Maria Knobelsdorf, University of Dortmund, Germany - Didaktik der ...

states clearly that the aim is for students to be able to solve
problems in an algorithmic way and not to learn a specific
programming language. Things are worst in the 3 rd Grade of
Greek Lyceum where students are examined in Pan-Hellenic level
in a subset of a Pascal-like pseudolanguage translated in Greek in
order to enter University. Although specialized tools have been
developed, which offer software visualisation features that have
proven valuable for students, such as step by step execution and
visualisation of variables' state both for programs and structured
flowcharts, several teachers decide not to use them in class. It is
surprising that there are teachers teaching the specific course that
have never used such tools, or at least have not encouraged their
students to use them at home for their assignments, in order to
execute them step by step for testing their assumptions and facing
their difficulties with flow of control. Their main arguments for
not using such tools are the limited number of teaching hours and
the large proportion of students per computer. It is obvious that
such facts of the educational system act as great obstacles for
persuading teachers towards the incorporation of valuable tools
in the educational process. The problem, of course, remains
identical when teachers follow courses in PAKE in order to
become trainers.
A number of trainees, fortunately small, are moreover negative in
getting trained in subjects that are not currently taught at Greek
schools. Such a subject is object-oriented programming (OOP)
that can be taught only in an elective basis in Secondary
education. Although trainees recognize the fact that OOP is the
dominant programming technique nowadays, and they accept the
fact that several educational environments exist that can be used
for a successful teaching of OOP to students, they still have
objections. However, most of the trainees believe that sooner or
later OOP should be included in the curriculum and are positive
towards utilizing programming microworlds, such as Jeroo or
objectKarel, for younger students and educational programming
environments, such as BlueJ and Greenfoot for technologicaloriented
Lyceum students. Especially trainees with no experience
on OOP seem to appreciate even more the importance of
programming microworlds for teaching basic OOP concepts.
5. FINAL REMARKS AND CONCLUSIONS
The exploitation of ICT in Secondary Education is considered
necessary, as it is expected to enhance both teaching and learning.
In Greece, a large-scale program is being carried out over the last
12 years with the aim of integrating ICT into Secondary
Education teaching practice. However, teachers of Informatics
were not included in this program until recently. The training of
the very first Informatics' teachers, that are going to train
massively other teachers in the usage of ICT in Secondary
Computing Education, has just finished. As expected, this training
of teachers carried out in order to prepare them for training other
teachers in the usage of ICT was not easy.
Teachers of Informatics tend to give more emphasis on practice,
rather than theory. Furthermore, they consider themselves experts
in technological issues and do not get easily, at least as easily as
teachers in other disciplines, enthusiastic with ICT. Their
transformation from instructors to trainers of teachers requires
getting familiar with a variety of new theoretical concepts, as well
as acquiring knowledge of various theories related to Didactics of
Informatics. As mentioned, several factors make this process
difficult: unwillingness to participate actively in seminars with a
theoretical nature, or relevant to issues they consider they have
experience in; learning theories and didactic concepts are not
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considered useful; superficial adoption of learning theories and
misapplication of acquired knowledge; objections in getting
trained in subjects that are not currently taught at schools;
teachers' adherence in school books and their gathered experience
do not let them innovate in their classrooms; adherence to
intricacies of the educational system prevents them from utilizing
ICT tools that they consider useful. Of course, the aforementioned
limitations are true for some of the trainees only.
It is obvious that in order to face these difficulties special
attention must be paid in the material that is used during the
preparation of trainers and the way it is presented. Theoretical
issues have to be presented in conjunction with good examples of
their application in teaching specific IT issues in the classroom
and not in general. An abundance of examples and practical ideas,
as well as material that trainees can easily work on/modify and
use in classroom has to be offered. The experience gathered from
the first cycle of preparing trainers for teachers of Informatics
provides great help towards this direction. Our plans for further
research include the rigorous investigation of the vast amount of
data that has been collected, in order to shed more light on and
enhance the training of Secondary Computing Education teachers.
6. REFERENCES
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Tiberghien (éds), La transposition didactique à l’épreuve, La
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[2] Dagdilelis V., Satratzemi M., Evangelidis G., 2004.
Introducing Secondary Education Students to Algorithms
and Programming. Education and Information Technologies,
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[3] Demetriadis et. Al. 2003. Cultures in negotiation: teachers’
acceptance/resistance attitudes considering the infusion of
technology into schools, Computers & Education, 41(3), 19-
37.
[4] Drent, M., and Meelisen, M. 2008. Which factors obstruct or
stimulate teacher educators to use ICT innovatively?
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[5] Jung, I. 2005. ICT-Pedagogy Integration in Teacher
Training: Application Cases Worldwide. Educational
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[6] Khe Foon Hew, and Brush T. 2007. Integrating technology
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recommendations for future research, Educational
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[7] Schwill A. 1997 Computer science education based on
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