Supporting K-12 computer science education
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Why teaching informatics in schools is as important as teaching mathematics and natural sciences
ISSEP'11 Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Informatics in Schools: situation, Evolution and Perspectives
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Computing science is not a part of standard grammar school (secondary) education in the Czech Republic. As a part of an effort to change this, we have developed an introductory computing science course. It consists of multiple month long modules. The first module deals with the notion of information. Students are expected to understand it sufficiently for comparing informational gain of statements or questions. Along with binary numeral system, they are expected to understand the relation between data length and the amount of information stored. In this paper we describe the module itself and present the results from the first run of experimental teaching. The aim was to find out the limits of such topic on grammar schools and suitability of chosen teaching methods. It turned out that no matter how abstract is the term information itself, students are capable of acquiring it deep enough so that it would be beneficial for them.