Title: IslayTouch: an educational visual programming environment for tablet devices

Authors: Erjing Zhou; Michitoshi Niibori; Shusuke Okamoto; Masaru Kamada; Tatsuhiro Yonekura

Addresses: Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ibaraki University, Hitachi, Ibaraki 316-8511, Japan ' Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ibaraki University, Hitachi, Ibaraki 316-8511, Japan ' Faculty of Science and Technology, Seikei University, Musashino, Tokyo 180-8633, Japan ' Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Ibaraki University, Hitachi, Ibaraki 316-8511, Japan ' Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Ibaraki University, Hitachi, Ibaraki 316-8511, Japan

Abstract: Educational programming languages are programming languages that have been designed for users without programming experience, with the purpose of teaching them the skill of logical thinking or as an introduction to regular programming languages. Although these languages are relatively easier for beginners, difficult concepts of regular programming languages are still being introduced into some of them. As a new approach to this problem, an educational visual programming environment called Islay has been developed, in which the concept of state-transition diagram is used to compose a program. As a result, Islay becomes even easier for beginners than some other educational programming languages. In this research, a new version of Islay is developed as an Android application, with more features being added and a new user interface that is suitable for tablet devices.

Keywords: educational programming languages; interactive animations; state-transition diagrams; Islay; Android applications; visual programming; tablet devices; animation authoring tools; finite-state machines.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSC.2016.080285

International Journal of Space-Based and Situated Computing, 2016 Vol.6 No.3, pp.183 - 197

Received: 01 Dec 2015
Accepted: 27 Aug 2016
Published online: 10 Nov 2016 *

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