The continuous technological development nowadays acts ancillary and supportively in student-centered learning, in both formal and informal education settings. Effective learning environments, such as the AppInventor software, could spark the students' interest and allow them to develop programming skills and strengthen their algorithmic…

Mobile application development is currently an important component of CS/IS education. Because of the rapid rate of change in the mobile application field, there are many websites that provide instructional material in tutorial format, but it is difficult to find a textbook that includes mobile application programming assignments and exercises.…

Background and Context: Despite the increasing implementation of coding in early curricula, there are few valid and reliable assessments of coding abilities for young children. This impedes studying learning outcomes and the development and evaluation of curricula. Objective: Developing and validating a new instrument for assessing young…

Purpose: This study aims to examine if a pedagogical agent's expressed anger, when framed as a feedback cue, can enhance mental effort and learning performance in a multimedia learning environment than expressed happiness. Design/methodology/approach: A between-subjects experiment was conducted in which learners engaged with a multimedia learning…

Individual based models (IBMs) are up-to-date tools both in research and educational areas. Here we introduce an IBM built on NetLogo platform that simulates a top-down trophic cascade controlled by the pressure exerted by two model predators (web-building spiders and ground runner spiders) on a model pest (the olive fruit fly) within a…

Computers are problem-solving tools at heart. Without an operating system though, they would be rendered useless. Most computer users are unaware of the inherent capabilities of the bare OS and the problems it can solve for them. This comes naturally in an era of commercialized solutions in the form of apps and software packages. However, gaining…

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this article is to develop a tool to detect plagiarism in real time amongst students being evaluated for learning in a computer-based assessment setting. Background: Cheating or copying all or part of source code of a program is a serious concern to academic institutions. Many academic institutions apply a combination of…

Objects are everywhere. People deal with them from the beginning of their lives. From babyhood, they start to recognise them and, progressively, learn to define their attributes and designate the actions related to them. Although the basis of object-oriented programming is translating real-world objects into the object-oriented code, learning…

We study the automatic identification of educational items worthy of content authors' attention. Based on the results of such analysis, content authors can revise and improve the content of learning environments. We provide an overview of item properties relevant to this task, including difficulty and complexity measures, item discrimination, and…

Today, schools are introducing STEM education and robotics to children in ever-lower grades. In "Beyond Coding," Marina Umaschi Bers lays out a pedagogical roadmap for teaching code that encompasses the cultivation of character along with technical knowledge and skills. Presenting code as a universal language, she shows how children…

As the most widely used agile software development method, Scrum has become a mainstay in many organizations that develop software. Despite Scrum's popularity, several studies examine Scrum implementations that include some parts of the methodology and exclude others. This paper describes how Scrum has been incorporated into the classroom…

Aim/Purpose: This paper aims to explore whether having state Computer Science standards in place will increase young children's exposure to coding and powerful ideas from computer science in the early years. Background: Computer science education in the K-2 educational segment is receiving a growing amount of attention as national and state…

This article reports on a research project that examined the ways that 10-year-old students, who were using Scratch for coding, engaged with mathematical ideas. Interactive software is emerging that has cross-curricula implications and facilitates thinking in rich, problem-solving environments. Scratch, a free-to-use graphical programming…

Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) hardware is becoming more affordable and accessible. However, there is limited work investigating ways to design software that broadens participation with BCI technology. In this article, we present a block-based programming environment designed to assist novice programmers with creating BCI applications. We also…

The expansion of the "Netflix" TV-network around the globe has made foreign language films and TV-series accessible for formal and informal language learning experiences. As students in educational settings are starting to engage in informal second language (L2) "Netflix" viewing, it is time that new pedagogical approaches…