Introducing Computational Thinking in K-12 Education: Historical, Epistemological, Pedagogical, Cognitive, and Affective Aspects

Introduction of scientific and cultural aspects of Computer Science (CS) (called "Computational Thinking" - CT) in K-12 education is fundamental. We focus on three crucial areas. 1. Historical, philosophical, and pedagogical aspects. What are the big ideas of CS we must teach? What are the historical and pedagogical contexts in which CT emerged, and why are relevant? What is the relationship between learning theories (e.g., constructivism) and teaching approaches (e.g., plugged and unplugged)? 2. Cognitive aspects. What is the sentiment of generalist teachers not trained to teach CS? What misconceptions do they hold about concepts like CT and "coding"? 3. Affective and motivational aspects. What is the impact of personal beliefs about intelligence (mindset) and about CS ability? What the role of teaching approaches? This research has been conducted both through historical and philosophical argumentation, and through quantitative and qualitative studies (both on nationwide samples and small significant ones), in particular through the lens of (often exaggerated) claims about transfer from CS to other skills. Four important claims are substantiated. 1. CS should be introduced in K-12 as a tool to understand and act in our digital world, and to use the power of computation for meaningful learning. CT is the conceptual sediment of that learning. We designed a curriculum proposal in this direction. 2. The expressions CT (useful to distantiate from digital literacy) and "coding" can cause misconceptions among teachers, who focus mainly on transfer to general thinking skills. Both disciplinary and pedagogical teacher training is hence needed. 3. Some plugged and unplugged teaching tools have intrinsic constructivist characteristics that can facilitate CS learning, as shown with proposed activities. 4. Growth mindset is not automatically fostered by CS, while not studying CS can foster fixed beliefs. Growth mindset can be fostered by creative computing, leveraging on its constructivist aspects

Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments

This book presents the collection of fifty two papers which were presented on the First International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY ’08 - Management, Technology and Learning for Individuals, Organisations and Society in Turbulent Environments, held in Ofir, Portugal, from 25th to 27th of June, 2008. The main motive of the meeting was the growing awareness of the importance of the sustainability issue. This importance had emerged from the growing uncertainty of the market behaviour that leads to the characterization of the market, i.e. environment, as turbulent. Actually, the characterization of the environment as uncertain and turbulent reflects the fact that the traditional technocratic and/or socio-technical approaches cannot effectively and efficiently lead with the present situation. In other words, the rise of the sustainability issue means the quest for new instruments to deal with uncertainty and/or turbulence. The sustainability issue has a complex nature and solutions are sought in a wide range of domains and instruments to achieve and manage it. The domains range from environmental sustainability (referring to natural environment) through organisational and business sustainability towards social sustainability. Concerning the instruments for sustainability, they range from traditional engineering and management methodologies towards “soft” instruments such as knowledge, learning, creativity. The papers in this book address virtually whole sustainability problems space in a greater or lesser extent. However, although the uncertainty and/or turbulence, or in other words the dynamic properties, come from coupling of management, technology, learning, individuals, organisations and society, meaning that everything is at the same time effect and cause, we wanted to put the emphasis on business with the intention to address primarily the companies and their businesses. From this reason, the main title of the book is “Business Sustainability” but with the approach of coupling Management, Technology and Learning for individuals, organisations and society in Turbulent Environments. Concerning the First International Conference on BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, its particularity was that it had served primarily as a learning environment in which the papers published in this book were the ground for further individual and collective growth in understanding and perception of sustainability and capacity for building new instruments for business sustainability. In that respect, the methodology of the conference work was basically dialogical, meaning promoting dialog on the papers, but also including formal paper presentations. In this way, the conference presented a rich space for satisfying different authors’ and participants’ needs. Additionally, promoting the widest and global learning environment and participativeness, the Conference Organisation provided the broadcasting over Internet of the Conference sessions, dialogical and formal presentations, for all authors’ and participants’ institutions, as an innovative Conference feature. In these terms, this book could also be understood as a complementary instrument to the Conference authors’ and participants’, but also to the wider readerships’ interested in the sustainability issues. The book brought together 97 authors from 10 countries, namely from Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Sweden and United Kingdom. The authors “ranged” from senior and renowned scientists to young researchers providing a rich and learning environment. At the end, the editors hope and would like that this book will be useful, meeting the expectation of the authors and wider readership and serving for enhancing the individual and collective learning, and to incentive further scientific development and creation of new papers. Also, the editors would use this opportunity to announce the intention to continue with new editions of the conference and subsequent editions of accompanying books on the subject of BUSINESS SUSTAINABILITY, the second of which is planned for year 2011.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

e-Skills: The International dimension and the Impact of Globalisation - Final Report 2014

In today’s increasingly knowledge-based economies, new information and communication technologies are a key engine for growth fuelled by the innovative ideas of highly - skilled workers. However, obtaining adequate quantities of employees with the necessary e-skills is a challenge. This is a growing international problem with many countries having an insufficient numbers of workers with the right e-Skills. For example: Australia: “Even though there’s 10,000 jobs a year created in IT, there are only 4500 students studying IT at university, and not all of them graduate” (Talevski and Osman, 2013). Brazil: “Brazil’s ICT sector requires about 78,000 [new] people by 2014. But, according to Brasscom, there are only 33,000 youths studying ICT related courses in the country” (Ammachchi, 2012). Canada: “It is widely acknowledged that it is becoming inc reasingly difficult to recruit for a variety of critical ICT occupations –from entry level to seasoned” (Ticoll and Nordicity, 2012). Europe: It is estimated that there will be an e-skills gap within Europe of up to 900,000 (main forecast scenario) ICT pr actitioners by 2020” (Empirica, 2014). Japan: It is reported that 80% of IT and user companies report an e-skills shortage (IPA, IT HR White Paper, 2013) United States: “Unlike the fiscal cliff where we are still peering over the edge, we careened over the “IT Skills Cliff” some years ago as our economy digitalized, mobilized and further “technologized”, and our IT skilled labour supply failed to keep up” (Miano, 2013)