StoryMode

Teachers and parents agree that computer science education is a necessary discipline to learn and
want to see it in their schools and homes. Children who are exposed at an early age to computational thinking and STEM curricula are more likely to enter technical fields, hold fewer gender-based stereotypes about STEM, and show many other beneficial outcomes. However, teachers do not have the time, budget, or feel qualified to introduce a coding curriculum into their already overwhelming schedules. The current study explores an educational tool designed specifically to teach computational thinking and coding skills to young children ages 5 to 9 years old that may overcome these barriers. Using a game-based, block-based programming environment, StoryMode uses a visual environment that makes learning programming easy, fun, and engaging. Children create multiscene animated stories using code in StoryMode. The platform was created such that any teacher, with or without computer science knowledge, can easily and confidently use it in his or her classroom and integrate it with an English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum. The results of this exploratory study found that across 10 classrooms, StoryMode was interesting and engaging for young children, easy for teachers to implement, and a potentially useful teaching tool for computational thinking concepts. Teachers were especially excited for its future use and integration into lessons beyond ELA, including social studies and science. Overall, this research suggests that StoryMode may provide a way to overcome many of the time, resource, and implementation barriers to computer science education.