TouchDevelop Excites Students

Ninety eighth-grade students at Mill Creek Middle School in Kent, Washington, learned how to write smartphone programs with TouchDevelop, a Microsoft Research programming environment that enables users to create and test programs on Windows Phone. Most of the students had no prior experience with programming, but after tinkering with TouchDevelop for an hour, students came up with a variety of innovative and fun programs that they proudly demonstrated to their peers. This Microsoft Research-sponsored event was in support of Computer Science Education Week 2011 (December 4–11). This annual event recognizes the critical role of computing in today’s society and the imperative to bolster computer science education at all levels in the United States.