Abstract:

The issue of teaching programming is still a topical and dynamically changing topic for us. Over the years, we have tried different teaching methods—some with better, others with worse success. Over the last few years, we have decided to start using the project-based teaching method with gamification elements. We do not apply gamification in teaching in the way it is usually understood. The student’s goal is to create a simple game in their projects, plan this process, and implement the plan individually (possibly in small groups). The game is the goal, not only the means. In any case, this approach can have a motivating effect. We leave students the freedom to choose the game-making environment, programming language or other means. In this article, we would like to evaluate students’ results; summarize the diversity of game-making environments (languages and other means) they used; and provide some opinions that we collected after completing the course, whose primary goal is to create a simple game. And learn to program and gain basic programming skills through game creation.

Keywords:

Gamification, programming, programming learning, programming teaching.