Françoise Tort

Computer Science Education in French Secondary Schools: Historical and Didactical Perspectives

Computer science as a school subject in France is characterized by a succession of promising starts that have not yet been transformed into perennial solutions. The main goal of this article is to analyze this complex situation from a historical perspective, and describe the current rebirth of an optional Computer Science course in the last year of secondary education, together with other initiatives that might contribute to introducing Computer Science as a school subject. We also aim at discussing some perspectives for the future to support a better informatics education for all students. The sources we have used are mainly historical and administrative, however we have also drawn on empirical research and surveys conducted since the seventies. This article therefore takes both retrospective and perspective viewpoints.

Visual Literacy in Introductory Informatics Problems

The aim of our research work is to understand reasoning activities of students when they solve Bebras tasks, and especially how they use the diagrams in the solving process. We first need to classify them. This paper gives first results of an ongoing work, of characterization of task according to (i) the types of diagrams and interactive artifacts given in statement and (ii) the way they are explicitly involved in solving process by textual statements of problems.

A Heuristic Method for Large-Scale Cognitive-Diagnostic Computerized Adaptive Testing

In formative assessments, one wants to provide a useful feedback to the examinee at the end of the test. In order to reduce the number of questions asked in an assessment, adaptive testing models have been developed for cognitive diagnosis, such as the ones encountered in knowledge space theory. However, when the number of skills assessed is very huge, such methods cannot scale. In this paper, we present a new method to provide adaptive tests and useful feedback to the examinee, even with large databases of skills. It will be used in Pix, a platform for certification of digital competencies for every French citizen.

Informatics in Schools: Improvement of Informatics Knowledge and Perception

Teaching Computer Image Processing Subject to Middle School Students: Cognitive and Affective aspects -- Analyzing Conceptual Content of International Informatics Curricula for Secondary Education -- It’s computational thinking! Bebras tasks in the curriculum -- Comparing the Performance of Girls and Boys in Bebras Challenge -- Attitudes towards Computer Science in Secondary Education: Evaluation of an Introductory Course -- Typifying Informatics Teachers’ PCK of Designing Digital Artefacts in Dutch Upper Secondary Education -- Students’ Success in the Bebras Challenge in Lithuania: Focus on a Long-term Participation -- What Makes Situational Informatics Tasks Difficult -- A New Informatics Curriculum for Secondary Education in The Netherlands -- And Now What Do We Do with Our Schoolchildren -- Defining and Observing Modeling and Simulation in Informatics -- K-12 Computer Science Education Across the U.S -- Combining the Power of Python with the Simplicity of Logo for a Sustainable Computer Science Education -- A new interactive Computer Science textbook in Slovenia -- Computer Science in the eyes of its teachers in French-speaking Switzerland -- IT2School - Development of Teaching Materials for CS through Design Thinking -- ”Why Can’t I Learn Programming?” – The Learning and Teaching Environment of Programming. .

Tests de compétences tableur : l’apport des discours des étudiants sur leurs activités

Dans une perspective de recherche centree sur la didactique des progiciels, nous nous interessons a l’etude des competences mobilisees par les jeunes dans l’utilisation de logiciels. Quels savoirs et savoir-faire mobilisent-ils ? Quelle comprehension des concepts du logiciel ont-ils ? Quelles difficultes rencontrent-ils ? Pour repondre a ces questions, centrant nos efforts sur le cas du tableur, nous avons developpe des methodes d’evaluation de competences prenant en compte non seulement les productions finales mais aussi les processus mis en oeuvre. Afin de mieux interpreter certains comportements observes, nous souhaitions prendre en compte les discours des jeunes sur leurs facons de faire. Cet article presente une etude realisee avec 3 etudiants en formation superieure tertiaire, dans laquelle nous utilisons des techniques d’entretiens pour recueillir une verbalisation des activites observees et de leurs motivations. Nous montrons que nous obtenons des donnees nouvelles sur les savoirs et savoir-faire des etudiants et sur leurs profils d’utilisateurs.