Goolalang കോഡിംഗ് വിദ്യാഭ്യാസ പ്ലാറ്റ്‌ഫോം

Press Kit

Unique Properties

Goolalang App is a programming platform for young children based on Goolalang, which is a new drag-and-drop programming language. The appearance of a Goolalang program is like a top-down road with signs representing the direction the program runs. When program is running, a footprint stops where the program executes. It is easy to write multi-sprite stories and animations due to the creative programming blocks. Goolalang App also prepares a series of courses to help children learn Goolalang.

Dimensions & Packaging

This application is based on iPad size and iOS 9 and above system.

Tags

Goolalang, Kindergarten, Programming education, Graphical Programming, STEM

Production Technology

Prototype: Pencil and paper, Axure RP.
UI Design: Adobe Illustrator.
Application Development: Xcode.

Design Challenge

One challenge is that while we realize the great importance of programming thinking in the kindergarten stage, Chinese society generally pays less attention to programming education in kindergarten. The other one is the difficulty to design the programming language, which should not only express programming concepts correctly, including sequences, loops, event and so on but also consider the understanding ability of kindergarten children.

Research

We first study the theory of children's pedagogy, and then adopt the real user test of the beta version. Users of beta test are 30 children around 5-7 years old and 10 adults including kindergarten teachers, full-time mothers, college students, etc. The testing result shows every children show great interest in learning Goolalang programming, and most children can program their own stories or animations freely, which proves Goolalang is suitable for children to learn programming.

Inspiration

With the increasing popularity of children's programming education, programming education in the kindergarten stage has increasingly attracted the attention of society. However, the existing programming and creation tools for kindergarten children are few, which limits the ability of children to create freely. The promotion of kindergarten programming education needs programming languages and tools suitable for kindergarten children's physical development and cognitive level.

Project Duration

The project began at Zhejiang University in China in 2017 and is currently being developed by Hangzhou Maiyike Technology Co.,Ltd.

Operation Flow

In Goolalang, young children can build scenes by importing favourite sprites and backgrounds from libraries, then write programs by grabbing a programming block, finding a suitable position and attaching it under or inside another programming block again and again. Goolalang App also prepares a series of courses, so young children can program while watching online videos. The video window can be dragged to any position and zoomed to any size. Also, programs can be shared through Airdrop.

Patents

goolalang. 2019 Hangzhou Maiyike Technology Co.,Ltd.