Exploring an approach based on digital games for teaching programming concepts to young children

Investigating Preschool Educators’ Implementation of Computer Programming in Their Teaching Practice

“…In these cases, they often commenced with unplugged programming to provide a more concrete experience of programming for the children, and then progressed to digital programming activities (cf. Faber et al 2017;Gomes et al 2018;Mannila 2017). Unplugged and digital programming also occur simultaneously.…”

“…The advent of more intuitive and tangible educational technology means that even very young children can gain access to programming-the child can input commands into a device without any knowledge of programming syntax or any prerequisite reading literacy (Ching et al 2018;Gomes et al 2018). Bers (2018a) believes that it is of utmost importance that preschool children are exposed to working with digital tools and programming activities.…”

“…Furthermore, a robot programming teaching intervention for 3-5-yearolds developed by Palmér (2017) was found to benefit children's spatial and counting ability, and their understanding of symbols (e.g., arrows). Gomes et al (2018) suggest that as part of a holistic approach to teaching computational thinking, combining digital and unplugged activities can improve children's understanding of programming concepts.…”

Plugged or Unplugged Teaching: A Case Study of Students’ Preferences in the Teaching of Programming

“…It is thought the students in our case favoured unplugged activities mainly because such steps have an analogical basis, drama activities are entertaining, necessary and unnecessary data are separated in the step of understanding the problem, and devising a strategy for a solution to the problem increased students' interest and satisfaction. Gomes, Falcão and Tedesco (2018) investigated how children can be taught programming concepts with digital games. A primary finding was that students had difficulty understanding the topic of loops and needed unplugged activities to reinforce their understanding of this concept, leading the researchers to recommend including in-class activities besides plugged activities in programming instruction.…”

Effects of the Application of WebQuest to Technology Education on Business Management Students’ Critical Thinking Psychology and Operation Capability

“…Such a measure was a challenge for students' intelligence and academic operation capability, rather than simply the excellence of search skills, and provided students with safe network environment; and, the curriculum allowed students presenting multiple opinions of affairs. Gomes et al (2018) regarded WebQuest as the tool with structure, organization, and time efficiency, which could be used, by educators, for providing students with large amount and useful network information as well as inducing learners' critical thinking ability. Hull (2018) explained the basic principle of WebQuest as helping students, providing resources for them, offering cognitive support with knowledge scaffolding, and training students' operation capability of independent research and problem solving.…”