appeal to the tools of the system, ‘I need dusty, dusty, dusty, quickly dusty’ or ‘ok,
F,F,F,F∙, (F is the Toontalk command to pick up and flip an object).
The researcher intervenes when the student is about to replace the bullet (with the
bouncing behaviour attached) on the back of the alien object and asks her what bullet
she has changed to bounce off things. The students both realise that they have to “do
it on every single one”. After expressing their dismay Emily realises how they can do
this quickly, “Oh I know, you can just copy the other bullet and put it on”. The
students then program each of the four bullets to bounce.
The Angle of Bounce
After programming the bullets to bounce the students play the game. The intention is
for the bullets to travel left, right, up and down. As the students press the arrow keys
the bullets that the alien fires travel diagonally.
While playing the game the students comment on the movement of the bullets:
Rachel says, “no, its supposed to go to there...the left’s supposed to go that way”. At
this point Rachel returns to ‘gestural overlay’ on the screen to show the intended
movement of the bullets. The researcher intervenes at this point and asks the students,
“When you looked at the spring there were two behaviours on the back of it? One
said I bounce up and the other said what? I go left.. .do you remember that? I go left”.
In the exchange that follows (described in transcript 5.4) the research interviewer
(indicated by I in the transcript) begins to gesture on the table in order to prompt the
students to solve the problem of the movement of the bullets. She then uses pen and
paper to make these gestures ‘permanent’ and to show the outcome of the
simultaneous movement of the pen up and to left - that is a diagonal line. Finally the
students name this direction as ‘diagonal’ and the need to re-program the game.
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