AgentCubes: Raising the Ceiling of End-User Development in Education through Incremental 3D

Abstract

Now that we have end-user programming environments capable of empowering kids with no programming background to build games in a matter of hours, a new quest for raising the ceiling of end-user development is emerging. Environments not only focusing on programming, but also including rich media such as 3D, could work as compelling tools for introducing information technology at the K-12 level. The new challenge is raising the ceiling without raising the threshold. Based on our experience with AgentSheets, a tool used worldwide for computational science and game design applications, we created a new authoring tool called AgentCubes. This article discusses the notion of incremental 3D as a design approach for media-rich end-user development with low threshold and high ceiling in education