Informatics-Lab: Attracting Primary School Pupils for Computer Science

Published in: Engineering Innovations for Global Sustainability: Proceedings of the 14th Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology
Date of Conference: July 20-22, 2016
Location of Conference: San Jose, Costa Rica
Authors: Stefan Pasterk
Bárbara Sabitzer
Heike Demarle-Meusel
Andreas Bollin
Refereed Paper: #242

Abstract:

Technology has a deep impact on everyday life of most people in today’s society. Informatics is a basic element of this evolution. Therefore it is also getting more and more important for education. To introduce children of all ages to different topics of informatics, the Regional Educational Com¬petence Centre for Informatics in Carinthia, Austria, organized a four-week lasting Informatics-Lab. During their holidays in July 2014, children were able to visit our university, participate in workshops and get a first or a deeper impression of topics like encryption, operating systems, networks or modelling. What distinguished this project from other labs was that the children learned from trainees aged between 16 and 18 years as well as from their peers. Furthermore, trainees and visitors developed new teaching material on their own. This was an important element of the project as it considered different learning concepts like learning by teaching. The lab got positive feedback from both, children and parents. A pre-post comparison showed that the project had positive effects on the interest as well as on the attitude towards informatics. This paper gives some background information about the learning concept and an overview of the activities and stations. Furthermore, the results from an empirical survey are presented.