UNPLUGGED LANGUAGE-NEUTRAL CARD GAMES AS AN INCLUSIVE INSTRUMENT TO DEVELOP COMPUTATIONAL THINKING SKILLS INTED-2015 presentation http://iated.org/concrete3/view_abstract.php?paper_id=42744 It has been recently recognized that computational thinking and problem solving are fundamental cross-disciplinary skills that can be effectively developed by facing programming challenges. Cloud-based visual programming platforms and playful massive open online courses have lowered access barriers and supported worldwide computer literacy campaigns targeting not only IT-gifted pupils, but neophytes of any age regardless of their aptitudes and dreams. Giving to everyone the opportunity to think like a programmer has become a priority for many governments, inducing for the first time education ministries to officially invite schools to leverage freely available online resources in order to speedup the process and achieve early resuts without waiting for a full fledged reform of curricula. In this scenario, digital divide risks to cause serious discrimination due to the lack of suitable Internet access infrastructures and compution equipment, to the adverse socio-economic conditions, to the cultural background, and to the language barriers. This paper presents a new method that makes use of special playing cards inspired to the building blocks of visual programming tools to enable unplugged coding experiences. Cards are made language-neutral by making use of evocative symbols in place of words. The same cards can be used to create many different games belonging to two main categories: board games and spatial games. Two target groups have been chosen to test the inclusiveness and the engagement capabilities of the proposed method: primary schools affected by digital divide issues, and multicultural groups of asylum seekers and refugees. The paper presents the proposed methodology and reports the results of the first field trials.

1. UNPLUGGED LANGUAGE-NEUTRAL CARD GAMES
AS AN INCLUSIVE INSTRUMENT TO DEVELOP
COMPUTATIONAL THINKING SKILLS
Alessandro Bogliolo
INTED2015
Madrid, 3 Feb 2015

2. CODING AND COMPUTATIONAL THINKING
in EARLY EDUCATION
THE SOONER THE BETTER
Rate of Return
of Investments
in Human Capital
pre school post
age
ROI

3. “MIND THE GAP” Steve Wheeler
@INTED2015
“The future is here, but it is not
evenly distributed”

4. CODING LITERACY
CAMPAIGNS
Rate of Return
of Investments
in Human Capital
pre school post
age
ROI
COMPUTATIONAL
THINKING
PROBLEM
SOLVING COMPETITIVENESS
GENDER GAP
SKILL GAP
#codeEU
#CSEdWeek

5. METHODS
VISUAL PROGRAMMING
ONLINE INTERACTIVE RESOURCES
BLOCKS PUZZLES
PLAYFUL EXERCISES
MOOCS
VIDEOGAME CHARACTERS
http://code.org/

6. “Optimally challenging goals are
essential to develop #GRIT”
Antonio Garcia @INTED2015

7. WHAT ABOUT ALL OTHER GAPS?
Digital divide Language
Socio-economic context
Cultural
background
Internet
Computers
Electricity
Habits

8. CODY
A coder who provides instructions
ROBY
A robot who executes instructions
UNPLUGGED

9. COMMON BACKGROUND
INTUITIVE

10. LANGUAGE-NEUTRAL

11. PLAYFUL

12. INTERACTIVE and INCREMENTAL
Challenging board games for any age
Follow me
The duel
The race
The tourist
Snakes
Blind date

13. EXPRESSIVE

14. INCLUSIVE
DIY starter kit
Less than 50c of material
Video tutorial http://youtu.be/D5hQ9UTDQ6s

15. REUSABLE

16. PILOTS
PRE-SCHOOL KIDS
AT SCHOOL
AT UNIVERSITY
WITH A GROUP OF ASYLUM SEEKERS
UNPLUGGED HOUR OF CODE

17. if you had troubles
following this presentation…
In brief:

18. Alessandro Bogliolo
alessandro.bogliolo@uniurb.it
@neutralaccess
http://codeweek.it/cody-roby/
http://informatica.uniurb.it/