Mathmatics with graphical programming

Abstract: With society’s progress into the information age it is important to keep school and education up to date. A motion has been put forward from the National Agency for Education in Sweden that programming should be taught, as part of mathematics and technology subjects, from first year of elementary school. If this were to become reality it demands new ways of thinking for teachers and students as they are now forced into teaching and learning programming, something that has never been demanded before. An application has been produced which gives students and teachers a good tool for getting into program- ming at an early age with a graphical programming language. With this language combined with a three dimensional graphics engine it is possible for young students to get into programming with graphical feedback combined with learning the properties of certain shapes and more advanced mathematical functions. The application aims to be as creative as possible which is an important aspect of programming. The project was also evaluated by young students who showed that they are indeed ready for a step towards programming. Without any or little previous experience with programming all students who did the assignments completed at least half of what was asked within a very limited time window. This shows that learning programming this way with this platform to start with, can be a great asset for teachers in the years to come.