Abstract:

Seymour Papert’s idea of the use of a robot, either as a physical object or as a microworld projection, is probably more relevant than ever. When he published the first paper on the Logo programming language in 1971, considering the availability and price of personal computers at that time, such an idea seemed more like science fiction than reality. Today, children are growing up with computers and various digital gadgets. Still, are they just consumers of technology, or are they fluent in it? Many block-based programming languages and educational robots are built on Papert’s ideas. Some studies have shown that such environments can boost students’ motivation and learning. On the other hand, there is concern that these tools may become an end in themselves, lacking educational impact and focusing primarily on entertainment. “Making it easy” is not a solution to introducing programming nor is fun alone. The educational programming environment should embrace Papert’s idea of “hard fun” because learning is hard, but it can be fun when they engaged in challenging activities. In this pilot study, conducted as a quasi-experiment among fifth-graders in one elementary school during teaching programming in extracurricular activities Robotics, and programming, we used the educational mBot robot and block-based programming language mBlock to teach basic programming concepts. The programming concepts were introduced in two different pedagogical approaches: 1) computational thinking and unplugged activities before programming the robot; 2) programming the robot from the beginning. The study aimed to examine the differences in students' knowledge at the end of the teaching process and determine whether different approaches affect success in mastering basic programming concepts, as well as the identification of some programming misconceptions.

Keywords:

Computational thinking, programming, robots, programming novices, K-12, misconceptions.