Informatics concepts for primary education
Bárbara Sabitzer, Peter K. Antonitsch, Stefan Pasterk · 2014
In Austria Informatics is not taught in primary schools, but the curriculum includes some issues in several subjects that are related to computational thinking. Teachers are not aware that they already teach and use informatics concepts in their daily lessons. Informatics didactics experts and teacher trainers have to inform them and reveal connections between their primary school contents and different informatics concepts. Furthermore, one general educational aim of the curriculum is the acquisition of elementary cultural techniques including a child-friendly approach to modern information and communication technologies (ICT). The aim of this paper is to show how this is possible in practice and lists informatics concepts already "hidden" in the primary school curriculum. It reports on different initiatives that aim at introducing informatics in primary schools as well as a sample project on computational thinking funded by the regional teacher support program Teaching Informatics creatively. The qualitative results of this and other primary school projects show that it is possible and worth integrating informatics already at this early stage.