Abstract:

The specific educational applications presented in this article are beneficial to experiential teaching of informatics. The use of virtual technologies in the teaching of informatics is highly motivational for pupils and beginners programmers. In this article we deal with experiential activities, which bring solutions to simple problems. The pupils learn to think creatively while playing. It is expected from students to also solve new problems based on the acquired knowledge in accordance with the principles of learning by doing. We describe the possibilities of coding 3D games in Kodu Game Lab programming environment, as well as the tile-based programming in Baltie 3 by using an interactive mode and the graphic icons instead of text commands. The mentioned environments/applications are suitable for beginners in programming, who want to understand programming concepts and easily create programs without text writing. We will detail the possibilities of building programming skills and techniques by applying sequences of simple commands and loops at the lowest and medium level. Visualization for each phase of the problem solving greatly supports the deep learning and problem solving skills.

Keywords:

Elementary school informatics, interactive programming, tile-based programming languages, deep learning.