Codecraft Competition: Learning to Code Through Contests Using Scratch
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46243/jst.2020.v5.i4.pp40-53Keywords:
Coding Contest, Scratch, Mauritius, Computational Thinking, Collaboration, CreativityAbstract
In this article, the design principles that guided the development of the Codecraft competition are discussed together with strategies for making the contest engaging for everyone. A random selection of 30 educators and 30 students who participated in the contests were also interviewed to find out their views about the competition and its impact on their computational thinking and creativity skills. Furthermore, 85 projects made up of codes from the Scratch program and submitted during the final round of the contest during the years 2016 to 2018 were processed using an online analytical tool known as Dr Scratch. To identify the progress made by the students, the different computational thinking concepts were analysed more deeply. The study revealed that over three years of the Codecraft competition, there was a significant improvement regarding the use of programming concepts, logic, and computational practices. Moreover, the average computational thinking (CT) score of the projects increased from 11.8 in 2016 to 14.2 in 2017 and 16.0 in 2018. Learning of computational concepts through an active contestbased approach also highlighted several advantages, such as motivation, fun, commitment, and enthusiasm, showing improvements related to creativity, computational thinking, and computational practices.
References
Webster, C., & Ivanov, S. (2019). Robotics, artificial intelligence, and the evolving nature of work. In George, B., & Paul, J. (Eds.). Business Transformation in Data Driven Societies, Palgrave-MacMillan. 21st
Mishra, P., & Yadav, A. (2013). Of art and algorithm: rethinking technology &creativity in the century. TechTrends, 57(3), 10–14.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-013-0655-z
Bai, H., Pan, W., Hirumi, A., & Kebritchi, M. (2012). Assessing the effectiveness of a 3‐D instructional game on improving mathematics achievement and motivation of middle school students. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(6), 993-1003
Pinto, A. and Escudeiro, P. (2014) “The use of scratch for the development of 21st century learning skills in ICT”, 9th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), IEEE. doi: 10.1109/CISTI.2014.6877061
Turchi, T., Fogli, D. & Malizia, A. (2017). Fostering computational thinking through collaborative game-based learning. Multimedia Tools & Applications,78,13649–13673.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-019-7229-9
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants Part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/10748120110424816
Blotnick, E. (2017). Digital Natives, mastering our world. Firefall media, California, USA
Seehorn, D., Carey, S., Fuschetto,B., Lee, I., Moix, D., O'Grady-Cunniff, D., Boucher Owens, B., Stephenson, C. & Verno, A. (2011). CSTA K--12 Computer Science Standards. ACM Digital Library Retrieved from http://scratch.ttu.ee/failid/CSTA_K-12_CSS.pdf
Wing, J. M. (2006). Computational thinking. Communications of the ACM, 49(3), 33-35. https://doi.org/10.1145/1118178.1118215
Wing, J.M. (2011). Research Notebook: Computational Thinking-What and Why. Retrieved from http://people.cs.vt.edu/~kafura/CS6604/Papers/CT-What-And-Why.pdf
Šerbec, I. N., Š Cerar., & A Žerovnik. (2018). Developing computational thinking through games in Scratch. In Education and Research in the Information Society, pp. 21-30
European Schoolnet. (2014). Computing our future. Computer programming and coding–priorities, school curricula and initiatives across Europe. European Schoolnet, Brussels, Belgium
Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. Basic Books, New York
Papert, S., & Harel, I. (1991). Situating constructionism. In S. Papert & I. Harel (Eds.), Constructionism. New York: Ablex Publishing
A New Opportunity for Elementary Science Education. DRL Division of Research on Learning in
Baist, A., & Pamungkas, A. S. (2017). Analysis of Student Difficulties in Computer Programming. Volt Jurnal Ilmiah Pendidikan Elektro. 2(2), 81-92
Guzdial, M. (2004). Programming environments for novices. In Computer Science Education Research, Fincher, S. & Petre, M. eds. Taylor & Francis, Abingdon, U.K., 127–154
Resnick, M. (2007) Sowing the seeds for a more creative society. Learning and Leading with Technology, 35(4), 18–22. Retrieved from https://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/Learning-Leading-final.pdf
Maloney, J., Resnick, M., Rusk, N., Silverman, B., & Eastmond, E. (2010). The Scratch language and environment. ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 10(4), 16.http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1868358.1868363
Malan, D. J. and Leitner, H. H. (2007). Scratch for budding computer scientists. In Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, 223-227, Covington, Kentucky, USA
Monroy-Hernández, A., & Resnick, M. (2008). FEATURE empowering kids to create and share programmable media. Interactions, 15(2), 50-53. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1340961.1340974
Scratch website. (2020). Community statistics at a glance. Retrieved from https://scratch.mit.edu/statistics/
Roque R., Rusk N., Resnick M. (2016) Supporting Diverse and Creative Collaboration in the Scratch Online Community. In: Cress U., Moskaliuk J., Jeong H. (eds) Mass Collaboration and Education. Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Series, vol. 16. Springer, Cham.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13536-6_12
Von Wangenheim, C. G., Alves, N. C., Rodrigues, P. E., & Hauck, J. C. (2017). Teaching Computing in a Multidisciplinary Way in Social Studies Classes in School--A Case Study. International Journal of Computer Science Education in Schools, 1(2), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.21585/ijcses.v1i2.9 21st
Rusk, N., Resnick, M. & Maloney, J. (2006). Scratch and Century Skills. MIT Media Lab. US: Lifelong Kindergarten Group.Du, J.;Wimmer, H.; Rada, R. (2016). Hour of Code: Can it change students’ attitudes toward programming? Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice, 15, 52-73
Resnick, M., Maloney, J., Monroy Hernández, A., Rusk, N., Eastmond, E., Brennan, K., Millner, A., Rosenbaum, E., Silver, J., Silverman, B., & Kafai, Y. (2009). Scratch: Programming for all. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 60–67. https://doi.org/10.1145/1592761.1592779
Yadav, A. & Cooper, S. (2017). Fostering creativity through computing. Communications of the ACM, 60 (2), 31- 33.https://doi.org/10.1145/3029595
Peppler, K. & Kafai, Y. (2007). From Supergoo to Scratch: exploring creative media production in informal learning. Journal on Learning, Media, and Technology, 32(7), 149–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439880701343337
Grover, S., Pea, R., & Cooper, S. (2015). Designing for deeper learning in a blended computer science course for middle school students. Computer Science Education,25(2), 199–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2015.1033142
Shute, V. J., Sun, C., & Asbell-Clarke, J. (2017). Demystifying computational thinking.Educational Research Review, 22, 142–158. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2017.09.003
Rich, P. J., Browning, S. F., Perkins, M., Shoop, T., Yoshikawa, E., Belikov, O. M., Shoop, T. (2019). Coding in K-8: international trends in teaching elementary/primary computing. TechTrends, 63(3), 311–329. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0295-4
Yadav, A., Gretter, S., Hambrusch, S., & Sands, P. (2016). Expanding computer science education in schools: understanding teacher experiences and challenges. Computer Science Education, 26(4), 235–254. https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2016.1257418
Moreno-León, J., Robles, G., & Román-González, M. (2020). Towards data-driven learning paths to develop computational thinking with Scratch. IEEE Transactions on Emerging, Topics in Computing, 8(1), 193-205. doi:10.1109/TETC.2017.2734818
Brennan, K. A. (2012). New frameworks for studying and assessing the development of computational thinking. Proceedings of the 2012 annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, Canada
Boe, B., Hill, C., Len, M., Dreschler, G., Conrad, P., & Franklin, D. (2013). Hairball: lint inspired static analysis of scratch projects. In Proceedings of the 44th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (pp. 215–220). doi: 10.1145/2445196.2445265
Moreno, J. (2014). Automatic detection of bad programming habits in scratch: a preliminary study.Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), IEEE, 1-4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2014.7044055
Moreno, J., & Robles, G. (2015). Dr. Scratch: A web tool to automatically evaluate scratch projects. Proceedings of the Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education on ZZZ-WiPSCE ’15, 132–133. https://doi.org/10.1145/2818314.2818338
Pinto, A., & Escudeiro, P. (2014). The use of Scratch for the development of 21st century learning skills in ICT. 9th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), Barcelona
Nouri, J., Zhang, L., Mannila L. & Norén, E. (2020): Development of computational thinking, digital competence and 21st century skills when learning programming in K-9, Education Inquiry. 11(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2019.1627844
Park, Y. & Shin, Y. (2019). Comparing the Effectiveness of Scratch and App Inventor with Regard to Learning Computational Thinking Concepts. Electronics, 8(11), 2-12. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8111269
Lister, R. (2011). Concrete and other neo-Piagetian forms of reasoning in the novice programmer. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth Australasian Computing EducationConference (pp. 9–18)
Baratè, A., Ludovico, L. A., & Malchiodi, D. (2017). Fostering computational thinking in primary school through a LEGO®-based music notation. Procedia computer science, 112, 1334-1344
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
