Co-located Collaborative Block-Based Programming

TLDR: This paper presents Multi-Device Grace, the first application to explore block-based programming in a cross-device environment consisting of digital tabletops, mobile tablets, and laptops, and 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.

Abstract: 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. Fig. 1.Multi-Device Grace: multiple novice programmers simultaneously working together on different devices (laptop, mobile tablet, and digital tabletop) within different independent workspaces to develop a new blocks-based program.