Teaching programming at primary schools: visions, experiences, and long-term research prospects

Authors:
Giovanni Serafini
Affiliations:
Department of Computer Science, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Venue:
ISSEP'11 Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Informatics in Schools: situation, Evolution and Perspectives
Year:
2011

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Abstract

The key contribution of computer science to general and school education relies on the concept of Computational Thinking. Teaching programming in Logo at the primary school is an appropriate didactic approach towards Computational Thinking, it permits to embed Computational Thinking into a spiral curriculum at a very early stage and should enable specific transfer to related school subjects. The paper describes our concrete experiences in teaching programming in Logo at Swiss primary schools, reflects on didactic visions and consider prospects for long-term empirical research.