TY  - JOUR
A1  - Przybylla, Mareen
A1  - Romeike, Ralf
T1  - Empowering learners with tools in CS education
BT  - physical computing in secondary schools
JF  - it - Information Technology
N2  - In computer science, computer systems are both, objects of investigation and tools that enable creative learning and design. Tools for learning have a long tradition in computer science education. Already in the late 1960s, Papert developed a concept which had an immense impact on the development of informal education in the following years: his theory of constructionism understands learning as a creative process of knowledge construction that is most effective when learners create something purposeful that they can try out, show around, discuss, analyse and receive praise for. By now, there are numerous learning and programming environments that are based on the constructionist ideas. Modern tools offer opportunities for students to learn in motivating ways and gain impressive results in programming games, animations, implementing 3D models or developing interactive objects. This article gives an overview of computer science education research related to tools and media to be used in educational settings. We analyse different types of tools with a special focus on the categorization and development of tools for student adequate physical computing activities in the classroom. Research around the development and evaluation of tools and learning resources in the domain of physical computing is illustrated with the example of "My Interactive Garden", a constructionist learning and programming environment. It is explained how the results from empirical studies are integrated in the continuous development of the learning material.
KW  - tools
KW  - media
KW  - resources
KW  - computer science education
KW  - physical computing
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1515/itit-2017-0032
SN  - 1611-2776
SN  - 2196-7032
VL  - 60
IS  - 2
SP  - 91
EP  - 101
PB  - De Gruyter
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Renz, Jan
A1  - Meinel, Christoph
T1  - The "Bachelor Project"
BT  - Project Based Computer Science Education
T2  - 2019 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)
N2  - One of the challenges of educating the next generation of computer scientists is to teach them to become team players, that are able to communicate and interact not only with different IT systems, but also with coworkers and customers with a non-it background. The “bachelor project” is a project based on team work and a close collaboration with selected industry partners. The authors hosted some of the teams since spring term 2014/15. In the paper at hand we explain and discuss this concept and evaluate its success based on students' evaluation and reports. Furthermore, the technology-stack that has been used by the teams is evaluated to understand how self-organized students in IT-related projects work. We will show that and why the bachelor is the most successful educational format in the perception of the students and how this positive results can be improved by the mentors.
KW  - computer science education
KW  - project based learning
KW  - bachelor project
Y1  - 2019
SN  - 978-1-5386-9506-7
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1109/EDUCON.2019.8725140
SN  - 2165-9567
SP  - 580
EP  - 587
PB  - IEEE
CY  - New York
ER  -