based Programming. Ben Selwyn-Smith, Craig Anslow, Michael Homer, and James Wallace. Co-located Collaborative Block-Based Programming. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), Memphis, Tennessee, USA, 2019.
