2018 Technical Report
Informatics for All is an initiative devised jointly by ACM Europe and Informatics Europe. Its purpose is to give due recognition to Informatics as an essential foundational discipline for education in the twenty-first century. Informatics is the science underpinning the development of the digital world, and it is having a profound effect on all aspects of modern society. The discipline has fundamental conceptual and practical facets. The considerable economic impact of its technological developments, as well as its role in empowering research and development across all sectors, has created an imperative to address educational issues.
The initiative is based on the long-term recommendations of the report “Informatics Education in Europe: Are We All In The Same Boat?” which presented the state of relevant education, and related teacher training, across Europe. Its conclusions highlighted the serious need for an initiative to ensure that Informatics is properly recognised within the educational systems so that Europe is well placed to compete globally in reaping the benefits that flow from Informatics.
This paper highlights the need for a two-tier strategy for Informatics education at all levels. First and foremost, the first tier takes the form of Informatics as a specialisation, i.e. a fundamental and independent school subject. The second tier would be the integration of Informatics with other school subjects. To achieve this goal, in both tiers research is needed to address what and how to teach (curriculum, methods and tools), and how to educate teachers.
To address this grand challenge important recommendations on Informatics are provided in Section 3.2, on Teacher issues in Section 4.2. and on Research in Section 5.3.
Cited By
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Farris A and McLaughlin G (2024). Getting a grip on how we talk about computational practices in science in settings of teacher learning, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 10.1111/jcal.12976
- Sirocchi C, Ostergren A and Bogliolo A (2023). Investigating Participation Mechanisms in EU Code Week, ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 24:1, (1-31), Online publication date: 31-Mar-2024.
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Maiorana F, Csizmadia A, Cristaldii G and Riedesel C (2024). Education With Passion Navigating Computer Science Education in the 21st Century, 10.4018/979-8-3693-1066-3.ch007, (129-148)
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Baberowski D, Leonhardt T and Bergner N (2024). Digital Fabrication als Brücke zwischen Making und Informatik, MedienPädagogik: Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung, 10.21240/mpaed/56/2024.02.05.X, 56, (314-330)
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Nardelli E (2024). No Digital Citizens Without Digital Humanism Introduction to Digital Humanism, 10.1007/978-3-031-45304-5_7, (99-114),
- Zatsman I (2023). Scientific Paradigm of Informatics as a Third Culture, Scientific and Technical Information Processing, 50:4, (246-258), Online publication date: 1-Dec-2023.
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Mladenović M (2023). Adapting to online education: insights from computer science teachers, Discover Education, 10.1007/s44217-023-00060-z, 2:1
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Lust M and Laanpere M (2024). Redefining the creative digital project for 8th grade in Estonian schools, Educational Media International, 10.1080/09523987.2023.2324600, 60:3-4, (257-273), Online publication date: 2-Oct-2023.
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Peñaloza-Ochoa S and Ortega-Chasi P (2023). Computational Thinking as a Didactic Strategy for the Development of Mathematical Competencies in Problem-Solving Proceedings of the 18th Latin American Conference on Learning Technologies (LACLO 2023), 10.1007/978-981-99-7353-8_8, (86-100),
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Seegerer S, Michaeli T and Romeike R (2023). Foundations of Computer Science in General Teacher Education – Findings and Experiences from a Blended-Learning Course Towards a Collaborative Society Through Creative Learning, 10.1007/978-3-031-43393-1_36, (389-399),
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Tatnall A and Fluck A (2022). Twenty-five years of the Education and the Information Technologies journal: Past and future, Education and Information Technologies, 10.1007/s10639-022-10917-9, 27:2, (1359-1378), Online publication date: 1-Mar-2022.
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Dagienė V, Jevsikova T, Stupurienė G and Juskevicienė A (2022). Teaching computational thinking in primary schools: Worldwide trends and teachers’ attitudes, Computer Science and Information Systems, 10.2298/CSIS201215033D, 19:1, (1-24),
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Tamborg A and Refvik K (2022). Coordinating Mathematical Competencies and Computational Thinking Practices from a Networking of Theories Point of View Mathematical Competencies in the Digital Era, 10.1007/978-3-031-10141-0_17, (311-327),
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Van de Staey Z, Gesquière N and wyffels F (2022). A Social Robot Activity for Novice Programmers Robotics in Education, 10.1007/978-3-030-82544-7_8, (72-77),
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Vințe C, Smeureanu I, Dârdală M and Reveiu A (2021). SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATION – AUTOMATING CURRICULUM ASSESSMENT, Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 10.3846/tede.2021.15018, 0:0, (1-27), Online publication date: 5-Jul-2021.
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Maiorana F, Csizmadia A and Richards G (2020). Managing Data and Projects: Lessons Learnt from Comparing Computing Curricula 2020 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE), 10.1109/TALE48869.2020.9368420, 978-1-7281-6942-2, (165-172)
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García-Perales R and Palomares-Ruiz A (2020). Education in Programming and Mathematical Learning: Functionality of a Programming Language in Educational Processes, Sustainability, 10.3390/su122310129, 12:23, (10129)
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Bile Hassan I and Liu J (2020). A Comparative Study of the Academic Programs between Informatics/BioInformatics and Data Science in the U.S. 2020 IEEE 44th Annual Computers, Software, and Applications Conference (COMPSAC), 10.1109/COMPSAC48688.2020.00030, 978-1-7281-7303-0, (165-171)
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Demartini C, Benussi L, Gatteschi V and Renga F Education and Digital Transformation: The “Riconnessioni” Project, IEEE Access, 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3018189, 8, (186233-186256)
- Caspersen M, Gal-Ezer J, McGettrick A and Nardelli E (2019). Informatics as a fundamental discipline for the 21st century, Communications of the ACM, 62:4, (58-58), Online publication date: 20-Mar-2019.
- Nardelli E (2019). Do we really need computational thinking?, Communications of the ACM, 62:2, (32-35), Online publication date: 28-Jan-2019.
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