The teaching of programming in primary and secondary education has once again
revealed the heterogeneity of the ways in which students learn and instructors
teach such a capability. Language barriers and technological skills of the
involved people are some of the factors that affect the usability and
usefulness of educational programming environments. This article presents a
gamified programming environment, called Damo's Quest, that supports middle
school instructors while they teach programming to students who have little
access to computer technology and proficiency in English language. The platform
offers a gamified-educational experience, in which students must deal with
challenges in fantasy stories (in virtual worlds) by programming various
solutions. The usability and perceived usefulness of the first version of this
tool have been evaluated by two researchers, who are experts in computational
thinking. Although preliminary, the results are highly encouraging.