ICLS '06 Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Learning sciences
Storytelling alice motivates middle school girls to learn computer programming
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Pilot summer camps in computing for middle school girls: from organization through assessment
Proceedings of the 12th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
A summer programming workshop for middle school girls
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Gaming for middle school students: building virtual worlds
GDCSE '08 Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Game development in computer science education
GEOWORLDS: Utilizing Second Life to Develop Advanced Geosciences Knowledge
DIGITEL '08 Proceedings of the 2008 Second IEEE International Conference on Digital Game and Intelligent Toy Enhanced Learning
Gr8 designs for Gr8 girls: a middle-school program and its evaluation
Proceedings of the 40th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
A code reuse interface for non-programmer middle school students
Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces
Out-of-school virtual worlds based programs: a cross-case analysis
ICLS '10 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - Volume 2
Emerging contexts for science education: embedding a forensic science game in a virtual world
Proceedings of the 2011 iConference
Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education
Designing a community to support long-term interest in programming for middle school children
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
Application of the cognitive apprenticeship framework to a middle school robotics camp
Proceeding of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
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In this paper we report on the design and results of a one-week, residential summer camp experience that introduced computing concepts to middle school girls in the context of an online, multiplayer, virtual world known as the Curiosity Grid. In contrast to programming environments designed specifically as teaching tools to introduce children to programming, virtual world programming exposes novice learners to a more representative computer science experience. Students write real code and get real syntax errors when their code is not correct. They also design objects in a three-dimensional world where knowledge of mathematical concepts such as 3-D global and local coordinate systems, and 3-D transformations are important to the creation of objects and behaviors. Programming artifacts from the camp and feedback from the camp participants provide a strong argument that middle school girls can handle the challenge of this approach and even be enthusiastic about it.