Informatics in Education

In Education 4.0, a personalized learning process is expected, and that students are the protagonist. In this new education format, it is necessary to prepare students with the skills and competencies of the 21st-Century, such as teamwork, creativity, and autonomy. One of the ways to develop skills and competencies in students can be through block programming, which can be used with emerging technologies such as robotics and IoT and in an interdisciplinary way. Thus, block programming in High School is important because it is possible to work on aspects such as problem-solving, algorithmic thinking, among other skills (Perin et al., 2021), which are necessary in the contemporary world. Thus, our Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) aims to identify which block programming tools support of Education 4.0 in High School. Overall, 46 papers were selected, and data were extracted. Based on the results, a total of 24 identified block programming tools that can be used in high school collaboratively and playfully and with an interdisciplinary methodology. Moreover, it was possible to see that most studies address block programming with high school students, demonstrating a lack of studies that address block programming with teachers. This SMS contributed to identifying block programming tools, emerging technologies, audience (teacher or student), and learning spaces where block programming is being worked on.

This paper focuses on the analysis of Bebras Challenge tasks to find Informatics tasks that develop abstract thinking. Our study seeks to find which Bebras tasks develop abstraction and in what way. We analysed hundreds of tasks from the Czech contest to identify those tasks requiring participants to abstract directly or use abstract structures. Results show that an agreement among experts on stating which task is focused on abstraction is at a moderate level. We discovered that tasks focused on abstraction occur four to five times less frequently in sets of contest tasks than algorithmic tasks. Our findings proved that abstract tasks results compared with algorithmic ones did not differ in neither age nor gender group of contestants.

Computing science which focuses on computational thinking, has been a compulsory subject in the Thai science curriculum since 2018. This study is an initial program to explore how and to what extend computing science that focused on STEM education learning approach can develop pre-service teachers' computational thinking. The online STEM-based activity-Computing Science Teacher Training (CSTT) Program was developed into a two-day course. The computational thinking test (CTT) data indicated pre-service teachers’ fundamental skills of computational thinking: decomposition, algorithms, pattern recognition, pattern generalization and abstractions. The post-test mean score was higher than the pre-test mean score from 9.27 to 10.9 or 13.58 percentage change. The content analysis indicated that there were five key characteristics founded in the online training program comprised: (1) technical support such as online meeting program, equipment, trainer ICT skills (2) learning management system such as Google Classroom, creating classroom section in code.org (3) the link among policy, curriculum and implementation (4) pre-service teachers' participation and (5) rigor and relevance of how to integrate the applications of computing science into the classroom.

Nowadays, solving problems is substantial for the social relationship human. Computational Thinking (CT) emerges as an interdisciplinary thought process encompassing mental abilities to help students solve and understand problems. Researchers invest in the methodological proposal of activities aimed at CT stimulation, educational approaches, and the conception of technologies that support these activities’ execution. Educational Robotics (ER) is one of these technologies that stand out at different educational levels to favor teamwork, logical thinking, and creativity, skills intimately articulated with the computing paradigm. The main objective of this work is to investigate the impact of ER activities on CT development and subjects learning in the Technical and Vocational Education in High School. For this, we accomplished a study of intervention research type with students and teachers analyzing quantitative and qualitative aspects. The results indicate that the introduction of ER can favor students in the development of CT skills and learning High School subjects.

As an international informatics contest, or challenge, Bebras has started the second decade of its existence. The contest attracts more and more countries every year, recently there have been over 40 participating countries. From a single contest-focused annual event Bebras developed to a multifunctional challenge and an activities-based educational community building model. This paper aims to introduce the Bebras model using ten years of observations in implementing the contest in different countries. The model is essentially based on democratic and inclusive education values. Systematic literature review of research papers concerning Bebras activities has made an integral background for this model. The model is represented both at international and national levels and consists of several components where the development of Bebras tasks has taken a very significant role. Reasoning on innovated learning informatics and strengthening computational thinking by utilising carefully selected informatics concepts is discussed as well.