Quorum

Uno strumento nuovo per favorire l'apprendimento di disabili e

[Music] If you're a camera, a 3D camera
and you're looking at her, and she's

pointing in that direction. The question
is What do you call 'x'

What do you call 'Y' and what do you call
'z'.

I would want to take all of the knowledge
that I've learned through out this camp.

Using Quorum and maybe develop my
own game. Maybe later down the line.

I really want to teach others. Uhm.
That's sort of what I like to do. And

with quorum I can do that much easier.

As we're now going to say box. Tech
nology jobs are in demand.

And an understanding of computing and
coding is important for anyone pursuing

these opportunities. But learning
programming languages can be difficult for

any new student, including some students
with disabilities.

That's why quorum was created. My name is
Andreas Stefik. I am an assistant

professor of Computer Science at The
University of Nevada Las Vegas.

I invented the Quorum programming
language, at first, then my wife and I

actually created several versions of it
together.

It was originally designed to help blind
and visually impaired students learn to

program more easily. the reason was

because at the time a lot of computer
science

was moving toward a very visual content.

And that in general makes a lot of sense,
however, not if you're blind.

I'm Richard Ladner, professor in computer

Science and engineering at the
University of Washington.

So you really need sort of similar code
to what you have there already.

So, they're not always so visual. If you
look at almost all the tools that are out

Children who are blind, who can't see
can actually program in Quorum.

And make things that talk, or have sound
or have music.

there for children. They're all super
visual.

And this one is visual and auditory.

So that makes it much better for every
body.

I am Lauren Milne, I'm a graduate student

Uhm, I work with Richard Ladner and uhm, I

at University of Washington in Computer
Science.

do a lot of research in programming
languages

specifically for blind students. it has

full support for screen readers and
braille displays

and it has a lot of features, it's very

easy to incorporate audio in programs

and a lot of things that you can play

around with in audio so it means you can

make really accessible, you know, you can

quickly and easily make accessible games

or, uh, whatever you'd like, uh, using
Quorum.

Quorums features are universally designed

Making it an easier language to learn, in
general.

One of the reasons why Quorum is easier

in some cases, for people to learn and
grasp,

is because the language is simpler. Which

impacts people with learning disabilities.

For example, if I were to tell the
computer

to do something over and over again,

in a language like Java, I would say
(language on screen)

Which obviously means that we should do

something 10 times. In Quorum, I say
repeat 10 times.

I find, personally, reading Quorum program

Java programs. I can understand them more

a lot easier than reading C programs or

easily and so I feel like there's major

advantages from the get go. Just that

simple elegance.

Most languages, after every single line

you have to put a semi colon. Why do you

have to put a semi colon? It seems to be

just tradition. It doesn't need to be
there.

And Quorum, has no semi colons.

They thought that it would be really good

for certain students with learning
disabilities

Quorum doesn't use braces, uhm, it uses

indentation and it uses keywords instead

to indicate the end of loops. I want you

to type the word model, and then I want

you to type the word box. Now there's a

red underline here because we haven't
added.

Over the years, Quorum has gained
popularity.

I'm Dominic and I'm really into computers,

and really enjoy using Quorum, and have

used other computer programs before like

C++ and Java. One of the things that

stands out to me in Quorum is the
punctuation.

And it's like really easy to uhm because

you don't have to add in all the semi
colons

and all the annoying like hash tags and @

symbols and everything. You just use words

basically, which is way easier than using

all those confusing symbols and I think

that makes it easier for me to program

in Quorum than in other languages.

Hi, I'm Alyssa. What makes Quorum easier

is the way they wrote, the way they program

for us to write the code. So we don't

have to add semi colons and brackets and

paranthesis and all this stuff. It, they

made it easier. You can just type in a

word, alpha, lets say for example and

then you can write in quotes whatever you

want the computer to say. And that's what

makes it a lot more unique than other

programming languages like Java.

I'm Mary. You can do a lot more things in

Quorum with less language code than in

some other things that I've used before.

Quorum is evidence based. Using the

results of Scientific experiments to
determine how to make

the language easier to use.

Quorum provides two primary benefits. One

is everything is free. And then number

two, at the end of the day, all of the

materials that we use and that we give

the people are vetted both by teachers and

students and are vetted in experiements

through the scientific method.

The result is a programming language

that is creating a more inviting
environment

for computing students.

A lot of people, I get to see in classes

that I've taught come in and, you know,

they get really intimidated the first, you

know, when they start programming and

there's all sorts of bugs, and it can be

very frustrating. People drop out, and

very often the people that stick around

are people who have come in, who come in

to a college course with previous
programming experience

Anything that lowers that initial entry

is going to bring a lot more people, a lot

more diversity because of that.