Informatics Education Supporting Computational Thinking

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Informatics in Secondary Schools - Evolution and Perspectives, ISSEP 2008, held in Torun, Poland in July 2008. The 28 revised full papers presented together with 4 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 63 submissions. A broad variety of topics related to teaching informatics in secondary schools is addressed ranging from national experience reports to paedagogical and methodological issues. The papers are organized in topical sections on informatics, a challenging topic, didactical merits of robot-based instruction, transfer of knowledge and concept formation, working with objects and programming, strategies for writing textbooks and teacher education, national and international perspectives on ICT education, as well as e-learning.

Informatics Education – Supporting Computational Thinking contains papers presented at the Third International Conference on Informatics in Secondary Schools – Evolution and Perspective, ISSEP 2008, held in July 2008 in Torun, Poland. As with the proceedings of the two previous ISSEP conferences (2005 in Klag- furt, Austria, and 2006 in Vilnius, Lithuania), the papers presented in this volume address issues of informatics education transcending national boundaries and, the- fore, transcending differences in the various national legislation and organization of the educational system. Observing these issues, one might notice a trend. The p- ceedings of the First ISSEP were termed From Computer Literacy to Informatics F- damentals [1]. There, broad room was given to general education in ICT. The ECDL, the European Computer Driving License, propagated since the late 1990s, had pe- trated school at this time already on a broad scale and teachers, parents, as well as pupils were rather happy with this situation. Teachers had material that had a clear scope, was relatively easy to teach, and especially easy to examine. Parents had the assurance that their children learn “modern and relevant stuff,” and for kids the c- puter was sufficiently modern so that anything that had to do with computers was c- sidered to be attractive. Moreover, the difficulties of programming marking the early days of informatics education in school seemed no longer relevant. Some colleagues had a more distant vision though.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Informatics in Schools: Situation, Evolution and Perspectives, ISSEP 2020, held in Tallinn, Estonia, in November 2020. Due to COVID-19 related travelling restrictions the conference had to be switched to online format. The 18 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 53 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: Tasks for Informatics Competitions; Engagement and Gender Issues in School Informatics; Informatics Teacher Education; Curriculum and Pedagogical Issues.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Informatics in Schools: Situation, Evolution, and Perspectives, ISSEP 2013, held in Oldenburg, Germany, in February/March 2013. The 15 full papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 48 submissions; in addition the book contains two keynote talks in full-paper length. The contributions are organized in topical sections named: from computer usage to computational thinking; algorithmic and computational thinking; games; informatics in the context of other disciplines; and competence-based learning and retention of competencies.

While the growth of computational thinking has brought new awareness to the importance of computing education, it has also created new challenges. Many educational initiatives focus solely on the programming aspects, such as variables, loops, conditionals, parallelism, operators, and data handling, divorcing computing from real-world contexts and applications. This decontextualization threatens to make learners believe that they do not need to learn computing, as they cannot envision a future in which they will need to use it, just as many see math and physics education as unnecessary. The Handbook of Research on Tools for Teaching Computational Thinking in P-12 Education is a cutting-edge research publication that examines the implementation of computational thinking into school curriculum in order to develop creative problem-solving skills and to build a computational identity which will allow for future STEM growth. Moreover, the book advocates for a new approach to computing education that argues that while learning about computing, young people should also have opportunities to create with computing, which will have a direct impact on their lives and their communities. Featuring a wide range of topics such as assessment, digital teaching, and educational robotics, this book is ideal for academicians, instructional designers, teachers, education professionals, administrators, researchers, and students.

This book covers studies of computational thinking related to linking, infusing, and embedding computational thinking elements to school curricula, teacher education and STEM related subjects. Presenting the distinguished and exemplary works by educators and researchers in the field highlighting the contemporary trends and issues, creative and unique approaches, innovative methods, frameworks, pedagogies and theoretical and practical aspects in computational thinking. A decade ago the notion of computational thinking was introduced by Jeannette Wing and envisioned that computational thinking will be a fundamental skill that complements to reading, writing and arithmetic for everyone and represents a universally applicable attitude. The computational thinking is considered a thought processes involved in a way of solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behaviour. Assimilating computational thinking at young age will assist them to enhance problem solving skills, improve logical reasoning, and advance analytical ability - key attributes to succeed in the 21st century. Educators around the world are investing their relentless effort in equipping the young generation with real-world skills ready for the demand and challenges of the future. It is commonly believed that computational thinking will play a pivotal and dominant role in this endeavour. Wide-ranging research on and application of computational thinking in education have been emerged in the last ten years. This book will document attempts to conduct systematic, prodigious and multidisciplinary research in computational thinking and present their findings and accomplishments.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Informatics in Schools: Situation, Evolution, and Perspectives, ISSEP 2017, held in Helsinki, Finland, in November 2017. The 18 full papers presented together with 1 invited talk were carefully reviewed and selected from 41 submissions. ISSEP presents this year a broad range of themes ranging from making informatics accessible to visually impaired students and computational thinking to context- and country specific challenges as well as teacher development and training.

The International Conference on Informatics in Schools: Situation, Evolution and Perspectives - ISSEP - is a forum for researchers and practitioners in the area of Informatics education, both in primary and secondary schools. It provides an opportunity for educators to reflect upon the goals and objectives of this subject, its curricula and various teaching/learning paradigms and topics, possible connections to everyday life and various ways of establishing Informatics Education in schools. This conference also cares about teaching/learning materials, various forms of assessment, traditional and innovative educational research designs, Informatics' contribution to the preparation of children for the 21st century, motivating competitions, projects and activities supporting informatics education in school.