Millions more to benefit from Greenfoot

I’m about to start teaching Greenfoot in my data structures class (the one where we introduce data structures in explaining how the wildebeest’s charge over the ridge in Disney’s The Lion King) — I’m a big fan, and am glad to hear that they’re providing more support for teachers.  They just announced support for using Microsoft Kinect with Greenfoot, demoed at SIGCSE 2011.

Millions of young people are expected to benefit from a University of Kent-established international teacher training network for Greenfoot, a free-to-download software tool that teaches computer programming to pupils from 14 years upwards.

Free and available for download at www.greenfoot.org, Greenfoot was designed by members of the University’s Computing Education Research Group and colleagues at La Trobe University in Melbourne to engage pupils through an interactive environment which enables them to easily create games and simulations. To date, more than a million pupils around the world have been able to experiment with creating games and animations, with more than 250,000 active users currently developing their knowledge and expertise.

With well over one thousand institutions also using the software for their computer science teaching, the design team has increased its support for teachers by establishing seven new international hubs that will offer face-to-face workshops, training and discussions.

via Millions more to benefit from Greenfoot – Research – University of Kent.