Augusto Chioccariello

Italian National Research Council | CNR · Institute for Educational Technology ITD

According to the Italian pedagogist Loris Malaguzzi, children use a hundred different languages to express themselves. In order to be literate in today’s digital world, one further language is needed: programming. The creative construction of multimedia stories offers children and teachers alike a rich context for the introduction of computing educ...

When the COVID-19 pandemic caused all Italian schools to close in March 2020, four classes of an Italian primary schools were busy creating Scratch projects aiming at a final event at the end of the school year. As all teaching activities moved online, teaching time was reduced in order to maintain students’ daily computer hours to an acceptable le...

Computational Thinking (CT) and related concepts, as programming and algorithmic thinking, have been recently advocated as abilities that are as fundamental as numeracy and literacy, and many countries all over the world are introducing programming activities in education. In Italy, even if the introduction of CT and programming in schools is on th...

Computational Thinking is one of the main topics on the educational policy agenda of many countries throughout the world. Its introduction into compulsory education is on the way, and there is an urgent need to define how it can be integrated into the class activities. This chapter discusses several advantages and some drawbacks of the use of a vis...

An overview of the experience of favouring the uptake of coding through Scratch as a cross-disciplinary subject in Italian primary schools involving all the classes and most teachers is given. A close relation between coding and curricular objectives is sought and an evaluation of students’ actual learning is on the way. We are supporting the intro...

Digital games are becoming more and more popular worldwide, arousing children’s interest and fostering their motivation. Furthermore, tablets and smartphones are increasingly popular and widespread all around the globe, guaranteeing access to the web and to an ever-growing availability of games. This paper is based on the assumption that introducin...

This report discusses the introduction of Computational Thinking (CT) in compulsory education in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Promoted and funded by the Nordic@BETT2018 Steering Group, the report provides an overview of the current status of CT and Programming in the four countries’ curricula and national plans. It also discusses ongoing CT...

In the past decade, Computational Thinking (CT) and related concepts (e.g. coding, programing, algorithmic thinking) have received increasing attention in the educational field. This has given rise to a large amount of academic and grey literature, and also numerous public and private implementation initiatives. Despite this widespread interest, su...

Computational Thinking, which entails using analytic and algorithmic approaches to formulate, analyse and solve problems, has increasingly gained attention in the educational field in the past decade, giving rise to a large amount of academic and grey literature, as well as to numerous public and private initiatives to implement it. Despite such wi...

This paper reports on initial findings of a study on developing computational thinking (CT) as a 21st Century skill. Extensive desktop research collecting evidences from the (academic and grey) literature has been complemented with a survey on policy documents and several semi-structured interviews with policy makers, researchers and practitioners...

Digital technology has radically changed the way people work in industry, finance, services, media and commerce. Informatics has contributed to the scientific and technological development of our society in general and to the digital revolution in particular. Computational thinking is the term indicating the key ideas of this discipline that might...

This paper reports on the third part of a long term experiment concerning the introduction of 12-13 years old pupils to the concept of randomness and probability. In the first parts, the pupils analysed the concept of randomness, in daily life and with LEGO-RCX robots. The third part is based on the Random Garden Game (within the programming enviro...

The objective for this document is to develop a reference text for the Network's scientific development, and for communication to others of the shared perspective of its participants. For its internal focus, it will lead to a stronger integration of the disciplines and cultures represented by the scientific communities within the Network. For its e...

Over the last few years have witnessed a growing recognition of the educational potential of computer games. However, it is generally agreed that the process of designing and deploying TEL resources generally and games for mathematical learning specifically is a difficult task. The Kaleidoscope project, "Learning patterns for the design and deploym...

This paper reports on a long term experiment concerning the introduction of 7th grade pupils to the concept of randomness. Pupils are involved in activities with Lego robots, and in the joint enterprise of writing an Encyclopaedia. The main lines of the experiment are provided, together with experimental data, highlighting how some specific element...

L’articolo propone un approccio alla programmazione di robot LEGO MindStorms basato su un ambiente visivo estendibile ed orientato al dominio, che privilegia metodiche collaborative e facilita la metariflessione. Vengono descritte le caratteristiche salienti della programmazione di robot e proposto un modello computazionale basato sulla definizione...

Bambini che costruiscono e programmano con un ambiente visivo.

I giocattoli computazionali godono di una grande diffusione anche nelle fasce piu' giovani della popolazione, specie quelle in eta' prescolare. Ma soprattutto suscitano negli adulti in generale, e in particolare in chi si occupa di problematiche educative, opinioni contrastanti.

The traditional approach to in-service teacher training is based on a transmissive model and on a hierarchical relationship between experts and trainees. By contrast, our work centres on collaborative training in workgroups and experience-based learning. In our model, knowledge building is the result of trainees interacting with an environment; the...

To introduce children to Logo graphics commands, we have developed a simplified turtle environment. This computer microworld has evolved along with our understanding of the learning process. It provided us with input, in terms of specific “errors” to understand, and it also provided an engaging learning experience for the children. This paper repor...

This paper refers to the ESM_BASE (Educational Systems Based on Multimedia Database) project carried out within the EEC DELTA programme. The concepts of ULM (Unit of Learning Mat.erial) and of DBLM (Database of multimedia Learning Material) as resources for learning and as bases for courseware reusability in the authoring process are discussed in c...

Ariadne's Thread is a package composed of a self-instruction text addressed to high school students coupled with a commercially available prolog interpreter. The material is aimed at introducing computer novices to the concepts of logic programming.The examples and tasks in the package are based on the metaphor of Theseus in Crete with the subject...

This paper describes the theoretical framework of a research project aimed at exploring the new potentialities for instructional systems offered by videodisc technology and artificial intelligence methodologies and techniques. In the context of this project, ‘Earth’, a prototype of ITS, is being developed, which embodies the ideas presented. In an...