Pibook: Introducing computational thinking to diversified audiences

Abstract

Information and communication technologies are reshaping the way we live and work. The expectation is that computational thinking will be a pervasive skill in (near-) future professions of ours’ increasingly digitized and responsive economies. Although this idea is spread and well accepted, acquiring such skills often implies attending specialized courses. However, the basic concepts of computational thinking do not need to be a specialized skill learned disassociated from other school curricula. As it is more related with mental tools used in the process of reflecting and solving problems it can be learned by being applied to a large variety of topics. This paper presents piBook, a tool designed to allow the acquisition of key computational thinking skills while working on topics such as history, biology, and mathematics, among other. By reaching diversified audiences piBook fosters the acquisition of those skills by future workers at large. It does so via the production of programmable interactive books, hence piBook, that make possible interactive storytelling using nonlinear narratives, by allowing the creation of textual games, interactive activities, tutorials and alike, therefore offering opportunities for new and engaging pedagogical methods.