teaching ubicomp with sense
Modern computer science education should take account of recent advances in smart and ubiquitous computing technologies. Ubicomp shows great potential to attract new learners. However, novice students find it needlessly difficult to learn concepts with existing programming languages, let alone the additional demands of programming sensors, actuators and networks. We have developed Sense, an extension to the graphical programming language Scratch, and an associated sensor/actuator board. Together, these will allow novice undergraduate students to quickly develop their own smart devices while learning the fundamentals of programming. Students will first study with Sense in 2011 but developmental feedback has been positive.
education ubiquitous computing programming graphical languages