From learning to use towards learning to code: Twenty-five years of computing in Dutch schools

Abstract

In the mid-nineteen eighties of last century computers in the Netherlands were broadly introduced in secondary education, and a few years later also in elementary schools. As described in Lepeltak (2006) [1] there has been for the past 25 years a development from learning to use ICT towards using ICT to learn. Learning to use is in terms of being able to operate the machine and its basic applications. Using to learn was focused on using ICT in learning processes for various subject areas. Since 2010 the focus has been slowly moving to the creative, explorative use of ICT. This goes along with the current concept of coding. In the Netherlands coding has not a formal status in education only in the optional subject of information science (‘informatica’) in upper secondary school. When coding, nowadays mainly practiced by young people outside school, will become a permanent activity is hard to say. There is a strong lobby by the Dutch Royal Academy of Science (KNAW) and industry. Coding in relation to robotics has a lot of potential. It is active, exploring pedagogy and its relations with technology, biology, science. Coding provides schools with a lot of opportunities within the curriculum.