(2010) INCLUSIVE INSTRUMENT TO DEVELOP COMPUTATIONAL THINKING SKILLS

摘要

It has been recently recognized that computational thinking and problem solving are fundamentalcross-disciplinary skills that can be effectively developed by facing simple programming challenges.Cloud-based visual programming platforms and playful massive open online courses have loweredaccess barriers and supported worldwide computer literacy campaigns targeting not only IT-giftedpupils, but neophytes of any age regardless of their aptitudes and dreams.Giving to everyone the opportunity to think like a programmer has become a priority for manygovernments, inducing for the first time education ministries to officially invite schools to leveragefreely available online resources in order to speedup the process and achieve early results withoutwaiting for a full fledged reform of curricula.In this scenario, digital divide risks to cause serious discrimination due to the lack of suitable Internetaccess infrastructures and computation equipment, to the adverse socio-economic conditions, to thecultural background, and to the language barriers.This paper presents a new method that makes use of special playing cards inspired to the buildingblocks of visual programming tools to enable unplugged coding experiences. Language neutrality isachieved by making use of evocative symbols in place of words. The same cards can be used tocreate many different games belonging to two main categories: board games and spatial games. Twotarget groups have been chosen to test the inclusiveness and the engagement capabilities of theproposed method: primary schools affected by digital divide issues, and multiethnic groups of asylumseekers and refugees. The paper presents the proposed methodology and reports the results of thefirst field trials.