Code for competence - Programmieren für Zweitklässler mit ScratchJr

Wir beschreiben und belegen anhand eines Pilotprojekts in einer zweiten Grundschulklasse, dass Informatik in der Grundschule das Potential hat, fächerübergreifend Kompetenzen in fast allen Fächern des Grundschulkanons zu fördern. Wir erläutern mehrere Unterrichtseinheiten eines ScratchJr-Einsatzes und dokumentieren positive Wirkungen auf vielfältige Kompetenzen, die Kinder im Grundschulalter erwerben sollen. Der Beitrag stellt einen Erfahrungsbericht und qualitative Ergebnisse zur Verfügung. Eingesetzte Arbeitsmaterialien werden online zur Verfügung gestellt. Die bisherigen positiven Erfahrungen haben uns veranlasst, die Arbeit mit ScratchJr in der Pilotklasse auf mehrere Monate auszudehnen

An exploration of the role of visual programming tools in the development of young children’s computational thinking

Programming tools are being used in education to teach computer science to children as young as 5 years old. This research aims to explore young children’s approaches to programming in two tools with contrasting programming interfaces, ScratchJr and Lightbot, and considers the impact of programming approaches on developing computational thinking. A study was conducted using two versions of a Lightbot-style game, either using a ScratchJr-like or Lightbot style programming interface. A test of non-verbal reasoning was used to perform a matched assignment of 40, 6 and 7-year-olds to the two conditions. Each child then played their version of the game for 30 minutes. The results showed that both groups had similar overall performance, but as expected, the children using the ScratchJr-like interface performed more program manipulation or ‘tinkering’. The most interesting finding was that non-verbal reasoning was a predictor of program manipulation, but only for the ScratchJr-like condition. Children approached the ScratchJr-like program differently depending on prior ability. More research is required to establish how children use programming tools and how these approaches influence computational thinking

An Immersive Telepresence System using RGB-D Sensors and Head Mounted Display

We present a tele-immersive system that enables people to interact with each other in a virtual world using body gestures in addition to verbal communication. Beyond the obvious applications, including general online conversations and gaming, we hypothesize that our proposed system would be particularly beneficial to education by offering rich visual contents and interactivity. One distinct feature is the integration of egocentric pose recognition that allows participants to use their gestures to demonstrate and manipulate virtual objects simultaneously. This functionality enables the instructor to ef- fectively and efficiently explain and illustrate complex concepts or sophisticated problems in an intuitive manner. The highly interactive and flexible environment can capture and sustain more student attention than the traditional classroom setting and, thus, delivers a compelling experience to the students. Our main focus here is to investigate possible solutions for the system design and implementation and devise strategies for fast, efficient computation suitable for visual data processing and network transmission. We describe the technique and experiments in details and provide quantitative performance results, demonstrating our system can be run comfortably and reliably for different application scenarios. Our preliminary results are promising and demonstrate the potential for more compelling directions in cyberlearning.Comment: IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia 201

Novice programming environments: lowering the barriers, supporting the progression

In 2011, the author published an article that looked at the state of the art in novice programming environments. At the time, there had been an increase in the number of programming environments that were freely available for use by novice programmers, particularly children and young people. What was interesting was that they offered a relatively sophisticated set of development and support features within motivating and engaging environments, where programming could be seen as a means to a creative end, rather than an end in itself. Furthermore, these environments incorporated support for the social and collaborative aspects of learning. The article considered five environments—Scratch, Alice, Looking Glass, Greenfoot, and Flip— examining their characteristics and investigating the opportunities they might offer to educators and learners alike. It also considered the broader implications of such environments for both teaching and research. In this chapter, the author revisits the same five environments, looking at how they have changed in the intervening years. She considers their evolution in relation to changes in the field more broadly (e.g., an increased focus on “programming for all”) and reflects on the implications for teaching, as well as research and further development

Code girl

Despite the growing importance of technology and computing, fewer than 1% of women in college today choose to major in computer science.[1] Educational programs and games created to interest girls in computing, such as Girls Who Code and Made With Code, have been successful in engaging girls with interactive and creative learning environments, but they are too advanced for young girls to bene t from. To address the lack of educational, computer science games designed speci cally for young girls, we developed a web-based application called Code Girl for girls age ve to eight to customize their own avatar using Blockly, an open-source visual coding editor developed by Google. Girls learn basic computer science and problem-solving skills by successfully using puzzle-piece like blocks to complete challenges that unlock new accessories for their avatar. In conducting user testing with a Girl Scouts ages six to eight, we assessed the complexity of the application and identi ed ways make Code Girl more user-friendly and intuitive. The overall feedback we received on Code Girl in user testing was positive, as a majority of the girls expressed an interest in playing the game again and playing more games designed to teach programming. Code Girl thus appeals to the general pastimes of young girls to interest them in computer science from an early age and hopefully inspires them to pursue computing as a career. Before being released to the public, a few improvements are necessary. The application must be made fully responsive, the page load time when deployed must be reduced, and additional challenges and accessories for the avatar should be incorporated, all of which will better reach and engage users in learning about computing, thereby educating and empowering them even more

Bricolage Programming and Problem Solving Ability in Young Children : an Exploratory Study

Visual programming environments, such as Scratch, are increasingly being used by schools to teach problem solving and computational thinking skills. However, academic research is divided on the effect that visual programming has on problem solving in a computational context. This paper focuses on the role of bricolage programming in this debate; a bottom-up programming approach that arises when using block-style programming interfaces. Bricolage programming was a term originally used to describe the constructionist benefits of novice programming environments, yet more recent research has suggested it may promote poor programming practice that can negatively affect student ability and motivation. This paper describes an exploratory research study into bricolage programming aimed at exploring this concept in more depth. The study used a post-test only experimental design to explore the effects of bricolage programming on problem solving when playing an educational programming game. Two versions of the game were created, one that used a Scratch-like visual programming interface to encourage bricolage, and one that used a more structured visual programming interface. A pre-test based on non-verbal reasoning was used to perform a matched assignment of forty, 6 and 7 year olds to the two conditions. Each child then played their version of the game for thirty minutes. It was hypothesised that children in the Scratch-like condition would insert, move and delete more programming instructions, in line with a bricolage approach. This in turn could result in differentiation in performance between conditions. The results of this study showed that more indications of bricolage did occur in the Scratch-like condition. However, a range of measures of overall performance revealed no difference between the two groups. Post-hoc analysis of the data suggested that indications of bricolage may vary according to the relative progress made by participants in the game. Findings and opportunities for future work are discussed. Keywords: Bricolage Programming, Problem Solving, Computational Thinking, Lightbot, Constructionism, Scratc

Code of the Wild

K-2 students love to create stories about their favorite animals. Using free software called ScratchJr, participants will learn to teach basic Computational Thinking skills that allow K-2 students to create animated stories about animals in their natural environments. Participants should bring a laptop or tablet

การจัดการเรียนรู้โค้ดดิ้งโดยไม่ใช้คอมพิวเตอร์ร่วมกับโปรแกรมการเขียนชุดคำสั่งเพื่อส่งเสริมการคิดเชิงคำนวณสำหรับเด็กปฐมวัย

The Learning Provision of Unplugged Coding with A Set of Writing Coding Instructional Program to Promote Computational Thinking of Young Children   Sarunya Yangyeun, Oraphan Butkatunyoo and Piyanan Hirunchalothorn   รับบทความ: 24 พฤศจิกายน 2565; แก้ไขบทความ: 28 กรกฎาคม 2566; ยอมรับตีพิมพ์: 30 กรกฎาคม 2566; ตีพิมพ์ออนไลน์: 18 ธันวาคม 2566   บทคัดย่อ การศึกษาครั้งนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อศึกษาพัฒนาการด้านการคิดเชิงคำนวณของเด็กปฐมวัยระหว่างการจัดการเรียนรู้โค้ดดิ้งโดยไม่ใช้คอมพิวเตอร์ร่วมกับโปรแกรมการเขียนชุดคำสั่ง และเพื่อสังเกตและบันทึกพฤติกรรมที่แสดงพัฒนาการด้านการคิดเชิงคำนวณสำหรับเด็กปฐมวัย กลุ่มเป้าหมายที่ใช้ในการศึกษาครั้งนี้ อายุระหว่าง 5–6 ปี ที่กำลังศึกษาในระดับชั้นอนุบาลปีที่ 3 โรงเรียนสาธิตละอออุทิศ สังกัดสำนักงานคณะกรรมการการอุดมศึกษา กรุงเทพมหานคร จำนวน 16 คน เครื่องมือที่ใช้ในการศึกษา ได้แก่ แผนการจัดการเรียนรู้โดยใช้โค้ดดิ้งโดยไม่ใช้คอมพิวเตอร์ร่วมกับโปรแกรมการเขียนชุดคำสั่ง จำนวน 24 แผน และแบบประเมินการคิดเชิงคำนวณสำหรับเด็กปฐมวัย วิเคราะห์ข้อมูลเชิงปริมาณ โดยใช้ข้อมูลทางสถิติ หาค่าเฉลี่ย ค่าเบี่ยงเบนมาตรฐาน และวิเคราะห์ข้อมูลเชิงคุณภาพโดยการวิเคราะห์เนื้อหา ผลการศึกษาพบว่าทักษะการคิดเชิงคำนวณทั้งโดยรวมและรายด้าน ทั้ง 4 ด้านสูงขึ้นอย่างต่อเนื่อง โดยด้านที่มีความเปลี่ยนแปลงมากที่สุด คือ ด้านการพิจารณาสาระ สำคัญของปัญหา รองลงมาคือ ด้านการออกแบบอัลกอริทึม ด้านการแยกย่อยปัญหาใหญ่ออกเป็นปัญหาย่อย และด้านที่การเปลี่ยนแปลงที่น้อยที่สุด คือ ด้านการจัดรูปแบบของปัญหาหรือวิธีการแก้ปัญหา โดยเด็กสามารถแก้ไขปัญหาด้วยการออกแบบและวางแผนการสร้างนิทานด้วยโปรแกรมการเขียนชุดคำสั่ง ScratchJr คำสำคัญ:  การคิดเชิงคำนวณ  โค้ดดิ้งโดยไม่ใช้คอมพิวเตอร์  โปรแกรมการเขียนชุดคำสั่ง  เด็กปฐมวัย   Abstract The purpose of this study was to study the development of computational thinking of young children during the learning provision of unplugged coding with a set of writing instruction program, and to observe and record behaviors that showed the development of computational thinking of young children. The target groups in this study were 16 boys and girls, age between 5–6 years old, studying in kindergarten level 3 at Laor Uthit Demonstration School under the Office of the higher education council Bangkok. The instruments used in the study were: 24 plans of learning provision unplugged coding with a set of writing coding instructions computational thinking of young children Using statistical data to analyze by mean and standard deviation and analyze qualitative data through content analysis typology and content des-cription. The development of computational thinking skills in all and 4 areas was higher, with the area that changed the most was abstraction, followed by algorithm, decomposition, and the aspect in which the least change is pattern recognition. Almost children can solve problems by designing and planning story creation with the ScratchJr instruction set program. Keywords: Computational thinking, Unplugged coding, Set of writing coding instructional program, Young childre