Promoting computational thinking and creativeness in primary school children

Abstract

This paper presents the preliminary results of the project “Computational Thinking for children education“, aimed at promoting computational thinking, creativity and learning amongst primary school children. The didactic activities of the project focus on computer programming and, in particular, the development of video games. The paper introduces also a teaching model based on narrative learning where the screenplay of the game has a key role. A preliminary analysis of the project results highlights how children’s perception of computer programming is influenced by practical coding sessions; furthermore, these results suggest that some individual features (e.g. gender; math and language competencies), and the socio-economics familiar context can significantly impact on development of computational thinking skills.