The Computational Thinking (CT) teaching approach allows students to practice problem-solving in a way that they can use the Computer Science mindset. In this sense, Collaborative Learning has a lot to contribute to educational activities involving the CT. This article presents the design and evaluation of a Collaborative Learning framework for…

This qualitative study explored high school students' engagement with a unit where video games and video game materials were incorporated into an English Language Arts classroom. Over several weeks, students engaged with video game content and composed their own video games using the free online platform, Scratch. The purpose of the study was to…

Contribution: This article analyzes the learning and motivational impact of teacher-authored educational video games on computer science education and compares its effectiveness in both face-to-face and online (remote) formats. This work presents comparative data and findings obtained from 217 students who played the game in a face-to-face format…

This paper presents an innovative educational approach to organizing the out-of-school teaching of programming in middle childhood. The proposed DGBL model includes three distinct educational phases, i.e. learning visual programming, programming and robotics, and programming and electronics. The research was carried out during the school years of…

By integrating computational thinking (CT) based mathematical reasoning with early childhood education through programming a dinosaur game in Scratch, this study aims to enhance the pedagogical skills of pre-service teachers by using learning objects (LOs). Also, explores frameworks for LOs construction to align with pedagogical goals, emphasizing…

Educational games are increasingly used in informal and formal educational settings for promoting active learning and gaining students' interest in cognitively demanding subjects, such as programming. However, empirical studies that investigate the true impact of educational games on teaching and learning programming, especially to small aged…

Video games are an oft-cited reason for young learners getting interested in programming and computer science. As such, many learning opportunities build on this interest by having kids program their own video games. This approach, while sometimes successful, has its drawbacks stemming from the fact that the challenge of programming and game…

Science and computational practices such as modeling and abstraction are critical to understanding the complex systems that are integral to climate science. Given the demonstrated affordances of game design in supporting such practices, we implemented a free 4-day intensive workshop for middle school girls that focused on using the visual…

This article explores the critical need to articulate computing as a creative discipline and the potential for gender and ethnic diversity that such efforts enable. By embracing a culture shift within the discipline and using games as a medium of discourse, we can engage students and faculty in a broader definition of computing. The transformative…

Facing the need to introduce new approaches to teaching the art of programming to undergraduate Computer and Information Technology (CIT) students as part of the transition of the former Purdue College of Technology to the novel concept and status of Purdue Polytechnic, we came up with the idea of offering a pilot 300-level course entitled…

Various aspects of computational thinking (CT) could be supported by educational contexts such as simulations and video-games construction. In this field study, potential differences in student motivation and learning were empirically examined through students' code. For this purpose, we performed a teaching intervention that took place over five…

This volume focuses on the implications of digital technologies for educators and educational decision makers that are not widely represented in the literature. The chapters contained in the volume are based on the presentations at the 2020 edition of the CELDA conference and cover multiple developments in the field such as deploying learning…

The goal of this study was to explore the educational potential of Minecraft. This project was conducted with 118 elementary-school students from Canada during the 2016-2017 school year. To explore the educational potential of Minecraft on the students, we designed a "Minecraft challenge" for students. 10 game levels of ascending…

Computer and video games have much in common with the strategies used in special education. Free resources for game development are becoming more widely available, so lay computer users, such as teachers and other practitioners, now have the capacity to develop games using a low budget and a little self-teaching. This article provides a guideline…

Students' struggles with algebra are well documented. Prior to the introduction of functions, mathematics is typically focused on applying a set of arithmetic operations to compute an answer. The introduction of functions, however, marks the point at which mathematics begins to focus on building up abstractions as a way to solve complex problems.…