codOWood - A new method of programming

The codOWood project has been developed as a prototype at the SoWIDE lab of the University of Parma. It is proposed as an educational tool for teaching to code to primary school children through tangible programming. The project uses low cost technologies and it is structured to encourage collaborative work. Its various functionalities have been tested on a prototype implementation, which has provided very satisfactory results. Its flavour of Tangible Computer Programming is based on passive blocks made of poor material (wood) which are identified through image recognition and “transformed” in logical blocks for the next step of processing, based on Google Blockly and the more typical Block Programming approach. The experimentation has been conducted in three classes of a primary school. It has clearly demonstrated that this methodology helps children to approach the art of programming more that purely digital alternatives. Moreover, the observed results highlight a very evident improvement in group collaboration, idea sharing, and inclusion of all group members.