Building Your Own Blocks in XLogoOnline MidiOne caveat that always killed my enthusiasm about block-based programming was the inability to support the concept of modularity in a meaningful way. One very central part of problem solving or computational thinking, namely problem decomposition, is mentioned more and more explicitly in almost all CS curricula I have had a look at recently. Of course, this is a good thing. And in my opinion, there are only a few ways to foster problem decomposition in a more tangible way than by defining a subroutine, module, or function when programming. The lack of such a functionality in early block-based programming environments always made me hesitant to be a strong advocate of the paradigm. 
Of course Scratch allows to build one's own blocks for a long time now, and for Snap! this is even a very central theme. I am more than happy that the Midi version of XLogoOnline now also joined the club. Implementation was done by Rafael Fernandes as part of his Master thesis, which I supervised together with Jacqueline Staub from the University of Trier—who is the force behind XLogoOnline, and who should get all the credit together with Rafael. With this new addition, computational thinking skills, in particular problem decomposition, can be fostered in an even stronger way when primary school students use XLogoOnline Midi. Further Reading |