Background: As one of the mainstream forms of programming education, educational robotics (ER) have been a crucial way to develop K-12 students' programming ability. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to clarify the content of programming ability, to verify the effectiveness of ER as a teaching method to improve students' programming…

We present a Scratch task we designed and implemented for teaching and learning coordinates in a dynamic and engaging way. We use the 5Es framework to describe the students' interactions with the task and offer suggestions of how other teachers may adopt it to successfully implement Scratch tasks.

Serious games or educational games have attracted the interest of instructors and researchers for several years. In the field of education, serious games are being used for motivating students, attracting their interest in cognitively demanding fields and making the teaching and learning process more fun. Moreover, learning through implementing…

The objective of this research is to study the "Scratch" programming language as a didactic tool to teach functions. The introduction of didactic tools allowing comprehension in simple and attractive ways is required. Given the traditional teaching/learning system, it is necessary to organize participatory and collaborative dynamic…

Snowflakes falling in Brisbane, Australia would likely make news headlines during any season of a given year, even during winter. Year 8 students at Ormiston College which is located in Brisbane, have made their own snowflakes--of a kind. Using the programming language Scratch, all Year 8 Mathematics students wrote code to construct Swedish…

This article describes the Australian Informatics Competition (AIC), a non-programming competition aimed at identifying students with potential in programming and algorithmic design. It is the first step in identifying students to represent Australia at the International Olympiad in Informatics. The main aim of the AIC is to increase awareness of…

Explores the relative strengths and weaknesses of the spreadsheet approach versus specialized mathematical programming software for solving a particular logic puzzle. (KHR)

Uses three computer software programs to help students develop algebraic reasoning. Programs include spreadsheets, Logo programming language, and Teasers by Tobbs. (ASK)