What if You Created Your Own Digital Adventurers' Park?

Abstract

In the ambit of a summer school, we have proposed to a group of nearly 40 students between 10 and 15 years old to create a digital adventures’ park with Squeak. None of them knew the software nor had previous had programming knowledge and many little over the basic competences for the use of a computer, though they showed a special interest in computers. In this text we intend to approach some of the attitudes demonstrated by the students in the face of the challenge proposed at the course and their imaginary’s transposition to Squeak’s environment, in an ecologic perspective of the media. We will pay special attention to creativity’s emergency which seems to us anchor the development of object-oriented programming competences in inexperienced programmers. In addition we will also refer to the self-learning and collaborative learning aspects resulting from the interaction between “creators” and “programmers”, in light of their importance in learning environments without a teacher.