AgentSheets
Encyclopedia
AgentSheets is an educational Cyberlearning tool to create Web-based simulation games. AgentSheets is used worldwide to teach students programming and related information technology skills through game design. The built-in drag-and-drop
language is accessible enough that students without programming background can make their own simple Frogger
-like game, and publish it on the Web, in their first session. At the same time, AgentSheets is powerful enough to make sophisticated The Sims
-like games with artificial intelligence
. To transition from visual programming to more traditional programming students can render their games into Java
source code.
AgentSheets is supported by a middle and high school curriculum called Scalabable Game Design aligned with the ISTE
National Educational Technology Standards (NETS). The mission of this project is to reinvent computer science in public schools by motivating & educating all students including women and underrepresented communities to learn about computer science through game design starting at the middle school level. Through this curriculum students build increasingly sophisticated games and, as part of this process, learn about computational concepts at the level of computational thinking that are relevant to game design as well as to computational science. The curriculum is made available through the Scalable Game Design Wiki . Research investigating motivational aspects of computer science education in public schools is currently exploring the introduction of game design in representative regions of the USA including technology hubs, inner city, rural and remote/tribal areas. Previous research has already found that game design with AgentSheets is universally accessible across gender as well as ethnicity and is not limited to students interested in playing video games .
The results of the NSF ITEST program supported research investigating motivational and educational aspects of introducing computer science at the middle school level are extremely positive in terms of motivational levels, number of participants and participation of women and underrepresented communities. The participation is extremely high because most middle schools participating in the study have made Scalable Game Design a module that is part of existing required courses (e.g., computer power with keyboarding and power point). Many of the middle schools instruct all of their students in scalable game design reaching in some schools over 900 students per year, per school. Of the well over 1000 students participating in the project in the first semester over 52% were girls. Of the girls 85% enjoyed the scalable game design course and 78% would like to take another game design course.
Similar to a spreadsheet, an agentsheet is a computational grid. Unlike spreadsheets, this grid does not just contain numbers and strings but so called agents. These agents are represented by pictures, can be animated, make sounds, react to mouse/keyboard interactions, can read web pages, can speak and even recognize speech commands (Mac). This grid is well suited to build computational science
applications modeling complex scientific phenomena with up to tens of thousands of agents. The grid is useful to build agent-based simulations including cellular automata or diffusion-based models. These models are used in a wide variety of applications. How does a mudslide work? When does a bridge collapse? How fragile are ecosystems? This ability to support game as well as computational science applications with the inclusion of scientific visualizations makes AgentSheets a unique computational thinking
tool that is used computer science and STEM
education.
This work including research, development and commercialization is supported by the National Science Foundation
. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
AgentSheets is used in a number of contexts worldwide:
, NCAR, Connection Machine 2
. The Connection Machine is a highly parallel computer with up to 65,536 CPUs. Realizing how hard it was to program the Connection Machine the insight that "CPU cycles will always be ultimately cheaper than cognitive cycles" led to the exploration of several new programming paradigm
s:
Drag-and-drop
In computer graphical user interfaces, drag-and-drop is the action of selecting a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object...
language is accessible enough that students without programming background can make their own simple Frogger
Frogger
Frogger is an arcade game introduced in 1981. It was developed by Konami, and licensed for worldwide distribution by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one. To do this, each frog must avoid cars while crossing a busy road and navigate a river full of...
-like game, and publish it on the Web, in their first session. At the same time, AgentSheets is powerful enough to make sophisticated The Sims
The Sims
The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Its development was led by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity...
-like games with artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
. To transition from visual programming to more traditional programming students can render their games into Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
source code.
AgentSheets is supported by a middle and high school curriculum called Scalabable Game Design aligned with the ISTE
ISTE
The International Society for Technology in Education is a nonprofit professional organization with a worldwide membership of leaders and potential leaders in educational technology...
National Educational Technology Standards (NETS). The mission of this project is to reinvent computer science in public schools by motivating & educating all students including women and underrepresented communities to learn about computer science through game design starting at the middle school level. Through this curriculum students build increasingly sophisticated games and, as part of this process, learn about computational concepts at the level of computational thinking that are relevant to game design as well as to computational science. The curriculum is made available through the Scalable Game Design Wiki . Research investigating motivational aspects of computer science education in public schools is currently exploring the introduction of game design in representative regions of the USA including technology hubs, inner city, rural and remote/tribal areas. Previous research has already found that game design with AgentSheets is universally accessible across gender as well as ethnicity and is not limited to students interested in playing video games .
The results of the NSF ITEST program supported research investigating motivational and educational aspects of introducing computer science at the middle school level are extremely positive in terms of motivational levels, number of participants and participation of women and underrepresented communities. The participation is extremely high because most middle schools participating in the study have made Scalable Game Design a module that is part of existing required courses (e.g., computer power with keyboarding and power point). Many of the middle schools instruct all of their students in scalable game design reaching in some schools over 900 students per year, per school. Of the well over 1000 students participating in the project in the first semester over 52% were girls. Of the girls 85% enjoyed the scalable game design course and 78% would like to take another game design course.
Similar to a spreadsheet, an agentsheet is a computational grid. Unlike spreadsheets, this grid does not just contain numbers and strings but so called agents. These agents are represented by pictures, can be animated, make sounds, react to mouse/keyboard interactions, can read web pages, can speak and even recognize speech commands (Mac). This grid is well suited to build computational science
Computational science
Computational science is the field of study concerned with constructing mathematical models and quantitative analysis techniques and using computers to analyze and solve scientific problems...
applications modeling complex scientific phenomena with up to tens of thousands of agents. The grid is useful to build agent-based simulations including cellular automata or diffusion-based models. These models are used in a wide variety of applications. How does a mudslide work? When does a bridge collapse? How fragile are ecosystems? This ability to support game as well as computational science applications with the inclusion of scientific visualizations makes AgentSheets a unique computational thinking
Computational thinking
Computational Thinking is a new problem solving method, named for its extensive use of computer science techniques. The term computational thinking was first used by Seymour Papert in 1996...
tool that is used computer science and STEM
STEM fields
STEM fields is a US Government acronym for the fields of study in the categories of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The acronym is in use regarding access to work visas for immigrants who are skilled in these fields. Maintaining a citizenry that is well versed in the STEM fields...
education.
This work including research, development and commercialization is supported by the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
How AgentSheets is used
- Middle school students create food web simulations to explore the complexity of ecological systems
- Middle school computer clubs students build computer games ranging from simple arcade classic such as FroggerFroggerFrogger is an arcade game introduced in 1981. It was developed by Konami, and licensed for worldwide distribution by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct frogs to their homes one by one. To do this, each frog must avoid cars while crossing a busy road and navigate a river full of...
to sophisticated AI-based games such as The SimsThe SimsThe Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Its development was led by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity...
. - High school students use AgentSheets as story telling and simulation tool of historical events such as the César ChávezCésar ChávezCésar Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....
grape boycott - High school students simulate predator prey worlds and analyzed data created with spreadsheets and plots
- After school science programs show students how to build their own science simulations ranging from forest fire simulations to the spreading of viruses.
- High school students use AgentSheets as introduction to programming tool
- Graduate and undergraduate courses on educational game design use AgentSheets to prototype, playtest, refine, and publish simple educational games
- Research exploring Artificial intelligence and collaborative agents, e.g., Antiobjects
History
The original goal of this research was to explore new models of computational thinking. The first prototype of AgentSheets ran in 1989 at the University of ColoradoUniversity of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
, NCAR, Connection Machine 2
Connection Machine
The Connection Machine was a series of supercomputers that grew out of Danny Hillis' research in the early 1980s at MIT on alternatives to the traditional von Neumann architecture of computation...
. The Connection Machine is a highly parallel computer with up to 65,536 CPUs. Realizing how hard it was to program the Connection Machine the insight that "CPU cycles will always be ultimately cheaper than cognitive cycles" led to the exploration of several new programming paradigm
Programming paradigm
A programming paradigm is a fundamental style of computer programming. Paradigms differ in the concepts and abstractions used to represent the elements of a program and the steps that compose a computation A programming paradigm is a fundamental style of computer programming. (Compare with a...
s:
- Agent-Based Graphical Rewrite Rules: (1991) Behavior such as a train following train tracks can be specified through before/after rules. These rules can be created by programming by exampleProgramming by exampleIn computer science, programming by example , also known as programming by demonstration or more generally as demonstrational programming, is an End-user development technique for teaching a computer new behavior by demonstrating actions on concrete examples...
. The user would tell the system to watch the train; the user would move the train on train track one step and stop recording; the system would create the rule allowing trains to follow train tracks. Agent-Based Graphical Rewrite Rules were later also used in the KidSim/Cocoa/CreatorStagecast CreatorStagecast Creator is a visual programming language intended for use in teaching programming to children. It is based on the programming by demonstration concept, where rules are created by giving examples of what actions should take place in a given situation...
kid programming tool. - Semantical Rewrite Rules: (1994) It became clear that Agent-Based Graphical Rewrite Rules used in AgentSheets91 and KidSim/Cocoa/Creator were not powerful enough for a number of applications that need more general patterns. For instance, it was simple to create a rule to make a train follow a straight segment of track but the number of rules quickly exploded when trying to have trains follow all combinations of turns and intersections. Semantic rewrite rules could interpret rules topologically. With a single rule a user could create a complete train that follows train track behavior.
- Programming by Analogous Examples: (1995) New behavior can be created through analogies. For instance the behavior of a car can be described as analogy to trains. A car moves on a road like a train on a train track. A challenge to this approach is conceptual exception handling. Analogies are often either incomplete or too general. This requires that users can refine programs produced by Programming by Analogous Examples.
- Tactile Programming: (1996) AgentSheets becomes the world's first drag and drop educational programming environment. Drag and drop interfaces can be used to compose syntactically correct programs. In Visual AgenTalk (VAT), a rule-based visual programming language, users create rules by dragging and dropping conditions and actions from palettes. The tactile aspect of Visual AgenTalk allows users to perceive through drag and drop what programs do. By dragging and dropping conditions, actions, rules and even methods onto agents they see the consequence of invoking program fragment without having to write a test program. Similar drag and drop programming can later be found in the EtoysEToys (Programming Language)Etoys is a child-friendly computer environment and object-oriented prototype-based programming language for use in education.Etoys is a media-rich authoring environment with a scripted object model for many different objects that runs on different platforms and is free and open source.- Brief...
language (part of SqueakSqueakThe Squeak programming language is a Smalltalk implementation. It is object-oriented, class-based and reflective.It was derived directly from Smalltalk-80 by a group at Apple Computer that included some of the original Smalltalk-80 developers...
), in AliceAlice (software)Alice is a freeware object-oriented educational programming language with an integrated development environment . Later versions are implemented in Java. Alice uses a drag and drop environment to create computer animations using 3D models...
and in ScratchScratch programming languageScratch is an educational programming language that allows people of any experience, background and age to experiment with the concepts of fully versatile computer programming by snapping together visual programming blocks to control images, music and sound...
. - AgentSheets Inc.: (1996) With the support of the National Science Foundation AgentSheets has become a commercial product. The programming model has been extended, more interaction modalities have been added (e.g., speech recognition (Mac)), scientific visualization has been refined (e.g., 3D real time plotting (Mac)), and AgentSheets has been localized (e.g., Japanese and Greek).
- Scalable Game Design: (2008) A game design based free curriculum covering computational thinking ideas from elementary to graduate school based on AgentSheets. The mission of Scalable Game Design is to: Reinventing computer science in public schools by motivating & educating all students including women and underrepresented communities to learn about computer science through game design starting at the middle school level. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation.
- Conversational Programming: (2010) AgentSheets 3 is the world first programming environment supporting computational thinking by providing information about the meaning of the program. Unlike visual programming approaches, which only help with syntactic challenges, such as avoiding missing semicolons, Conversational Programming helps with the semantics, that is the meaning of your program. Is this condition true right now? Would this rule fire? Why does that rule fail? A conversational programming agent will tell all this and more in a non intrusive kind of way.