Teaching programming for high school students: A distance education experience

Abstract

Recently, in spite of the growing demand worldwide for professionals in computing, statistic data have revealed a decreasing number of students taking up this area. Given the importance of this field to economic growth and technological development, it is essential to support actions which will encourage students to consider computing as a career. In this article, we describe an experience with a distance programming course given to Brazilian high school students. The results showed that 94% of the students that completed the course were successful in the exams. The dropout rate in this course was high, mainly because students were young, and had difficulties in self-management of their activities. This work brings important contributions: it develops programming and problem solving skills in high school students, it presents the design of a distance programming course for high school students and it contributes to research and actions in distance education.

Produção de Jogos Digitais Educativos por Alunos do Ensino Superior: Um Relato da Experiência

“…Diante disso, algumas pesquisas tem buscado propor momentos extracurriculares para que os alunos possam vivenciar a prática em desenvolvimento de sistemas computacionais. Esses momentos têm despertado nos alunos uma curiosidade e motivação pela área constituindo-se, muitas vezes, como um diferencial no seu desempenho e na sua formação profissional [Paes et al 2013], [Torezani et al 201] e [Nascimento et al 2010].…”