Computação na Escola

The 2018 edition of the Young Programming Tutors project is starting with great excitement!

One of the first events of the project was the visit of the Young Tutors, students of the Almirante Carvalhal Primary School, to the sponsoring company  Involves Tecnologia e Inovação. During this visit, the Young Tutors got to know a bit about the day-to-day business of a technology company, visiting each of the sectors and talking to a representative of each function. One of the Young Tutors in the 2017 project and now a young apprentice at the company, Richard, also talked to this year’s students, telling them about their experience with the project.

In this project the Computação na Escola initiative is forming Young Tutors (students of Basic Education) for programming mobile applications with the support of Volunteer Mentors (IT professionals). The Young Tutors and Volunteer Mentors will be supporting teachers of Basic Education in computer education at the Almirante Carvalhal Municipal Primary School located in Florianópolis, in order to reach a larger number of students. The project also contributes to the training of Young Tutors in the area of ​​computing, providing learning and contact with professionals in the area of ​​Information Technology, bringing this practical experience to the participating students.

The project is being coordinated by the Computação na Escola/INCoD/INE/UFSC, dedicated to providing all students of Basic Education with the opportunity to learn computing.

This project is being sponsored by Involves Tecnologia e Inovação, a software company based in Florianópolis/SC that develops systems aimed at increasing the visibility and availability of products at points of sale, improving the execution of field teams in retail.

Companies/organizations interested in sponsoring other projects of Young Tutors may contact the Computing in School initiative:

Telephones: (48) 3721-7380 / (48) 3721-4715 or via email: computacaonaescola@incod.ufsc.br

The development of computational thinking is a major topic in K-12 education. Many of the current experiences focus on teaching programming using block-based languages. As part of these activities, it is important for students to receive feedback on their assignments. Yet, in practice it may be difficult to provide personalized, objective and consistent feedback.  In this context, automatic assessment and grading has become important. While there exist diverse graders for text-based languages, support for block-based programming languages is still scarce.

CodeMaster is a free web application that in a problem-based learning context allows to automatically assess and grade projects programmed with App Inventor and Snap!.

Try it out! 

It uses a rubric measuring Computational Thinking (CT) based on the CT framework presented by Brennan & Resnick (2012) and the mobile CT rubric (Sherman and Martin, 2015)(Sherman et al., 2014). These dimensions are measured by analyzing the source code of the programs created adopting static code analysis to measure the kind and number of blocks used in the program quantifying CT criteria such as control statement, data, interaction, etc. Then based on a rubric, the programming projects are assessed and a score and grade is assigned.

Students can use the tool to get feedback to encourage them to improve their programming competencies.

It can also be used by teachers for assessing whole classes easing their workload.

More information:

Gresse von Wangenheim, C., J. C. R. Hauck, Demetrio, M. F., Pelle, R., N. d. C. Alves, H. Barbosa, L. F. Azevedo. CodeMaster v1.0 – An Overview. Technical Report INCoD/GQS.17.2017.P, INCoD/INE/UFSC, Florianópolis/Brazil, November 2017.

Demetrio, M. F. Desenvolvimento de um analisador e avaliador de código de App Inventor para ensino de computação. 2017. Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso. (Graduação em Ciência da Computação) – Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina.

Pelle, R. Desenvolvimento de um analisador e avaliador de código de SNAP! para ensino de computação. Project Thesis, Bachelor of Computer Science Course, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil. (in progress)

dETECT (Evaluating TEaching CompuTing) is a model for the evaluation of the quality of instructional units for teaching computing in middle school based on the students’ perception collected through a measurement instrument.

The objective of the dETECT model is to analyze instructional units in order to evaluate the quality in terms of quality of the IUs, computing experience and the perception of learning, from the learners’ perspective in the context of teaching computing in middle school.

The measurement is operationalized by the development of a questionnaire to be answered by the students at the end of the instructional unit, in order to obtain their perception about the quality of the instructional unit.

The dETECT model was systematically developed and evaluated based on data collected from 16 case studies in 13 different middle school institutions with responses from 477 students. Our results indicate that the dETECT model is acceptable in terms of reliability (Cronbach’s alpha α=.787) and construct validity, demonstrating an acceptable degree of correlation found between almost all items of the dETECT measurement instrument. These results allow researchers and instructors to rely on the dETECT model in order to evaluate instructional units and, thus, contribute to their improvement and to direct an effective and efficient adoption of teaching computing in middle school.

GRESSE VON WANGENHEIM,C.; PETRI, G.; ZIBETTI, A. W.; BORGATTO, A. F.; HAUCK, J. C. R.; PACHECO, F. S.; MISSFELDT FILHO, R. dETECT: A Model for the Evaluation of Instructional Units for Teaching Computing in Middle School. Informatics in Education, 16(2), 2017, 301-318.

Customized versions:

• Evaluation forms of Physical Computing Workshops for Parents and Kids
• Evaluation forms of school classes for teaching computing with SCRATCH (in Portuguese)

As one of the objectives of the Young Programming Tutors project, selected students from Prof.ª Herondina Medeiros Zeferino Basic School were trained to develop mobile applications during the project.

Each of the Young Tutors received training and follow-up on how to develop their own applications, including Design Thinking concepts, UX / interface design, and programming. The training was given by professors and researchers of the Computação na Escola initiative and with the monitoring and support to the development of the applications was carried out by volunteer professionals of the sponsoring company Involves Tecnologia e Inovação with the aid of undergraduate and graduate students of the initiative Computação na Escola of INCoD / INE / UFSC.

Young Tutors were instructed to address school and local community issues through application development. Applications have been designed, modeled, and developed, and as a result of the project, are ready for initial use.

In addition to the Young Tutors, a school physical education teacher also got involved in the project and developed his own application to address a specific day-to-day school need.

The following applications have been developed:

1. App: Mathfull

Quiz containing the four mathematical operations that can be used by elementary school students

Developed by: Richard de Souza Bercheli (9th grade student at Prof.ª Herondina Medeiros Zeferino)

Download: https://goo.gl/mZ9VUg

App Inventor Sources: Mathfull_AIA

2. App: Info Herondina

Application with the aim of facilitating communication between family and school professionals, where each family member will know exactly who the professionals are and the functions they perform in school.

Developed by: Nicolas Pedroso (9th grade student of Prof.ª Herondina Medeiros Zeferino)

Download: InfoHerondina.

App Inventor Sources: InfoHerondina_AIA

3. Aplicativo: Veganizando

App that features educational information about vegetarians and vegans, and nutritional values of meatless foods.

Developed by: Júlia Sena Amaral da Silva (9th grade student at Prof.ª Herondina Medeiros Zeferino)

Download: https://goo.gl/qPtVk4

App Inventor Sources: Veganismo_AIA

4. Aplicativo: EducPortifólio

Application developed for educational purposes, which allows a daily record that the teacher can use to save the situation-moment of the class easily through speech, letting the application turn the voice into writing. This record can then be saved and emailed, generating a trustworthy record that often could have gone unnoticed.

The app was awarded on 1st. (category II) and won the Excellence Award in Scientific Initiation at FEBIC 2017 – Brazilian Science Initiation Fair.

Developed by: Lauriano Warth (Professor of Physical Education at Prof.ª Herondina Medeiros Zeferino)

Apps Programming Workshops held at school

Also as a result of the project, the Young Tutors and volunteer professionals with the support of the Computação na Escola team carried out three workshops to introduce apps programming, using the teaching material of the Computação na Escola, teaching more than 50 students of the School Prof.ª Herondina Medeiros Zeferino.

Companies/organizations interested in sponsoring other projects of Young Tutors can contact the Computação na Escola initiative via telephone (48) 3721-7380 / (48) 3721-4715 or email: computacaonaescola@incod.ufsc.br

In order to popularize computing in a playful way at science fairs, we created an exhibit to demystify physical computing and at the same time to motivate and stimulate interest in computing. We designed two minion-shaped interactive programmable robots (one more than one meter high) that in a recreational way show how easy and interesting it can be to create programs in a few minutes in a drop-in setting. The robots are visually programmed via a Scratch 2/Snap! program and automated by an Arduino Nano microcontroller in a simple, low-cost, platform-independent way. Our experience at SEPEX 2015 with more than 4,000 visitors shows that offering such exhibits to the general public can be an engaging alternative for popularizing computing in an inexpensive way.

Christiane Gresse von Wangenheim, Aldo von Wangenheim, Fernando S. Pacheco, M. Nathalie Ferreira, Jean C. R. Hauck. 5 Minutos de Programação em Exibições. 25° Workshop sobre Educação em Computação (CSBC/WEI). São Paulo, SP.

More information

Visioning the teaching of  computing in elementary schools in Brazil,  the initiative Computação na Escola is training Young Tutors (elementary students) and Voluntary Mentors (IT professionals) to program mobile applications. These young tutors and volunteer mentors will be supporting elementary school teachers in teaching computing in public schools with the objective to reach a larger number of students. The project also contributes to the education of young tutors in the area of ​​computing, providing learning and contact with professionals in the area, bringing practical experience to the young people and children involved.

This education model is being piloted in a project focusing on the programming of mobile apps at the school Escola Básica Prof.ª Herondina Medeiros Zeferino in Florianópolis. This project is being sponsored by Involves Tecnologia e Inovação, a software company  based in Florianópolis/SC.

During this project young tutors, volunteers and school students will learn how to make applications with App Inventor. App Inventor 2  is an open-source web application originally developed by Google, and now maintained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). To create your app, you only need a browser (eg. Chrome , Firefox, Safari , etc. – not Internet Explorer), a free Google account and an internet connection to download your apps to an Android device (phone or tablet) using a wireless network. You can share your app in the gallery for free or upload to Google Play (in this case there is a fee to register as a developer).

Young tutors together with mentors and teachers of the school are realizing programming workshop for other students of the school through peer-instruction.

Companies/organizations interested in sponsoring other Young Tutor projects may contact the initiative via telephone +55 (48) 3721-7380 /+55 (48) 3721-4715  or email: computacaonaescola@incod.ufsc.br

Project selected as finalist at FEBIC 2017Young tutor project at the IV Regional Mathematics Fair/Florianópolis (August 2017)

Featured in the Science, Mathematics and Geography Fair (June 2017) 

Video of Programa RIC Notícias SC on the project Young Tutors of the iniciative  Computação na Escola coordenated by te INCoD/INE/UFSC.

Visioning the teaching of  computing in elementary schools in Brazil,  the initiative Computação na Escola is training Young Tutors (elementary students) and Voluntary Mentors (IT professionals) to program mobile applications. These young tutors and volunteer mentors will be supporting elementary school teachers in teaching computing in public schools with the objective to reach a larger number of students. The project also contributes to the education of young tutors in the area of ​​computing, providing learning and contact with professionals in the area, bringing practical experience to the young people and children involved.

The project is being coordinated by the initiative Computação na Escola/INCoD/INE/UFSC dedicated to provide to all elementary school students the opportunity to learn computing. Currently the pilot of the project is being held at the public elementary school Prof.ª Herondina Medeiros Zeferino in Florianópolis.

This project is being sponsored by Involves Tecnologia e Inovação, a software company based in Florianópolis/SC that develops systems aimed at increasing the visibility and availability of products at sale points and improving the execution of field teams in retail.

More information here.

Companies/organizations interested in sponsoring other Young Tutor projects may contact the initiative via telefone: +55 (48) 3721-7380 /+55 (48) 3721-4715  or email: computacaonaescola@incod.ufsc.br

The master student of the PPGCC/INE  of the GQS/Computação na Escola Nathalia da Cruz Alves presented the research: “Teaching Computing through Programming with App Inventor” at the conference Computer on the Beach in Florianópolis/Brazil,  May 2017.

DANIEL, G. T.; GRESSE VON WANGENHEIM, C. ; MEDEIROS, G.; ALVES, N. d. C. Ensinando a Computação por meio de Programação com App Inventor. Computer on the Beach, Florianópolis/Brazil, 2017.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Brazilian Portuguese.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Brazilian Portuguese.