September 2021 - Stem Education - Literary Review.      Author : Frank Carney                                                                                  

 

Scratch your head? Programming, Educational Games and Computational Thinking integration, young children,  

a literature review.

 

Abstract (Abstract text 147 words) 

 

Computer programming is being included into educational curriculum in Primary school in many countries. One purpose of this inclusion is to embed computational thinking (CT) that can be used to solve problems. However, the educational goal of CT is somewhat cloudy: curriculum goals for related components in computer science, programming, and technology (digital) literacy are embedded in many curricula worldwide, however, this is not obviously the case for CT. Furthermore, a lack of clarity is evident when it comes to deciding what to and how to teach and encourage CT in primary schools, despite having simple popular programming tools available.

 

Potential benefits of tools like Scratch ® and Scratch Jr ® to facilitate teaching algorithmic and computational thinking skills have rekindled interest in this area. Nonetheless, few reviews aim to examine their impact and their integration in primary school, focused specifically on outcomes for girls of 6-8 years.

 

Keywords 

 

Games, Computational Thinking, Engineering, Young Australian Girls, Primary School, STEM, Scratch.

 

1. | Introduction (Introduction text 767 words)

 

Computing and computer science (CS) have become increasingly common in modern culture (Fagerlund et al., 2021; Passey 2017), few would argue. Many developed countries like Ireland, England, Estonia Finland, Korea and Japan have made computer programming a mandatory subject in primary schools (IrishTimes 2017, Yadav et al. 2017, Fagerlund et al. 2019, Angeli & Giannakos 2020).

 

Scratch (the tool), and its ”younger sibling” Scratch Jr are tools that use a graphical, block- based programming language. They are particularly popular among this primary school age range, providing an interesting toolset and backgrounds for educational study (Meerbaum- Salant et al. 2013, Rodríguez-Martínez et al. 2020, Yallihep et al. 2020).

 

The Australian curriculum authority ACARA has grouped methodology areas into “Thinking in Technologies” and “Project Management”, then sub grouped Computational thinking, Design thinking and Systems thinking within “Thinking in Technologies” (Aus_KeyIdeasCurricTech 2020).

 

 

Some parents have stated that the children are already “well able” at a young age! The parent may not see digital technologies education and skills as beneficial, and as a result, their children are less interested in the topic because it may need individual problem- solving thinking as well as the acquisition of those skills (Kong 2020). They quickly outgrow several younger children’s education software tools and shift their attention to online games, such as Minecraft or Roblox (examples of exploration and creation-focused multi-user environments), in the absence of capability in the former tools (Hava et al. 2020, Pollak et al. 2019, Minecraft 2021, Roblox 2021).

 

In contrast to being perceived as useless, several authors and researchers, on the other hand, see programming instruction as necessary—though not sufficient—for cultivating computational thinking (CT), i.e., supporting the cognitive tasks required (2020 Sırakaya et al., 2020 Lee et al., Angeli & Giannakos 2020). CT is an umbrella term that encompasses the intellectual foundation required to comprehend the computational world and apply multifaceted problem-solving skills across fields and within subjects (Wing 2006).

 

In order to complete the review, I propose:

 

a) To demonstrate that both CT and Engineering are useful and can be used successfully, as part of a STEM education discipline for 6-8 year old girls.

 

b) To discuss whether Scratch Jr and Scratch are developmentally appropriate tools at these ages, in an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for 6-8 year olds. Both are tools that can use a CT type process to complete a task using logical steps, and deliver a project (e.g. multimedia or game). This is relevant to the intersection of digital technologies and STEM.

 

While working on the review, I discovered that portions of the issues or common themes surfaced as I reviewed other people's research and use of various software tools and the results, and their descriptions of issues regarding CT. The research indicated that advanced usage of technology helps children improve in the area of STEM.

 

The primary purpose of this review is to search and retrieve recent literature on the topic, then to review the published articles and information they reference, and report findings, gaps, issues and suggestions. I group themes as follows:

 

Common Theme 1. Integration of digital technologies in STEM education, various theories, various tools, various levels of learning capacity, various propositions.

 

Common Theme 2. The “Computational Thinking” term or theory, differences of definitions, unresolved questions, debates. Inclusion in international curricula.

 

Common Theme 3. Irrespective of the tools, are very young girls “ready” or “wanting” to learn this System’s Thinking and CS combination? By using CT will the result be a win?

 

Common Theme 4. If programming/coding is indeed possible and useful, what are these two candidates of tools? Can we implement them successfully?

 

 

During and following the searches and preliminary reviews, I determined the clear question that establishes the focus of this review, this is –

 

 

“How, and to what degree, do we best use a programing tool in an IDE Integrated Development Environment that is block-based, possibly Scratch ® or Scratch Jr ®, with some reference to Computational Thinking, to better the learning outcomes (of both boys and girls, but especially of girls of 6 to 8 years old) to safely engage in, and to succeed with

STEM and digital technology in education?”

 

Clarifying why these issues are worthy of attention.

 

Despite the fact that the literature covers a wide range of theories, reviews, developmental work, surveys, analysis and assessments, this review will concentrate on the four significant and common themes that appear throughout those documents. Consideration of these issues may give us insight as to why our young girls have tended not to persist with STEM in later years. Firstly, gathering the facts in an impartial, objective way may enable us to think the problems through, generate potential solutions, and then implement results so we give them opportunities to better their career and life opportunities - to arouse in our children an eager want (Carnegie 1936). Secondly, to give them the best chance to love tinkering and engineering, succeed and have fun, and the happiness of wanting what she does, full of meaning and purpose to realise values in creative work (Frankl 1962).

 

 

2. |    Literature Review (Body text 2936 words)

 

Materials and Methods  - How did I do the search for the review?

 

The course documents and communications recommended well-known search engines, including Google Scholar and the USQ Library that I used to search for and gather potential documents.

 

I focused on gathering recent publications to demonstrate how far we have come in the fields of STEM, block-based programming (particularly SCRATCH), national and international experience and differences, teachers and parents and young girls' experiences, and CT. The review focus is on girls in primary school aged 6-8 years old, no older nor younger. From the perspective of such young people, they are very new to CT,

Project Management, STEM, or digital technologies (apart from playing smartphone or ipad

games, having remembered the parent’s password!). Over sixty reference papers were evaluated and considered before being cut down to the number of articles (fourty five) mentioned in this final edition of the literature study.

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Common   Theme   1  Integration of  digital technologies  in STEM  education, various  theories, various  tools,  various  levels  of learning capacity, various propositions.

 

In the book “Teaching and digital technologies: big issues and critical questions“ Andrew Fluck and Matt Bower conclude that there is no clear vision, no overall agreement, of what effective technology integration looks like in the school room, nor how it might be implemented. Instead, the authors claim that we are left with a collection of theories, hypotheses and proposals (Henderson & Romeo 2015). Viewpoints have been made that take into account a variety of perspectives and surveys on issues that may contribute to teachers' lack of use of digital technology. A list of barriers to technology adoption were suggested and the elements of this list were categorized by Ertmer (Ertmer 1999 as cited by Phillips 2015) as first-order barriers (intrinsic to teachers, e.g. availability of software etc.) and second-order barriers (extrinsic to teachers, e.g. teachers have the necessary skills etc.).

 

Data providing trend information from the most recent (2018 surveys, reported in 2020) findings from PISA graph (PISA_OECD 2020) concur with in support of these conclusions and viewpoints above.

 

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Figure 1. PISA results Chapter 5 Fig. V5.7 “Schools’ capacity to enhance teaching and learning using digital devices” (PISA_OECD 2020). Note: The green dotted lines items highlighting was done by me.

 

 

Comparing that data of 2018 (as reported in 2020 in Figure 1) with previous data from

2015 (those three measures), in the sufficient availability of software (72%, 2020), in the extrinsic to teachers category, there is a slight increase of 3% up on the same metric of five years earlier (69%, 2015) however both Teacher integration skills and Teacher incentives (from the teachers perspective in qualitative surveys), in the intrinsic to teachers category, remains approximately the same - within 1 percent variation. Two groups of authors (Angeli & Giannakos 2020, Grover & Pea 2013) support this finding - that although software is readily available, and devices are sufficiently powerful and available, that incentives to teachers and integration or delivery skills may not increasing commensurately. Despite the fact that educational softwares are available and current digital technology education, and research may help improve computing (digital technologies) curriculum across the Primary school spectrum, preparing teachers for computer education and ensuring gender equity remain major problems (Grover & Pea 2013, Lee et al. 2020). Are the teachers up to scratch? If teachers do not perform, ie do not have the enthusiasm, nor skills, nor capability, nor are they given the necessary technical training, nor use their pedagogical skills to integrate the digital technologies and are not appropriately incentivised, students will not do better. This is one contributing finding of this review.

 

Common  Theme  2. The “Computational Thinking” term or theory,  differences of definitions, unresolved questions, debates. Inclusion in international curricula.

 

What is Computational thinking (CT)? What debate?

 

Only a few people (priests and scribes, for example) were able to read and write during the Middle Ages (Shute et al, 2017). Even if we don't all want or need to be software developers, the majority of us, including 6 year old children, use computers, we consume information, on a daily basis and need to know how to connect with them in order to get

the most out of their digital devices' processing capacity, i.e. their device's "thinking".

 

Jeannette Wing presented and popularised the term and defines CT as "solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior, by drawing on the concepts fundamental to computer science." (Wing 2006). According to Wing, the process she describes when tackling a large complex package of work or task (a project) or developing a system, requires planning, using abstraction and breakdown. In reaction to Wing's subsequent article (Wing 2008), much effort has gone into defining what comprises CT and where the construct's bounds are. As a result, CT can be thought of as the connective tissue (Martin 2018 cited by Lee et al. 2020) that connects CS to a wide range of education fields.

 

Following Jeannette Wing's widely referenced “Communications Viewpoint” (Wing 2006) an intense discussion erupted (Nardelli 2019). Hundreds of additional studies followed, deconstructing and adding to the term, and adding research and analysis findings related to this thought provoking and well debated term “Computational Thinking” CT (Nardelli

2019).  On the opposing side of the CT debate, Nardelli reports his Viewpoint: The importance of the information processing agent's participation (“digital technology”) must be emphasised (that is, the "automation," be it a machine or a person acting mechanically) (2019 Nardelli). Hence digital technology needs to be involved. However Nardelli concludes that there is no informatics without the information processing agent and its ability to work successfully; there is just mathematics, which has been solving problems (since Archimedes or before) for millennia, discovering and using abstraction, decomposition, recursion, and other techniques along the way (2019 Nardelli).

 

About a dozen years ago many countries introduced the CT into the respective education curriculum, related to STEM (generally younger students) and IT (generally older students). An alternative definition of CT appropriate to Australian children includes:

 

“Computational thinking can be described as ‘a problem-solving method that is applied to create solutions that can be implemented using digital technologies. It involves integrating strategies, such as organising data logically, breaking down problems into parts, interpreting patterns and models and designing and implementing algorithms’ “(ACARA, 2018 also cited and analysed by Murcia 2020).

 

Furthermore, Australian NSW Department of Education supports CT and they state “It is not about thinking like a computer - rather, computational thinking is first and foremost thinking about computation.” (NSW_Education 2020). In particular, CT consists of the skills to: (Piwek & Willis, 2019) formulate a problem as a computational problem

construct a good computational solution (eg. including an algorithm) for the problem, or explain why there is no such solution.

 

Unfortunately, in an attempt to appeal to people outside of the CS area, many internationally have provided ambiguous and confusing definitions of CT. A precise definition of CT is still problematic (Barr et al., 2011, Grover and Pea, 2013). “As a result today’s teachers and education researchers struggle with three main questions: What is computational thinking? How can it be assessed? Is it good for everyone?” (Denning 2017). How can teachers deliver their education work if they do not know what they are teaching or how to evaluate it? Some suggest training, given the growing grassroots movement and government pressure to increase computer science learning opportunities in primary schools. It is critical that teacher education programmes address the dearth of teacher training in computer science and CT (and project management) concepts (Yadav et al. 2017). From the teacher’s perspective I suspect that further clarity of requirements and deliverables, negotiation and incentives through bargaining and contract performance measures may be required.

 

The term CT is relatively unknown outside the realms of education and IT/ICT. After speaking with two of my engineering friends, neither had heard of the term computational thinking. Both of them offered their interpretations of the phrase. Several of the features and concepts they mentioned in that chat corresponded to the commonly accepted “definitions” of CT found in the majority of the scholarly articles I evaluated, as well as in specialised videos, blogs, and other digital artefacts on the internet. This suggests that for most people, internationally, CT is not well known, nor even familiar. This may have an impact on its perceived usefulness (Kong et al. 2020), as neither teachers nor parents are likely to support the relatively unknown obscure notion and term, thereby killing the student’s interest or hindering the student’s intrinsic motivation (Kong et al. 2020).

 

International “Tower of Babel” effect.

 

Despite the fact that the majority of worldwide governments endorse CT (Angeli & Giannakos 2020), many people and organisations disagree, both on what constitutes CT and whether or not thinking, and the teaching of thinking, has or needs to change. For example Lee states that primary school teachers wrestled with how CT fits best within their curricula, how to champion CT in school cultures unfamiliar with CT, and how to obtain the tools and support they needed to put their ideas for CT integration into action (Lee et al. 2020). That article furthermore raises an important question: to help their students build CT capacity and skills, how profoundly do teachers need to comprehend and grasp CT? To highlight a fact from the qualitative survey results (Figure 1 above), 65% - only about two thirds of the teachers surveyed report they have the necessary technical and pedagogical skillset to deliver Digital Technologies – that includes CT (devices

technical knowledge is assumed in the skills and knowledge, Figure 1 graph, above, PISA_OECD 2020).

 

Regional differences are also at play, since contemporary curriculum in Australia and the United Kingdom use the word “coding”, whereas many parts of the US and Asia use “Computer Programming” to refer to work of pseudo code and script code (e.g. Java and Python based instruction script). Furthermore CT has been described as a much-debated "coined phrase" (Pollak et al. 2019) with related research that has specifically referenced that phrase and the group or individual’s thoughts of its meaning and scope. Some authors associate CT with work that includes coding and programming in addition to being a logical approach to issue solving. Do we have a “Tower of Babel” effect? (BibleGenesis 11:1–9 also cited by Brooks 1982). See also my Conclusion suggestion 4 of this review below.

 

Furthermore, supportive research by Perez has practical implications. Curriculum developers, instructional leaders, and classroom teachers will benefit from such a shared reference resource (including the documentation) (Perez Marin et al. 2020). Teachers can utilise the findings of this study to create lesson plans, curricula and classroom activities that emphasise a broader variety of concepts - Not simply coding, but also CT skills. “The research contributes to the body of knowledge that can be used to inform the teaching of computational thinking skills.” (Angeli & Giannakos 2020). Furthermore the Australian curriculum groups methodology areas (Aus_KeyIdeasCurricTech 2020), have titled “Thinking in Technologies” and “Project Management” as the two separate groups. I suggest “Junior Project Management” (for very young children) may be useful, even more useful as a term and concept, rather than simply teaching young people CS or CT alone in a silo environment.

 

To mitigate the reported hazard of inconsistency of terminology, a system that would include reference to a knowledge information base, such as establishing a widely available knowledge base with associated training, cross-referenced to the relevant curriculum may be useful. Such a "Body of Knowledge" system, may be beneficial in mitigating the stated hazard of language inconsistency or unpredictability. Engineering, IT and many other industries found such a crosscutting Project Management document, methodology and framework was useful. Its contents are generally recognised as good practice, examinable and referable to any given problem, task or project requiring thinking (PMBOK 2021). It’s available and consistent in many languages.

 

Finally Schank declares, however, looking at all of this CT through the more objective lens of learning research reveals that our thinking and learning habits haven't altered much in 50,000 years, (Schank, 2021). “…to understand how an aspect of the world works, the process hasn't changed since caveman times.” (Schank, 2021).

 

 

Common  Theme  3: Irrespective of the tools,  are  very  young  girls  “ready”  or “wanting” to learn  this System’s  Thinking and CS combination? By using CT will the result be a win?

 

In Jean Piaget's cognitive development hypothesis, the preoperational stage is the second stage. This stage begins at the age of two, when children begin to speak, and lasts until about the age of seven. During this stage children do not yet understand concrete reasoning, according to Piaget’s theory. Children under the age of 5 are in what Piaget dubbed the preoperational stage (i.e. before logical thinking, computational thinking), according to his cognitive-development theory published in 1971, as described in the supportive book “Piaget's Theory of Cognitive and Affective Development” (Papert 1980 as referenced by Wadsworth 1989). Supporting this hypothesis, many experts think that a child can begin learning to code at the age of five, based on this theoretical principle and the more modern accessibility of educational materials and technology (Darling-Hammond et al. 2020; Murcia et al. 2020).

 

Portable digital devices are widely available. As a result of this, as well as a variety of other reasons, the literacy development of many youngsters born in the past ten years has become integrated with digital technology (Merchant 2014). Teachers can help students learn by giving tactics and tools that minimise cognitive load and allow the mind to focus on higher-order thinking and problem solving (Darling-Hammond et al. 2020)

 

Teachers (or a supportive parent) can also assist young children in reducing cognitive load to free up their minds for problem solving by using tools for adapting to working memory limitations, such as notes or digital tools like computers (and their software tools), which can be used to offload computational or memory-heavy tasks during problem solving sessions (Darling-Hammond et al. 2020, p114). Apprentice-style interactions, acknowledging the importance of influence of perceived usefulness and parental support (Kong et al. 2020), in which knowledgeable practitioners or elder peers assist students' ever-deeper participation in a particular profession or domain that are used in instruction and curriculum (Donovan & Bransford, 2005 as cited by Darling-Hammond et al.2020, p114).

 

Perceptions of coders/programmers.

 

Other unfavorable prejudices about coders and the programming profession exist in addition to negative gender stereotypes about computing. Children's interest in coding may be harmed by stereotype notions that CS is socially isolating and that computer scientists are geeky males. Google CS Ed Research Group reveals that career perception was the second most important factor in predicting girls' persistence in CS, after social encouragement, in a survey of 1600 teens and young adults (GoogleCS_Ed 2014). Items to test students' perceptions of STEM and computing workers can be found on several current scales (Hansen et al., 2017; Hoegh & Moskal, 2009; Washington et al., 2016 as cited in Mason 2020).

 

Common  Theme  4: If programming/coding is possible and useful,  what  are these  two candidates of tools?  Can we implement them  successfully? Block based programming, Scratch and Scratch Jr.

 

What is block coding?

 

CT has long been known to include block programming (Fagerlund et al. 2021). Block programming is currently regarded as a subset of "visual programming" as opposed to traditional text-based coding (Dodge 2020). In late 2015 Scratch (version 3.0) was redesigned and built (compiled) on Google Blockly, using the language JavaScript (Googleblog 2019, Scratch_Details 2019).

 

Block coding is the most fundamental kind of computer programming, and it's an appropriate place to start for children (Dodge 2020, Funtech 2020). Instead of writing complex lines of computer code, children make use of visual instruction blocks to create games or moving animations with block coding, which uses a simple drag-and-drop interface (Dodge 2020). Both Scratch ® (website homepage in Figure 2 below) and Scratch Jr are example tools that enable this work. Both are software tools that facilitate logical and computer informatics, facilitating data and computer science education, multimedia, animation and gamification (Deterding et al. 2011).

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Figure 2           A screenshot (part of) the SCRATCH website homepage

(https://scratch.mit.edu/)

 

The reasons for this choice of related toolsets include that they are available, popular, stable, well established, well documented, can be mastered in incremental steps, and they are “free” (Scratch_Details 2019, ScratchJrFAQ 2017). While grappling with the Australian curriculum, the usage of education games, such as but not limited to Scratch and Scratch Jn, allows for an available stable tool (at least something) that can be used and linked to pedagogy. Scratch can be an introductory tool - “Scratch is not real coding - Scratch is an educational program designed to prepare aspiring programmers for the real stuff” (cheddargirl 2015). Scratch Jr is a collaboration project within MIT university 

(Strawhacker & Bers 2019, ScratchJrFAQ 2017). ScratchJr is compatible with lightweight and relatively inexpensive iPads and Android devices (generally smart phones, tablets etc) (ScratchJrFAQ, 2017). ScratchJr saves information in a local database on that same device. In their research, Strawhacker choose Scratch Jr with 57 kindergarten, first, and second grade pupils (Strawhacker & Bers 2019). According to the findings, children did not have much difficulty comprehending basic programming principles even at a very young age, such as kindergarten (Yallihep et al. 2020). On the other hand Rodríguez-Martínez disagrees, stating “On the contrary, it may be an indicator that explicit instruction is necessary in order to develop basic computational concepts” (Rodríguez-Martínez et al. 2020).

 

To question or validate some qualitative research findings, I installed both Scratch and ScratchJr on a device. That allowed me to encourage, introduce and observe that the young female user enjoyed her interaction and experience with the same tools. After 20mins of explaining the basics of Scratch Jr I was not allowed to touch the screen again! She had confidently taken over and successfully completed a few sequences and loops with multimedia in the following 40 minutes (refer to Figure 3). She reported she would like to continue another day and make another “project” with different characters interacting in a story in a different setting. A personalization effect (Bower 2020) was observed as she recorded her own voiceover onto two main characters and sequenced her story in her project outcome. This outcome (her satisfaction, successfully completing sophisticated challenges and her request to continue) agrees with the recent survey (section 5.2) and observation (section 6.3) of the majority of primary school students surveyed in Brazil research (DeJesus et al. 2021). The goal is for students to be engaged by the educator's creativity, not just to follow their educator's thinking by undertaking creative assignments, but also to think creatively for themselves (Murcia et al. 2020), while the young students also enhance their digital literacies for themselves (Bower 2020).

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Figure 3 A six year old Australian girl enjoying Scratch (left), and Scratch Jr (Right) (having taken over from her parent’s demonstrating and instructing support). Seen here, she is editing the sequence of movements of sprites in her games using the tools.

 

 

In summary, the intention of the literature review, information collecting, and subsequent analysis of the four common themes was to answer the "Focus Question" and relate the evidence and findings.

 

3. | Conclusion (Conclusion text 574 words)

 

All the literature that I’ve reviewed shows there is overwhelming evidence from the theorists and researchers that CT is effective to benefit young children to formulate plans and solve problems. However there are challenges to the implementation of CT in STEM, eg teachers incentives, training, toolsets being appropriate and available, inconsistent terminology, perceived usefulness by parents and teachers, to name but a few. CT is a more recent, fashionable term for thinking and delivering successful solutions to problems and communication along these logical lines – a logical way of thinking.

 

While researching and considering this literature study, I found that there is a lot of content in the disciplines, methods and domains of Science, Technology, Pedagogy, and Psychology, as well as Mathematics. However regarding the components of STEM, at least in primary school, the E element, i.e. introduction of Engineering, or even junior engineering is relatively light on. Exposure or introduction to engineering is not included in the primary school curriculum for girls aged 6 to 8. I asked the young Australian female mentioned here about engineering, she is six years old and attends school. She was not able to recall either engineering knowledge or experiences she had while learning in school. In parallel with promoting CT, many young females will undoubtedly be able to witness daily project deliverables that their engineer, potentially a relative, was involved in or could have been involved in. “Your mother completed the structural analysis for that tall structure - and there it is, wow!”

 

Would CT education enable more young females (and young males) to be inspired, hear stories from adults and see tangible delivered outputs (buildings, outer space conquests) and the project of delivering a cup of tea for your adult this morning)?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 4 “An example artifact of CT.” Possible example of further research – 6-8 year old child may develop simple project (plan) in an appropriate software tool with Yes/No decision, start end, sequence and loop. (Mindantix, 2020).

 

 

Future Research Directions:

 

1.   In the example in Figure 4 above, perhaps work of thinking, planning, and delivering extremely simple projects is mentored to youngsters as young as 6 years old, in a developmentally appropriate, stepping up manner? E.g. a demonstration project “Make a cup of tea for another person”.

What quantitative and qualitative data and tangible results could be delivered?

2.   Is a six year old too young to learn coding, or pseudo-coding, (or processes that include CT, e.g. algorithms to solve a problem or deliver the project of boiling an egg for Grandma) in any available digital technology tool, and are teachers willing to mentor the child with that?

3.   Are there any computer programming tools available hosted solely within Australian Department of Education (i.e. intranet or local device based not online internationally) that can facilitate learning of CT, Systems Thinking or Junior Project Management? Is a Sandpit Environment possible?

4.   Perhaps an international “Junior Project Management” (massively simplified version) supported knowledge base may be useful in the industry of Primary School Education, and may have 7 year old children collaborating internationally having similar “Junior Project Management” language and having fun - and understanding each other?

 

To sum up, we might take the following worldly counsel that an experienced teacher and poet delivers when he speaks to and mentors a child, well before our current society progressed with digital technology, through a couple of lines of a poem:

 

“Be mindful, when invention fails,

 

To scratch your head, and bite your nails.” (Swift, Jonathan 1733)

 

 

4. Reference List

 

 

1. ACARA; Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA]. (2018),Foundation to Year 2 Band Description; learning-areas,Curriculum: Technologies. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10- curriculum/learning-areas/ Last accessed 5Aug2021

2. Andrew Fluck (2021),Coding, Programming and the Changing Curriculum for Computing in Schools Report of UNESCO /IFIP TC3 M eeting at OCCE; report: 4 February 2019, Linz, Austria, https://wcce2022.org/pubs/UNESCO%20meeting%20at%20OCCE%202018%20report%20final.pdf , Last accessed 2Aug2021

3. Angeli, Charoula; Giannakos, Michail (2020),Computational thinking education: Issues and challenges,Computers in Human Behavior,105,106185,https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563219303978

4. Aus_KeyIdeasCurricTech (2020), https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/technologies/key- ideas/ Last accessed 2Aug2021

5. BibleGenesis 11:1–10 (nd),https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2011%3A1-9&version=NIV

6. Brooks, Fred (1982),The Mythical Man-Month : Essays on Software Engineering. Reading, Mass. :Addison-Wesley Pub. Co., 1982

7. Carnegie, Dale (1936),(1936 & 2009). How to win friends and influence people. New York :Simon & Schuster, 

8. Darling-Hammond, Linda; Flook, Lisa; Cook-Harvey, Channa; Barron, Brigid; Osher, David (2020),Implications for educational practice of the science of learning and development,Applied Developmental Science,24,2,97-140,Routledge,https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2018.1537791

9. de Jesus, Angelo; Magno Silveira, Ismar Frango (2021),Game-based collaborative learning framework for computational thinking development/Marco de aprendizaje colaborativo basado en videojuegos para el desarrollo del pensamiento computacional,Revista Facultad de IngenierÃa,99,113-,Universidad de Antioquia, Facultad de Ingenieria

10. Denning, Peter (2017),Viewpoint Peter J. Denning Remaining Trouble Spots with Computational Thinking Addressing unresolved questions concerning computational thinking.,http://denninginstitute.com/, http://denninginstitute.com/pjd/PUBS/CACMcols/cacm-trouble-ct.pdf Last accessed 2Aug2021

11. Deterding, Sebastian; Sicart, Miguel; Nacke, Lennart; O'Hara, Kenton; Dixon, Dan (2011),Gamification: Using game design elements in non-gaming contexts,Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems,66,2425-2428

12. Dodge (2020), July 21 2020., David Dodge, https://codakid.com/block-coding/  Last accessed 3Aug2021

13. EducationStandardsAuthorityNSW  (2020), https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/technologies/coding-across-the-curriculum; Last accessed 2Aug2021

14. Fagerlund, Janne; Hakkinen, Paivi; Vesisenaho, Mikko; Viiri, Jouni (2021),Computational thinking in programming with Scratch in primary schools: A systematic review,Computer applications in engineering education,29,1,47088,Wiley Subscription Services, Inc

15. Frankl, Viktor (1962),Man's Search for Meaning; an Introduction to Logotherapy. Boston :Beacon Press, 1962., Funtech (2020),© 1996 - 2021 FunTech Ltd. 103 High Street, Maidenhead, Berkshire UK.,

16. https://funtech.co.uk/latest/what-is-block-coding-for-kids Last accessed 2Aug2021

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