Outdoor Computing – A Summer Coding Experience for Kids
Is coding a purely seated activity? Alone in a dark room at home? NO is the clear answer. 20 kids in the age of 10-13 joined our summer courses on Outdoor Computing, organized by two European Erasmus+ projects “Computational Thinking and Acting” and “FabCitizen” together with the city of Bottrop, Germany. The idea was to combine outdoor activities and coding, specifically app development.
Normally, coding classes happen in computer labs – in the course “outdoor computing”, the kids arrived each morning and would receive outdoor tablet computers at the start of each day. However, coding was not the first activity – we started with sports and some physical activities. As a start, kids programmed an introduction app. Each group introduced themselves via an app. Part of the introduction was a (physical) challenge for the other groups: running up the stairs, collecting plants, scoring a goal on the nearby football court were just some examples the groups came up with.
During the week, several apps were developed such as a scoreboard which allowed to organize sports tournaments and capture the results. Of course, the validation included sports….Day by day, the kids developed more complex apps using the App Inventor programming environment by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The final app was the “Nature Explorer App”: The idea was to explore the nature – in our case, a re-natured former coal mining area. Within the app, plants and animals could be captured and identified.
“I did not realize there are soooo many plants just in the very center of my home city”, one 11 year old girl said when using the app. “I liked to learn about computers and play football every day. Why can’t we do that in school?” wondered one boy, 10 years old. Maija (11) stated: “My favourite was the treasure hunt. We had an app to explore the area and solved a task at each station. And we won a cool price…”
As a surprise guest, Member of Parliament Michael Gerdes joined the kids – all apps were explained and the kids managed to explain the ideas to an experienced politician.
At the end, all kids received their certificates from Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences and were proud to present those to their families. One mum stated that she had never believed her kid would be sleeping so well every day after a programming course. It seems as if the kids have been active, both physically and intellectually.
The idea will continue – we will continue to develop ready-to-use learning scenarios and materials for kids between grade 1 and 6 as well as for teachers. All scenarios have in common that they combine computer activities with solving real-world problems and being active. Apart from learning to code, we hope to contribute to well-being and a different attitude towards computing.
Virtual Field Trip
1.6.2021
Corona has prevented any field trips everywhere, but Sami Jäntti decided to do something about it. He took fifth graders in Ilmajoki on a virtual field trip to familiarize them with Antarctica, seven wonders of the world, and different places around the globe. Students used their phones, Google Cardboard VR glasses for the trip. The trip was implemented with YouTube VR and Google Poly. The virtual field trip is part of Sami’s thesis experiment. Students liked the experience and were quick to find more material.
COTA School pilot trials begin in Autumn 2020
COTA project visited Lapunmäki Primary school in October 10th 2020. The students worked on a learning scenario “How to Eat Candy in the times of COVID-19?” which thought them basic skills of algorithmic thinking. This workshop was completed in collaboration with H2020 project STIMEY and Erasmus+ project “Modelling at Schools“.
New INTED article shows light into the barriers of teaching computational thinking in European primary schools
23.4.2021
COTA publishes a new article on Computational Thinking in 15th annual International Technology, Education and Development Conference.
A total of 40 teachers from Estonia, Finland, Germany and Greece were interviewed on
teaching CT (Computational thinking) and other computer skills. Interviewee data show a common need for ICT (Information Communication Technology) to become its own subject with allocated time, well-made materials and enough up-to-date computers to work on. You can access the article through this link:
The speech can be viewed through this link.
Early publication of a research article from the COTA-crew
15.7.2020
Computational Thinking (CT) comprises of competencies necessary to utilize information and communication technologies to solve problems. In the current wave of Digital Transformation, CT competencies become relevant in many different subjects. This article extends the concept of CT showing how CT can be developed across subjects in primary schools using a physical computing approach.
Article outlines the concept of Computational Thinking and Acting (COTA) which combines the concepts of Computational Thinking and Physical Computing. The concept aims at providing new learning and teaching experiences with a focus on contributing to competency development in the field of Computer Science as well as future employability.
You can read the full article by following the link: Pawlowski, J.M., Clements, K., Dimitrakopoulou, D., Idzik, M., Muilu, M., Pilv, M. Sotiriou, S.: Computational Thinking and Acting: An Approach for Primary School Competency Development, ECTEL 2020, September 2020, Impact Paper. CEUR-WS.