Abstract:

Current economic life requires employees to have the best digital skills. Statistics show that those with computer skills enter the labour market much earlier. Employers are not only looking for employees who manage modern digital devices well, but also who are developing them. Therefore, great emphasis should be placed on the education and training of digital competencies. In addition to IT and computer science classes, digital knowledge and thinking can also be developed in other teaching classes, such as biology, mathematics, physics, etc. At the beginning of the 21st century, the topic of computer thinking has been raised more and more in educational research. There is a gradual emergence of scientific literature on the subject, in which psychologists emphasize the need to begin development of thinking at a very young age. Most of the literature deals only with the development of computer thinking in primary and secondary school students. In our current digital environment, it is also necessary to develop the computer thinking skills of university students, which also includes the development of algorithmic skills. For developing computational thinking and algorithmic skills is one very useful method using microcontrollers in education. The aim of this paper is to point out, with the help of a research, that it is necessary to develop computer thinking in the case of university students as well. In this paper we show results of research on the development of students' knowledge level over the last five years and experiences about developing computational thinking by microcontrollers. We show how we can use microcontrollers in the development of algorithmic thinking.

Keywords:

computational thinking, microcontrollers, programming, education