The Fondazione Mondo Digitale has accepted the new challenge launched by Google to raise the interest of teachers on the resolution of complex problems through computational thinking. Over the coming months, FMD will work with Italian schools to promote the free “CS First” Platform, which will help teachers train their colleagues, promote the creation of computer clubs and organize a "CS First Day" at the Rome Phyrtual Innovation Gym.
Google has selected the Fondazione Mondo Digitale as its Italian partner to promote the experience of Google CS First in Italian schools. The free platform helps teachers who wish to adopt a more exciting and custom-tailored educational approach to the development of computational thinking amongst students. In the coming months, 470 Italian teachers will experiment with Google tools and create computer clubs in their schools to actively involve over 9000 students in activities. Worldwide, the CS First Community has already involved over one million students from 32,000 classes and in 75 countries.
Google CS First is not a traditional computer science class. It allows teachers to custom-tailor the application of coding, problem solving and new languages transversally to a wide range of subjects, driving creativity and developing a more exciting approach to computational thinking for students, as well as delivering strategic digital competences.
CS First employs free computer science texts and easy-to-use video tutorials. All teachers, even those without any experience in this field, can create issue-based clubs and attract less motivated students to computational languages. From arts to music and fashion, simple block coding allows students to create multimedia projects and invent stories, learning to resolve complex problems and experience technology through a creative approach.
With the support of coaches from the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, 60 primary and first-degree secondary school teachers in Milan, Rome and Naples will be trained to use Google CS First. Integrating the train-the-trainers model with peer-to-peer training, participating teachers will then share their new competences with other teachers. By the end of the course, which will include the organisation of a “CS First Day” at the Fondazione Mondo Digitale’s Phyrtual Innovation Gym in Rome, 470 teachers will have learned to use the platform and activate clubs at their schools to provide further strategic digital competences to over 9000 Italian students.
“We are very proud of our ongoing collaboration with Google and our constant commitment to training and promoting lifelong learning amongst Italian teachers. In fact, we are certain that the true transformation of schools will begin with a far-sighted approach by those innovating teachers and school administrators, who grasp the daily challenges of their work, custom-tailor contents and promote an inclusive and transversal education,” explains Alfonso Molina, Scientific Director of the Fondazione Mondo Digitale.
