Computer Science First

The Fondazione Mondo Digitale (FMD) is once again beside Google for the fourth edition of the project to promote the use of the Computer Science First in Italian schools. The platform allows teachers to teach computational thought in a fun and enticing manner along with soft skills.

CS First is a free platform that allows educators to integrate curricular subjects with more efficient methodologies for teaching and learning new languages, and not only coding.

The challenge of the fourth edition is to involve not only teachers, but parents, too. FMD is coordinating a national research project to investigate the attitude of parents towards “careers” in scientific areas. The objective is to help families to overcome prejudice, commonplaces and false myths about studies, professions and careers and to understand how the working world is changing, orienting the new generations in a more informed manner.

DURATION

March 2021 – June 2021

OBJECTIVES

• Promote education, updating and collaboration with Italian professors
• Promote a custom-tailored and attractive didactic model
• Interest students in coding and STEM subjects
• Introduce parents to degrees and careers in Computer Science
• Provide orientation tools for the new professions and address the growing demand for professional profiles with technological competences
• Integrate the value of diversity in education
• Experiment with new forms of collaborative learning on virtual meeting and networking platforms.

TARGET

With the new educational activities and materials shared on the platform, CS First aims to reach 6000 professors with a special attention on those working with students in fragile conditions. The national research project will involve 2200 parents of young students (aged 11-18).

ACTIVITIES AND TOOLS FOR TEACHERS

• The Moodle Platform (formazione.innovationgym.org) hosts the material developed for the various editions, including webinars and free video courses that can easily be enjoyed by just registering on the site. Moreover, there also is an eight-part MOOC developed with Alessandro Bogliolo, University of Urbino.
• The curriculum mapping includes a selection of transversal activities that any teacher can implement and personalise to develop new didactic solutions and broaden the connections between different core curriculum subject areas.
• At the end of the course, teachers will complete a questionnaire to evaluate the impact of these activities on didactics. Moreover, teacher and classrooms experiences will be shared during the project to promote the importance of coding.

ACTIVITIES AND TOOLS FOR PARENTS

• The parents of children aged (11-18) will be involved in a national research project investigating how to increase their knowledge and understanding of careers in scientific subjects.
• 10 focus groups will be created to study and discuss parents’ point of view on IT.

ACTIVITIES AND TOOLS FOR STUDENTS

• Students will use Scratch to programme. This is a free coding language based on block code, which is ideal for beginners.
• Thanks to education with CS First, even fragile students have been oriented towards the emerging professions of the future.

NUMBERS OF THE PREVIOUS EDITIONS

During the last edition, we trained 5.257 educators.