Session 1 - Thursday 13:30 - 14:40

The Children's Congress 2019 at JKU Linz Author: Sara Hinterplattner and Corinna Kröhn The Children’s Congress is an event, developed to meet a demand for strengthening computational thinking and to increase the interest in STEAM subjects. This congress brings teachers, university students and pupils together to work interdisciplinary on real-life problems. During these proceedings, the pupils slip into the role of researchers and scientists. The Children’s Congress aims to inspire pupils, students and teachers to work with computational thinking, as well as promoting the concept of working in an inter- or transdisciplinary way. It is a core value of the Children’s Congress that the project should challenge and benefit everyone involved. This unique aim sets the event apart from other learning activities by focusing not only on the pupils but also on in-service training for the pupils’ teachers and for gifted students at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz. In this talk we will present the projects of the Children's Congress 2019 and discuss the evaluation.

Physical computing and computational thinking skills in lower secondary Author: Oliver Kastner-Hauler Physical Computing and Computational Thinking is being promoted using the single-board computer BBC micro:bit at schools in Austria along with block-based programming and the essential haptic experience. "Coding, Making & Robotics" has thus arrived in secondary education grade 5 to 8. The dissemination of Basic Digital Education even for non Computer Science Teacher will be supported with this project. The actual standings of the project will be presented and be open for plenary discussion.

Requirements for a mobile teaching case for the practical implementation of didactic goals of computer science teaching with help of a single board computer Author: Jens Nothacker In the first part of this paper, the didactic objectives and guidelines from the latest teaching plans of the different types of schools (schools, colleges, universities) in the D-A-CH regions are set out in terms of information technology and its detailed lessons with a qualitatively deductive meta-analysis, which can be implemented with a single board computer and compressed into a compendium of skills to be learned. In the second part of this work, a market analysis of single-board computers and existing learning packages containing single-board computers is carried out in order to evaluate the existing offerings according to different criteria. The third part of this paper analyses the results of the first and second parts. Teaching tasks are developed by combining the requirements of the analyses according to the developed digital didactic objectives with a combinatorial approach and with the theoretical COOL informatics principles with which the digital didactic content is based on part 1 can be conveyed. The contents of the mobile teaching case for computer science lessons are compiled based on the previously developed tasks and the required hardware parts. The results are a task book that follows the COOL informatics principles and the digital didactic objectives of the curricular, as well as a partial list of the contents of a mobile teaching case, which is designed differently based on the number of learners and the learning objectives to be taught. Finally, the fourth part of the planned work will determine whether the digital content can be conveyed accordingly with the developed suitcase and the developed task book. Success measurement is based on a survey/ examination before and/or after the lesson to assess the improvement of knowledge. The paper concludes with a conclusion and an outlook.

First Programming With Ozobots - A Creative Approach To Early Computer Science In Primary Education Author: Karin Tengler Co-Authors: Barbara Sabitzer, Oliver Kastner-Hauler Basic digital education is becoming an important topic, also at primary level. Computational thinking is seen as one of the basic conditions for fostering students' problem-solving thinking skills in primary school. In the field of early computing education, however, there are no empirically founded competence models available yet. Nevertheless, experts agree that playful methods of programming, e.g. with robots, can foster computational thinking and creativity. Enhancing creativity is an important task in primary education and it is also one of the key skills required for 21st century learning. First programming with Ozobots, which are small robots that can be programmed with color codes, is part of a research project of the University College for Teacher Education in Lower Austria. By using the method of lesson study, it will be investigated if aspects of creativity in programming Ozobots can be identified or differences between girls and boys can be determined. The purpose of this presentation is to show how an introduction to programming with Ozobots in a child-friendly way can be successful at primary level. It will also be shown how computing education can be integrated in primary school. In addition, the first results of the lesson study research will be presented.

Dialog between different kinds of technologies Author: Thierry Dana-Picard In a technology-rich environment, the researcher/the educator may have his\her own choice, which technology to use for a given problem. Two or more than two kinds of technology may be used for studying a given problem. Their joint efficiency is conditioned by the dialog which can be established between them. We study different cases: sometimes two kinds of technology of different level collaborate, in other situations two kinds of software have to exchange data.

Teaching fractals for gifted learners at age 12 by using novel technologies Author: Zoltán Kovács A summary of an experimental course on fractals is given that was held for young learners at age 12. The course was a part of Epsilon camp, a program designed for very gifted students who have already demonstrated high interest in studying mathematics. Prerequisites for the course were mastery of Algebra I, experience and fluency in skills like exponentials and square roots, solving equations. Also, at least two preliminary years were required in a prior Epsilon camp. The summary gives an overview of the flow of teaching, the achieved results and some evaluation of the given feedback.