A demonstration of gidget, a debugging game for computing education

Abstract

Online games have the potential to reach a wide audience and teach new skills. I propose to use Gidget, an online debugging game, to teach novices computer programming concepts in an engaging way. Learners must debug faulty programs to progress through the game, which are set up in modules to teach specific computer programming concepts. Once all the levels are complete, learners are given the option to further engage in the game by creating their own levels that can be shared with their friends and family. Over 800 people have played the game online as part of several research studies and it will be released freely to the public in the near future.