Building a Simulated Blockly-Arduino-Based Programming Learning Tool: A Preliminary Study

Programming learning using the programmable Hardware devices (aka Hardware Programming Learning) is a popular approach to motivate and encourage k12 students to carry out the learning by doing. However, most of Hardware packages lack the efficient learning materials or tools with the simulation and visualization to assist the programming learning, which may lead to that k12 students find it difficult to learn and feel frustrated after the many attempts of try-and-error. Therefore, in this preliminary study, a Simulated Blockly-Arduino-based Programming Learning Tool, (SimBA-PLT), is designed and developed to facilitate the hands-on programming learning using Arduino-based hardware. In SimBA-PLT, students are able to visually program the blockly-based code to virtually perform the simulation of the Arduino-based hardware in advance. Afterwards, the Arduino-based hardware can be actually controlled by the Arduino-based code translated from the correct blockly-based code for facilitating the hardware programming learning. The learning motivation and performance will be expected to outperform the learning methods without the simulation.