I offer my reflections after I completed reading a paper on Tern and presenting a PowerPoint.
I enjoyed the concept for the tangible programming language, as I have a personal interest in programming. When I first understood that Tern was about converting puzzle-piece code into compiled programs, my mind jumped to the idea that the puzzle pieces themselves had embedded electronics (I think I got this idea from the Tangible Movie Editor). However, I love the fact that the puzzle pieces are actually wooden and contain nothing delicate -- obviously this is a great option for children. I also like that the images on the blocks and their SpotCodes can be printed out and glued onto the inexpensive blocks if blocks get lost.
One thing I'm curious about is the value of having pre-schoolers and elementary-schoolers write programs. I understand that Tern would be a very gentle introduction to programming; but, I feel like it's almost too easy and the children may not be able to apply the very basic ideas of Tern to actual programming later on. Could Tern effectively teach children more advanced topics -- e.g. recursion, object-oriented language, parameters. Could children translate their understand of Tern into these harder concepts? Is it practical to teach pre-schoolers how to program? I imagine that these questions would have to be answered by longer-term studies.
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