One of the biggest areas of confusion for many outsiders when it comes to computing education is around terminology. And this confusion with terminology directly links to the issue of what we are or should be teaching our students.

The term computing is so broad and vague for many of us that we replace it quite randomly with other terms such as ICT, programming, coding, computer science, informatics, etc. However, these terms are not the same and we should understand the difference in order to decide better what areas to focus on. Of course, which of these areas to focus on in our teaching of computing is a matter of great debate amongst academics and politicians.

Most recently there has been a strong push towards a focus on coding in the classroom. And this recent push for coding in the classroom is also what triggered this course. However, while the course will indeed have a strong focus on teaching coding in the classroom, we don't want to ignore the other areas that can be captured under the broad term computing.

So to get a better understanding of what we mean by computing in this course, take a look at the two videos below. The first video is from the University of Southampton in England and outlines what all English schools (primary and secondary) are required to teach since last year. The second video is a presentation from Peter Hubwieser, a professor of didactics of informatics in Germany where heoutlines the meaning of key terminology that is linked to the broader term of computing.

Task: What is the situation of computing teaching in your country? Briefly explain in the padlet below (and on your learning diary, just copy & paste) what parts of computing are already taught in primary schools in your country. Do students work with computers at primary level? Do they learn how to use software? Do they already write basic code? Do you explore topics such as esafety with them? Identify anything that you do in your school that you think might link to computing.

Computing as a topic or even subject is quite rarely embedded into what is taught at primary schools. And many might argue that it is a much too technical topic to be relevant at primary level. That computing does not necessarily need to be very technical is something we look at later in the course but even if it were, there are many reasons why we should be looking at computing with students at a very early age. 

The below videos provide you with a range of reasons why computing-related skills and knowledge are fundamentally important for the lives of our students and not just for the sake of understanding technology. The key about learning to programme is that it is a transferable skillthat can be used in many different areas of life. While the two speakers mostly talk about coding you will notice that in fact they mean more than just coding but other computational skills as well. 

Task: After watching the videos, think about how you could explain to your students the importance of computing. A good strategy will be to highlight to students how an understanding of computers will help them understand how the world around them works. To get started with thisidentify one everday object, activity, situation, etc. for which an understanding of computing and knowledge of how to programme machines can help the students understand their world around them. 

Here are some examples to get you started: switching the channel on your television, taking an elevator, a traffic light, a dishwasher.

You could phrase these as questions: How does the TV know to switch channel when I press a button on the remote? How does the elevator know to go to the 3rd floor when I press a button? How does the traffic light know to switch from green to red after 30 seconds? How does the dishwasher know what to do when I switch it on?

Write your answers in the Padlet below the videos.

What exactly is it that we should be teaching when looking at computing in our classrooms? Clearlybasic skills of coding and how to programme machines will be a part of this but you will notice when watching the videos in this and the next section that these aspects actually play only a very small role in what teachers and academics argue should be at the heart of teaching computing. 

In this section, you will find some interviews with teachers and academics about what they think is important when it comes to teaching computing. You will notice that they purely focus on non-technical skills such as perserverence, collaboration, visualisation, analytical thinking, etc.and that you have probably already been teaching these skills to your students in some form.

Of course you will have to develop some basic technical skills yourself but if you have been worried that you have to become a technical wizard to teach computing in your classroom, these interviews will hopefully give you confidence to approach the subject from a different, non-technical angle. 

Task: In the Padlet below the video, identify a classroom activity or project that is designed to address one of the skills identified in the video. This activity or project does not have to do anything with computing. It could be a team-building activity, an activity where students have to visualize something and thereby simplify a complex reality (e.g. a map for a treasure hunt), or a project that requires students to break up a bigger task into smaller tasks (e.g. recording a short film). 

In this second section on what to focus on we explore the concept of computational thinking. This concept encapsulates some of the areas addressed by the teachers and academics in the previous section and packages this into a coherent framework. 

In the first video Peter Hubwieser provides a comprehensive outline of the concept and all of its components. In the second video you will find a shorter summary and an example of applying computational thinking at Google. Below the videos you will find some resources from Google on computational thinking. Click on one of the elements of computational thinking (e.g. Decomposition) to access a nice short summary of each concept.

Each module activity focuses on collecting key ideas and resources on your learning diary. In this first module you have 3 tasks:

• Creating your Learning Diary
• Completing the 3 main tasks of the module and adding them to your diary
• Adding other resources, comments, ideas you have come across in the module to your diary

 

1. Creating your Learning Diary

In the course introduction this task was already outlined but if you haven't done so yet, now is the time to create your learning diary. We recommend you use Padlet for this but any online environment where you can collect digital artifacts and which you can easily share using a link is possible. 

In this first week, start out by introducing yourself, your classroom and school so that anybody reading your diary will understand better the context of your work on the course. Remember, these diaries have to be submitted in the final module and will be reviewed by other course participants.

You can find an example and a video on how to setup your Padlet in the course introduction.

2. Answering the module questions on your diary

In Module 1 there were three main tasks. Each of these should make you REFLECT ON YOUR SITUATION in regards to teaching computing:

1. What is the situation of computing teaching in your country?
2. Identify one everday object, activity, situation, etc. for which an understanding of computing and knowledge of how to programme machines can help the students understand their world around them. 
3. Identify a classroom activity or project that is designed to address one of the skills identified in the video in section 1.3.

You have probably completed these tasks already as you went through the module. So all you need to do now is copy your answers to your learning diary.

3. Adding other resources, comments, ideas to your diary

There are a lot of resources on this course and there will be even more material to look at as soon as everybody starts posting to the Padlets, on social media and in the Forum. It is important to filter all of this so that it becomes relevant for you. This is your final task for this week. Go back through the module and select a couple of resources, comments or ideas shared on the course by other participants or by the instructors which you feel are important to come back to at a later stage and post these to your diary.

AND FINALLY, why not post a link to your diary in the Tricider below so that others can take a look and provide you some feedback. Please note that you will have to post your link again in the final module. Just posting it on the Tricider below does not count as formal submission of your diary which is required in the final module.