Programming Substrates to Create Interactive Learning Environments

The design of an effective interactive learning environment requires understanding the intricate relationships among people, tools, and problems. Many end-users do not have the necessary skills, nor the time or patience to compose programs from computer science-sanctioned programming primitives. End-users require environments that elevate the task of programming to the manipulation of components that are directly pertinent to the problems to be solved. This paper introduces the Agentsheets programming substrate employed by designers to create interactive learning environments that are geared toward end-users solving specific problems. A number of educationa

Agentsheets: Applying Grid-Based Spatial Reasoning to Human-Computer Interaction

This paper argues that grid-based spatial reasoning can significantly improve human-computer interaction. While grids constrain the user's ability to position objects on a screen on one hand, they greatly increase the transparency of functional relationships among these objects on the other hand. A system called Agentsheets employs a spatio-temporal metaphor of communicating agents sharing a structured space. This domain-independent metaphor can be used to create domain-oriented visual programming systems. This paper explains how Agentsheets fits into the spectrum of domain-orientation ranging from general purpose visual programming languages to domain-oriented construction kits, gives a short introduction of Agentsheets, sketches sample applications, and evaluates the contribution of grid-based spatial reasoning to human-computer interaction