CONTEXTEU, with ''Education and Training 2020", agreed that in the period up to 2020, the main goal of European cooperation should be to support the further development of education and training systems of the Member States; they aim to personal, social and professional fulfillment of all citizens, sustainable economic prosperity, employability, promoting democratic values, social cohesion, active citizenship and intercultural dialogue.Education ministers from EU countries have identified some priority areas, as:• All pupils should gain the competences they need, including literacy and numeracy. This will be done through modernizing curricula, learning materials and pupil assessment.Literacy, numeracy, science, and technology are the foundation for further learning and are a gateway to employment and social inclusion. In Europe, approximately 20% of the young generation is not equipped with the necessary basic skills in literacy, mathematics, science and technology.These skills are becoming even more important as the digital revolution gives rise to new forms of reading and writing, as well as diversifying sources of information. At the same time, the demand for a qualified workforce in technology and research intensive sectors remains high.The Ministry of Education, in collaboration with the CINI - Interuniversity Consortium for Informatics, launched in Italy an initiative called “Programma il Futuro” (which is part of the program “labuonascuola”) with the aim to provide schools a series of simple tools, fun and easily accessible form students to the basic concepts of computer science.Starting from a successful experience launched in the US in 2013 which saw the participation of about 40 million students and teachers around the world, Italy began to experience so introducing structural schools of the basic concepts of 'through computer programming (coding), using user-friendly tools and does not require an advanced skill in the use of computers.Necessary however to, consider whether teachers are ready for this kind of task, which are their skills and how they changed or need to be improved.NEEDS:• Improve the skills of the staff of the school and enhance the quality of teaching and learning• Expand the knowledge and understanding of the educational practices of the involved countries• Modernization of schoolsOBJECTIVIES:For teachers:- to achieve good practice exchanges and also exchange of information, ideas and concrete methods of working with coding;- to improve skills, pedagogical and teaching tools;- to analyse the differences of the diverse educational systems from the partner countries regarding education, computational thinking and coding; - to promote cooperation to ensure quality in education;- to promote innovative practices in education by supporting personalised learning approaches; - to optimize the impact of European cooperation on the innovation of education through the activities of results dissemination;For pupils:• decomposition when attacking a large complex task or designing a large complex system• separation of concerns• choosing an appropriate representation for a problem or modeling the relevant aspects of a problem to make it tractable• having the confidence we can safely use, modify, and influence a large complex system without understanding its every detail. • universally applicable attitude and skill set everyone, not just computer scientists, would be eager to learn and use• thinking in terms of prevention, protection, and recovery from worst-case scenarios through redundancy, damage containment, and error correction. • using heuristic reasoning to discover a solution. • planning, learning, and scheduling in the presence of uncertaintyBENEFICIARIESBeneficiaries are Students and teachers of Primary and Secondary school.DURATION2 yearsACTIVITIES• Design, pilot test and validation of the planned Intellectual Output: Teaching Method and flexible tools• creation of web platform to share and disseminate intellectual output and results of pilot test• 2 short-term training (5 days) about computational thinking and coding, for teachers and Students• 6 Multiplier events
CONTEXT: EU, through ''Education and Training 2020", agreed that in the period up to 2020, the main goal of European cooperation should be to support the further development of education and training systems of the Member States. Education ministers from EU countries have identified some priority areas, as: all pupils should gain the competences they need, including literacy and numeracy. This will be done through modernizing curricula, learning materials and pupil assessment. Literacy, numeracy, science, and technology are the foundation for further learning and are a gateway to employment and social inclusion. These skills are becoming even more important as the digital revolution gives rise to new forms of reading and writing, as well as diversifying sources of information. Starting from a successful experience launched in the US in 2013 which saw the participation of about 40 million students and teachers around the world, several Eu countries began to experience by introducing structural schools of the basic concepts of 'through computer programming (coding), using user-friendly tools and does not require an advanced skill in the use of computers. Following the programme“Programma il Futuro” launched in Italy with the aim to provide schools a series of simple tools, fun and easily accessible form for the students to develop the basic concepts of computer science, the project “thinking… coding” worked on development of skills and materials for teachers and students, in order to adapt the school curriculum to these provisions. The project “thinking… coding” involved the schools in a workplan aimed at: 1) Improving the skills of the staff of the school and enhance the quality of teaching and learning 2) Expanding the knowledge and understanding of the educational practices of the involved countries 3) Modernizing the involved schools contributing to a positive impact on school communities 4) contributing to the sense of belonging to Europe, as European Citizens, by creating a program with a transnational component. The following main activities were performed: - 4 transnational meetings (with elements from all the countries involved) which took place in the various countries involved, for project management and coordination; - Mapping and Survey phase (needs, challenges, good practices); - Creation of “Teaching method and flexible tools” which included: Programme Design, Initial Staff Training (in Italy), Pilot Test with children at local level (in all involved schools); Blended Mobility of students (In Slovenia); - Multiplier Events in each of the countries involved to disseminate the project and its results (in Italy with transnational component). The project had a good geographical balance, involving 5 countries from Southern, Northern and Central Europe, which contributed to ensure a real European outreach of the project. The project achieved successfully the objectives proposed: for teachers to achieve good practice exchanges and also exchange of information, ideas and concrete methods of working with coding, improving skills, pedagogical and teaching tools and analysing the differences of the diverse educational systems from the partner countries regarding education, computational thinking and coding as optimizing the impact of European cooperation on the innovation of education through the activities of results dissemination; For pupils in understanding the breaking down when attacking a large complex task or designing a large complex system, choosing an appropriate representation for a problem or modelling the relevant aspects of a problem to make it manageable, as developing skills universally applicable. All materials are free downloadable in project website http://www.thinkingcoding.com where it’s possible also to try online coding applications.