Nadine Bergner

Evaluation of Learning Informatics in Primary Education: Views of Teachers and Students

How does learning about informatics in primary education unfold in the eyes of teachers and their students? We report on the evaluation results from a distributed project in Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia) and some implications of these findings for future improvements. Three modules for informatics in primary education and a corresponding concept for teacher training were developed collaboratively by researchers and practitioners. The project was assessed with methods of formative and summative evaluation. The first results indicate that teaching and learning of informatics in primary education are possible. It is regarded overall as rewarding and exciting, but it was difficult for primary school students and teachers as well to discern the bigger picture of informatics education and thus to relate the topics taught and learned to everyday experiences.

Paving the Way for Computer Science in German Schools

There is an ongoing discussion in Germany, whether and to what extent computer science should be integrated into school education as a mandatory subject on the level as natural sciences. The goal of this article is to present scientific evidence of effects of computing interventions of extra-curricular services offered by universities as supplement of the currently missing school integration.

Wie die Informatik sich selbst sieht und wie sie gesehen wird

„43.000 offene Stellen fur IT-Experten“ (BITKOM), „IT-Absolventen: Stars auf dem Arbeitsmarkt“ (Krieger 2013) und ganz aktuell „IT-Fachkraftemangel bremst Unternehmen aus“ (Pagel 2013); diese und zahlreiche ahnlich lautende Uberschriften tauchen immer wieder in der Presse auf. Die Arbeitsmarktsituation fur Informatiker/innen ist also weiterhin verlockend, dennoch steigt die Anzahl der Studierenden bzw. Auszubildenden im IT-Bereich nicht erwartungsgemas. Woran mag dies liegen? Was macht diese Jobs – gerade auch fur junge Frauen – so unattraktiv? Eine mogliche Antwort darauf liefert der bereits 2006 in der Zeit-Online erschienene Artikel „Die Informatiker“ (ZEIT ONLINE GmbH et al.) uber die Studenten-Klischees der verschiedenen Fachrichtungen. Da werden Informatikern zum einen auserlich sichtbare Merkmale wie Kurzsichtigkeit, zahlreiche Hautunreinheiten und ein ausgepragter Kehlkopf zugeschrieben, aber zum anderen auch noch das Image des Klugscheisers oder des Nerds.

On collaboratively conveying computer science to pupils

Though there is an increasing need for computer scientists in our society, gifted young people with strong mathematical background, who would be well-suited for a study of computer science, often do not consider this choice because they have a wrong picture of computer science in mind. In this paper we present a new concept of collaborative learning to introduce high-school students to the field of theoretical computer science. In particular, we choose the demanding field of real-time systems in order to illustrate the applicability of theoretical methods on real-world systems. Statistical results show that with our concept we are able to point out the manifoldness, beauty and challenge of this scientific area and can convince high-school students to consider computer science as a choice of study.