For many children today, their firstinteraction with technology is athome playing video games. The num-ber of hours spent in front of thesescreens must be in the order of hun-dreds of billions. While manyresearchers, parents, and educatorshave good reason to be concerned

about the quantity of time spent in this manner, theytend to overlook that even so-called educational soft-ware often does not function as any more thanenhanced page-turning devices displaying informa-tion to be learned and monitoring students’ progress.There are currently few opportunities for children togo beyond button-pushing and mouse-clicking intheir interaction with technology.

By asking children to program software for otherchildren, we are turning the tables and placing chil-dren in the active role of constructing their own pro-grams—and constructing new relationships withknowledge in the process. The most obvious benefitis that children learn about technology by buildingthings of significance, such as game software. A farmore promising aspect is that learning programmingand learning about technology is not only good for itsown sake but also good because it is supportive ofother types of learning. As I will explain in moredetail, the very process of programming game soft-ware to teach fractions (or any other subject topic, forthat matter) to younger users allows children toengage in significant mathematical thinking andlearning. But most importantly, through program-ming, children learn to express themselves in thetechnological domain. In the world of educationalprogramming, these last two aspects of learning withtechnology have received far less attention than thetraditional benefits of technological knowledge.

The Game Design StudioA software design project starts with a simple instruc-tion: “Design a computer game that teaches some-thing about fractions to younger students.”Everything else is left open. A class of students trans-forms their classroom into a game design studio forsix months. During that period, they are:

• Learning programming;• Thinking about interface designs;• Designing graphical elements;• Conceiving story structures, dialogue, and

characters; • Devising instructional strategies; and, • Creating fraction representations.

Students meet every day for one hour to write intheir notebooks about their ideas, plans, and designs.They also discuss issues related to programming,games, teaching, and fractions. They give presenta-

tions to each other and meet once a month with theirprospective users. All the students create a fully fin-ished product—a computer game—with its documen-tation, advertising, and packaging. Since 1991, severalsoftware design projects with a focus on various math-ematical or science topics have been conducted suc-cessfully with students ages 8 to 11 in publicelementary schools in Boston and Los Angeles.

38 April 1996/Vol. 39, No. 4 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM

GAMES

GAMES4

GAMES2

GAMES5

STARTUPWAIT.FOR.USER

STARTUPHOUSE

STARTUPINSIDE

STARTUPDEATH

GAMES7 STARTUPENDINGPROBLEMANSWER

CreditsIntroduction to Mission :TownIf the player types "a," page GAMES2 is called.

Frontview of Haunted House.Choice "a" (in house) GAMES4[not used but still in program:Choice "b" (chicken) GAMES3]

INSIDE Display of (a) chest and (b) staircase calls CHOICE1CHOICE1 If "b" gets GAMES6 If "a" = demon of the underworld comes. WAIT.FOR.USER calls QUESTION2QUESTION2 asks fractions question answer "a" : wrong WAIT.FOR.USER.2 which calls UNDERWORLD answer "b": correct gets GAMES6 answer "c": wrong WAIT.FOR.USER.2 which calls UNDERWORLD

Displays red mountain for hellIf the player types "a,"GAMES is called and game starts again

GAMES6 STARTUPCHICKEN

Wizard asks fraction question about 3/4answer "a": correct gets GAMES7answer "b": wrong answer "c": wrong b and c provide instructions about how to start game again.

ENDINGAlien from Plabet Zork PROBLEMquestion about adding fractionsANSWER"a" wrong: explanation and goes to GAMES5"b" correct: goes to GAMES8

STARTUPMASTERFRACTIONDUHSUM

STARTUPFINISHSOUNDEVIL

GAMES8

GAMES9

MASTERLanding on Planet ZorkFRACTIONMeeting Leader of all ZorksWAIT.FOR.USERDUHFraction question lowest termsSUManswer "a": wrong GAMES5answer "b": correct GAMES9answer "c": wrong GAMES5

FINISHYou have won the gameWAIT.FOR.USERSOUNDmusicEVILIt isn't over yet

Software by Kids for Kids

Yasmin B. Kafai

Figure 1. Page structure and connections in Albert’s game Mission: Town

The Benefits of Making Software for LearningThere is no doubt that students acquired extensiveprogramming experience in this project. An overviewof students’ Logo pages reveals that most of them cre-ated complex, interconnected pieces of software.One example is Albert’s game “Mission: Town” whereat the end of the project consisted of more than 20pages of code distributed over nine pages with multi-ple procedures (see Figure 1).

But most importantly, all the games provided evi-dence of students’ efforts to integrate the content tobe taught—fractions. Students created dozens of situ-ations with fractions in their notebooks, but only thebest designs found their way into the games. In thiscontext, children engaged their fantasies and builtrelationships with other pockets of reality that went

beyond traditional school approaches in mathemat-ics education. The introductory screens of two stu-dents, Amy and Trevor, provide an example of thiseffort (see Figure 2).

A comment on the instructional drill-and-practiceformat adopted by most students in the design andimplementation of their games: a correct answer pro-duces a positive outcome, or “become the god or god-dess of fractions,” whereas the incorrect answer resultsin punishment, or “become mentally deformed.” Oneexplanation for this indeliberate consistency is that

students emulated instruction-al models found in the com-mercial market and media.This should be a warning sign ofhow the format, content, andmodalities of educational softwareinfluence children’s thinkingabout the standards of instruc-tional software.

Programming games are a medium for their per-sonal and creative expression. This is of particular rel-evance if one is concerned with finding meaningfuland relevant learning situations for students. Beingengaged in this enterprise initiates learning andlearning about learning. This is best expressed in afinal review written by Rosemary, a 10-year-old gamedesigner: “I made a game. It started out very slowly atfirst. It is very hard to put together your own game.You may think it is easy to do because of all the videogames people play. They look so simple, but try mak-ing your own game and it’s a totally different story.Well, I started out with very high expectations think-ing that I could make a great game in a very shorttime. It turned out that I’m still not done with it evenafter about four or five months. Truthfully, I hopenext time you play a computer or video game you willthink about its maker.”

More Tools and Toys for Young Software DesignersDesigning games offers a rich learning environmentfor children to become engaged in a variety of issuesand to learn about many more aspects of program-ming than I was able to address in this context. Theidea of children making software for fun and learn-ing is definitely not limited to school activities; it hasa place at home and in the virtual playground. Con-structive play is an important part of children’s devel-opment. Children enjoy playing as much as makingthings. Much more attention and effort should bepaid to providing virtual building blocks and tools foryoung children to experience and master the world.

Further research efforts will examine models ofinterdisciplinary and extended learning for younggame software designers and how various informa-tion sources can be integrated into this effort. Again,the point is not about providing access and buildingadequate information structures for children (thoseare worthy subjects by themselves!) but to considerthe other end: what children can make with informa-tion, how they can build their own information struc-tures, and, ultimately, how they construct knowledgeout of information.

Yasmin B. Kafai is an assistant professor at UCLA Graduate School of Education& Information Studies. http://www.gse.ucla.edu/facpage/kafai.html

The described research was conducted at the MIT Media Laboratory and sponsoredby the National Science Foundation and the Nintendo Co. Ltd.

©ACM 0002-0782/96/0400

COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM April 1996/Vol. 39, No. 4 39

LEARNER-CENTEREDDESIGN

ConstructionTool Kits

Figure 2. Trevor and Amy’s introductory game screens

C