Computational thinking, which includes foundation skills such as matching, sequencing and decomposing, is increasingly becoming an educational focus with young children (Strawhacker, Lee, & Bers, 2018). This research focusses primarily on the nature of young children's play with tangible coding technologies (TCTs) and the role of multimodal…

In the first issue of "Australian Educational Computing," in 1986, Cumming and Abbott reported a controlled comparison of top-down and bottom-up teaching strategies for Grade 5 and 6 students' use of a simple logic programming language. They found that both strategies were rated highly by students and teachers, and gave useful learning;…

The introduction of an open-ended MicroWorlds based assignment in a pre-service teaching degree produced interesting results. Students engaged with the task at very high levels and produced work of high quality; so much so that marking trends were reversed. This paper explores the design and implementation of the task and how for many students it…