Abstract:

Informatics occupies a central place in today’s society. With its modern technologies, a society without Informatics would be unimaginable. Nevertheless, the subject of Informatics still plays a minor role or is neglected altogether in many schools - especially in primary schools. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to try to break the trend of regarding Informatics as negligible with the help of the new, interdisciplinary research area of neurodidactics. The paper aims at illustrating the importance and practicability of Informatics education in primary schools considering neurodidactical concepts and principles. It describes the project “Exploring and discovering Informatics” carried out during the last school year in the 3rd and 4th grade of a Carinthian primary school. The project was funded by the teacher support program “Informatik kreativ unterrichten” (Teaching Informatics creatively), a regional part of the Austrian teacher support system IMST that aims at strengthening MINDT education (Mathematics, Informatics, Natural Sciences, German and Technology) in Austrian schools.

Overall, the project “Exploring and discovering Informatics” concentrates on teaching a first understanding of important concepts of Computer Science , awakening the students’ curiosity and on developing a modern education that prepares the children for their further way of (school) life, which is almost unimaginably without Informatics today.

After discussing how to introduce Informatics in primary schools this paper describes the project including the development of a teaching unit based on neurodidactical principles and the final evaluation.

Keywords:

Computer science, informatics, primary school, projects.