T{h}inker: A Physical Computing Tool Kit for Computational Thinking

摘要

Identifying engaging programming tasks to teach computational thinking and programming skills, especially to students of post-secondary education, is a challenging problem for lecturers. Physical computing is a potential solution that provides ample opportunities for creative development of such skills. The availability of pre-assembled physical computing tool kits often do not offer the right level of abstraction and flexibility to suit educator's needs. Consequently, this paper presents the design of a custom physical computing tool kit, T{h}inker, primarily for learning and teaching computational thinking and programming skills. Prior to design discussions, the context and motivation behind designing T{h}inker has been presented. Preliminary pilot deployment sessions of T{h}inker for both teachers and students confirm its potential as an effective tool for both teaching and learning of thinking skills.