Engaging primary school children in computational thinking: Designing and developing videogames

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a project on Computational Thinking education for primary school pupils. During the project – called Computational Thinking for children education – 81 students from a primary school in Italy have been guided to the design and development of computer games through the Microsoft Kodu game development platform. Different activities have been proposed to the pupils with the aim of promoting Computational Thinking abilities and skills. A narrative approach has been adopted throughout the project. Preliminary results of the educational experience highlight as the adoption of narrative learning and physical reproduction of manipulative programming objects provide an affordance for the development of Computational Thinking abilities. Furthermore, constancy during the learning process affects the acquisition of game development skills; finally, the design and implementation of computer games using Kodu have had a significant positive influence on the perception of computer programming.