[ UK Smalltalk User Group ]

Diálogo is a desktop tool that lets children aged 10–17 create their own videogames by combining drawn characters with a set of visual icons — no typing required. The icons compose like cards, activating behaviours in the drawn objects and naturally leading kids through concepts such as categories, rules, recursion, and metaprogramming. In this talk I'll show how Smalltalk's live, image-based environment made it uniquely suited for building Diálogo. I'll give a demo of the app, walk through some implementation metrics, and discuss the pedagogical ideas behind the project — including a free 7-class course I've shared online and workshops I've run open to the community at the Faculty of Exact Sciences (UBA). Agustín Martínez is a developer and researcher at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), and the creator of Diálogo, a programming environment for children built in Cuis Smalltalk. He presented a paper on Diálogo at the Onward! track of OOPSLA, and has given publ...