New tools to enable children to manipulate images through computer programming

Abstract

This thesis proposes a programmable toolkit for building image filters to make the concepts of basic image processing accessible and engaging to children. The toolkit was developed in the context of Scratch, a media-centric programming environment intended for children. For this thesis, I redesigned the image manipulation framework in Scratch to 'open the black box' of image processing. Through user testing done with children, it was shown that the new framework sufficiently exposed the image-processing concepts so that children were able to create their own compelling image-processing algorithms. Although this framework was not ideal for the Scratch programming environment, the concepts explored in this work can be used in classrooms that teach introductory computer programming through media computation, or in a separate programming environment for novices which focuses on basic image processing.