Números Publicados > Volumen y Número

Title- Computational thinking

Abstract- Information technologies are the base of the world infrastructure. In this social context, education, like any productive or service sector, is affected by technology. Faced with this reality, educational systems must prepare our young people to live in the digital world, for which they must know a new language without which they will become digital illiterates. Therefore, in school we should not only train in linguistic and numerical literacy, but also in digital literacy. So far, the effort has been oriented mainly to convert our young people into users of computer tools. This has gone from being necessary to being insufficient, because the use of software applications is a digital language that is obsolete in a time that is not proportional, in effort, to the time that was invested in acquiring these skills. Therefore, the challenge is to prepare our young people to face the world in which they will live, giving them the necessary cognitive tools to succeed in the digital world, that is, instead of teaching them only the syntax of a changing language, they should be instructed in the rules that allow to know how the digital language is constructed. Thus, computational thinking emerges as a paradigm of work, and the programming is stablished as the tool to solve problems.

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Title- Computational Thinking between Philosophy and STEM. Programming Decision Making applied to the Behaviour of “Moral Machines“ in Ethical Values Classroom.

Abstract- This article describes a learning activity on computational thinking in Ethics classroom with compulsory secondary school students (14-16 years old). It is based on the assumption that computational thinking (or better “logical thinking“) is applicable not only to STEM subjects but to any other field in education, and it is particularly suited to decision making in moral dilemmas. This will be carried out through the study of so called “moral machines“, using a game-based learning approach on self-driving vehicles and the need to program such cars to perform certain behaviours under extreme situations. Students will be asked to logically base their reasoning on different ethical approaches and try to develop a schema of decision making that could serve to program a machine to respond to those situations. Students will also have to deal with the uncertainty of reaching solutions that will be debatable and not universally accepted as part of the difficulty, more ethical than technical, to provide machines with the ability to take decisions where there is no such thing as a “right“ versus “wrong“ answer, and potentially both (or more) of the possible actions will bring unwanted consequences.

Index Terms- Computational thinking, decision making, game-based learning, Ethics, Logic, moral machines, selfdriving car.

Title- Learning scenarios for the subject Methodology of programming from evaluating computational thinking of new students.

Abstract- Computational thinking is a cognitive process that allows generating solutions to problems through the use of skills such as abstraction, decomposition and algorithmic design. This paper presents a proposal for evaluating the computational thinking of new students, to relate knowledge indicated in the subject Methodology of Programming and to offer an initial environment of learning. The article describes exercises selected to evaluated skills indicated above, and correspondence between contents of the course; using a qualitative methodology, experience of 65 students was evaluated. Results obtained not only favor activity carried out, they also indicated improvements for future generations.

Index Terms- Computational thinking, Computer programming course, Higher education, New students, Programming learning.

Title- ‘Evolution’: Design and implementation of digital educational material to strengthen computational thinking skills.

Abstract- This article describes how an educational digital material supports the improvement of skills in the development of algorithms within Math problems, which belong to a part of an operative computational thinking, in students of the subject Logic Programming. This study reflects how students lack the fundamentals of Math and the algorithmic thinking required to solve the problems established in the educational digital material. The results show that doing a reiterative challenge help students not just to get the fundamentals of Math, but also to solve the algorithms used in the educational digital material, learning from the mistakes made.

Index Terms- Algorithms, computational thinking, critical thinking, educational digital material, Information and communication technologies.

Title- A Methodology Proposal based on Metaphors to teach Programming to children

Abstract- Interest in studying Computer Science has been extended worldwide to children. However, it is unclear which educational method should be used. Teachers need some guides to approaching this task. Therefore, this paper proposes using metaphors such as recipe/program (and sequence), pantry/ memory, and boxes /variables. It also illustrates the possibility of applying these metaphors to any resource available to the teacher. Four step-by-step scripts of how to use the metaphors in class are provided, with the opinions of 62 children (enrolled in 4th, 5th and 6th Primary courses, 9 to 11 years in age) and their teacher’s opinion.

Index Terms- Computer Science Education, metaphor, Computational thinking.