Kodu
Tutorials
Learning Activities
Teach your students programming by letting them have fun creating and playing their own games. Kodu is a visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. The programming environment runs on the Xbox 360, allowing rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input.
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Teach programming, problem-solving, and more with a creative environment
Kodu provides an end-to-end creative environment for designing, building, and playing games. Programs are created on the Xbox 360 or PC, using either a game controller or keyboard/mouse actions, allowing rapid design iteration. Students create a range of terrains, worlds and characters, controlling the characters’ movement, sound and vision using an intuitive icon-based language. Once created, games can be shared and accessed by others. Use the easy-to-follow tutorials to quickly become Kodu experts. Programming has never been so easy for children.
Kodu helps students learning programming and other skills in a fun way:
- Explore the “behind the scenes” of game development
- Demonstrate learning through creating a game
- Revise concepts taught in various learning areas
- Improve critical thinking and problem solving skills
- Improve student collaboration and cooperation
- Inspire confidence in programming skills
System requirements:
- Operating Systems: Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP
- A graphics card that supports DirectX 9.0 and Shader Model 2.0 or higher
- .Net Framework 3.5 or higher
- XNA Framework 3.1 Redistributable
Resources
Microsoft Research Kodu - proramming as a creative medium
Designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone, Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games.
Explorer Kodu Club
A technology club for kids.
Kodu Classroom Kit
The Kodu Classroom Kit is a set of lesson plans and activities for teachers, after school program instructors and administrators to run a variety of types of classes using Kodu.
Kodu Team blog
Get all of the latest and greatest news on Kodu.
Kodu language and grammar specifcation
We describe the language of Kodu using a grammar based on the notation for context-free grammars. This language specification should serve as a reference for researchers and teachers who seek to learn or study Kodu as a language.
The Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies in the Classroom
An Australian school uses Kodu in various applications and shares the results in this formal research publication.
SEK Creative Games
Learning by creating your own videogame. SEK is a pioneer Educational Institution with over one hundred years of history dedicated to the development of all its pupils’ potential through pedagogical innovation.