This research article assesses the concepts of Computational Thinking (CT) as applied in basic education. Although widely used in K12 education, many articles indicate a lack of uniformity in the conceptualization of CT. CT is defined as the systematic problem-solving ability based on algorithmic processes. It is seen as crucial for stimulating interest and diversity in STEM careers. Effective CT teaching requires precise conceptualization and appropriate teaching techniques. With the world's increasing digitization, CT is considered as fundamental as reading or math skills and should be taught from K12 education. This article reports a systematic mapping of CT con-cepts applied in K12 activities, reflecting on the chosen activities and teaching techniques. Despite some articles highlighting the unclear definition of CT, there is a notable agreement on its key concepts. The study used the IEEEXplore database, analyzing primary articles from 2019–2023. The findings reveal a high degree of similarity in CT concepts, indicating a trend towards standardization. A catalog of frequently cited activities used to teach CT is presented, aiding teachers in introducing CT in their classes. This study supports the development of teaching policies and initiatives. contributing to STEM interest and diversity.

Mathematics is a crucial skill in modern society, enhancing problem-solving abilities across various fields, from medicine to philosophy. Its concepts underpin major information systems, including machine learning and mobile applications. Nonetheless, many countries experience significant gaps in students' understanding of fundamental mathematical concepts, leading to widespread math anxiety, particularly concerning fractions. Moreover, numerous studies indicate that digital games positively influence learning outcomes by providing an engaging teaching method. To understand how existing digital games have been used to teach fractions, we conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) that explores digital games that support teaching fractions and examines how they have been integrated into teaching strategies, including how their pedagogical effectiveness is assessed. Our findings underscore the need for more tools compatible with Learning Management Systems (LMS) and improved accessibility to the games/tools mentioned in the literature. Additionally, there is an urgent need to develop metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of game-based learning tools for fractions.

In an attempt to improve student learning process, schools are looking for new solutions to enhance the educational scenario. A particular direction is the adoption of educational games, mainly for their playful aspects, quick feedback, and structure with increasing levels of challenges. Within this di-rection, one relevant question is how to improve the learning of fractions, which is an essential concept to any STEM career. Targeting these issues, boost the fractions learning process, iFractions was born - a collection of Web games aimed at teaching fractions to elementary school children. It is implemented in JavaScript and is distributed as a free software. Considering that in computer-based games, giving formative feedback goes beyond checking answers to explaining and modifying a student's thinking, but can also promote learning, we propose a redesign for one of the iFractions mini-games. This redesign consisted of revising, restructuring, and renewing feedback on the balloon mini-game. The results of the redesign evaluation showed that experts involved considered that iFractions interfaces were improved and brought ideas about future modifications to the iFractions platform.

Computational thinking has become an essential skill nowadays. Many educational institutions around the world have adopted computational thinking as an elementary or complementary subject in their teaching schedules. One of the approaches that is efficient in teaching and learning computational thinking has been visual programming. However, like other applications used daily, visual programming tools can be a limiting factor for the blind in learning computational thinking. This work aims to present the iVProg4all, an accessible visual programming system based on forms. A preliminary study was carried out to test the usability of iVProg4all and accessibility with a blind user. The results show that, although some usability issues need to be fixed, the system proved accessible for blind people.

The global pandemic of Covid-19 has accelerated the use of computer technology applications in our daily lives, leading to an increased use of web-based learning management systems (LMS). Consequently, a larger volume of data related to students and their interactions with LMS has been produced and efforts has been directed to identify relevant information from such data to support the learning process. However, this task has become increasingly challenging by the diverse range of social, cultural and economic backgrounds of students, as well as their varying learning styles. Thus, this work describes a systematic mapping of the literature considering primary studies to identify the different strategies employed to predict students' outcome, such as Educational Data Mining (EDM) and Learning Analytics (LA). The main research question was: “what is the current context of research related to the data-driven prediction of the students' performance”. We analyzed 315 studies from IEEExplore and ACM Digital Library, selecting 85 studies for full reading. As a conclusion, predicting students' performance to improve education is an alive and open problem, yet students' performance can be predicted. Also, only a few works apply information resulting from educational data mining back to the learning environment to improve the learning process. A subset of the acquired data can provide subsidy to improve the learning process, for this reason we call this as relevant data, and after processing, relevant information. We define relevant information any information, feature or pattern that was successfully used to predict students' outcome. Another result is the finding of studies that use predicting tools unsuitable to quantify how data is relevant.

This full paper reports the results of the development of a Moodle plugin, Programming Exercise Teaching Assistant (PETA), created to support teachers from introductory programming courses to identify problematic exercises by analyzing how students interact with them. Moodle is an open source learning management system that allows personalization of its functionality through plugins. In introductory programming courses, it is common to propose problems to students, for which they need to elaborate solution code. The VPL (Virtual Programming Lab) is a popular plugin that allows teachers to create this kind of problem, with automatic evaluation built on top of test-cases. The iAssign (interactive Assignment) is another plugin of the same sort, but with block-based programming. Our plugin is an open-source project, initially developed to integrate with iAssign, and created to integrate easily with any similar plugin used in programming tasks. Our primary goal is to empower teachers and students by supplying a tool that improves the quality of programming in education. Over the last few years, the University of São Paulo has increased its public policy for social inclusion, bringing in even more learners with diverse educational backgrounds. Understanding the students' profiles and being able to modify problems based on these new contexts is fundamental to improve the quality of teaching. This plugin aims to meet the needs of teachers and learners, exploring data from their educational context to improve the learning experience. The plugin automatically extracts data from students' interaction with the coding exercise, e.g. the time between submission (TBS), code changing between submissions (CCBS), and grades. Using these variables, we calculated derived metrics in an attempt to classify exercises according to different parameters. First, we considered time-related metrics, the highest time between submissions (HT). Secondly, we evaluated metrics related to code changes, the highest code changes between submissions (HC). Finally, we accounted for student performance by considering average grades, penalized by time and by number of submissions (AG). A technical contribution of this work is the Moodle plugin that analyzes the students' codes of iAssign, available as free software. The results from this new plugin with eight introductory classes show that it was possible to classify exercises. The AG metric created could be associated with the exercise level of difficulty, while HT and HC metrics are indicative of exercise complexity, requiring a higher level of prior knowledge, such as familiarity with loops, functions, and potential challenges with the problem instructions.

This full paper of Research Category presents the main results of a systematic review of the literature about the use of computer games in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. The concept of lifelong learning has often been encouraged in literature. However, it also reports students facing difficulties in exact sciences since elementary school: a significant challenge to overcome. Among the reasons for such difficulties are demotivation, disinterest, learning difficulties, and even the use of outdated teaching-learning methods. In an attempt to improve the relationship between students and exact sciences, schools are expanding the use of information technologies to offer the students interactive environments in order to enrich their classes. In this context, characteristics of digital games appear as a didactic resource that can benefit the students' learning process. If properly used, digital games can stimulate memory, creativity, socialization, and also incite curiosity. Due to the ease young students have with games and considering the benefits mentioned above, many institutions have been investing in digital games (or environments with some of their characteristics). However, these games can generate compulsive behaviors (WHO classified such disorders in 2018), and it is worth noticing that many articles reporting the use of games in education focus mainly on its acceptance instead of its teaching capabilities. In this article, we report the main findings, such as that technology is the area with the highest concentration of digital games. It is also observed that different guiding theories appear, such as those with a constructivist tendency. Among the arguments for using games stand out: the gain in cognitive skills, the possibility of using simulations, and the ease in understanding complex themes. The methods of didactic-pedagogical evaluation mostly used are questionnaires of acceptance or the student's perception. This review highlights the potential of digital games to promote learning. However, these games should not be focused solely on their ludic aspect, as they have a different purpose from regular games. Active methodologies mediated by information and communication technologies can make class more engaging as students actively participate in the construction of student learning.

The comprehension of algorithms is becoming essential and programming, not rarely, has being introduced since elementary school. Nevertheless, the acquisition of programming skills is not an easy task. This fact is corroborated by the literature that report alarming failure and dropout rates in CS0 (Introduction to Computer Science) courses. On the other hand, forecasts about the demand for software developers indicate exponential growth over the next decade.In this context, reducing the cognitive workload for learners is desirable. For instance, the integration of a web-based environment with some visual programming tool and automatic assessment could benefit learners.The adoption of a unique environment where the students could learn how to solve problems using algorithms and receive immediate feedback may reduce the slope of the learning curve. Moreover, the possibility of using the same tool to communicate with their teachers and colleagues can positively affect their learning.Also, the visual programming paradigm can reduce the need for memorization of a programming language syntax. It allows learners to focus their attention on solving the problem algorithmically.There are several tools that provide automated assessment evaluation. Some of these can be used with Web browsers, but very few of them can be integrated with a Learning Management System (LMS). In this workshop, we will discuss two of these systems that are distributed as free software: the Virtual Programming Laboratory (VPL) and the iVProgH/iAssign solutions. They can all be integrated with the Moodle platform.Since VPL demands an extra installation of the jail server (to run students solutions) and works with traditional programming languages, the focus will be over iVProgH/iAssign. The iVProgH/iAssign solution implements the Visual Programming Paradigm. iVProgH is implemented in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, sparing the use of a security environment to separated compilation, as VPL demands.

Visual programming allows students to construct their algorithms using graphical elements, reducing some difficulties usually associated with textual coding, like syntactic errors and countless commands to memorize. There are some visual programming software available, such as iVProg. iVProg is free and open source tool, designed to help the teaching and learning of algorithms, especially in introductory programming courses. The current version is developed with HTML5 technologies, fully portable, with a lot of resources specially the automatic evaluation and its integration into Moodle. This paper presents a comparative study between two different user interface implementations for iVProg: context menu against fixed menu. Each interface have different ways to delivery the resources to users. Moreover, both of them use point-and-click mouse interaction in order to allow the user to develop algorithms. Usability tests were performed with undergraduate students to identify users' awareness concerning their effort and performance while interacting with the system. Students enrolled in a summer introductory programming course were invited to participate of usability tests. The attendees were divided in two groups, one group started using the fixed menu and the other with context menu. In the second session, the groups inverted the utilized interface. The study analyzed different instruments: the mouse log, NASA-TLX workload perception data, also an unstructured interview, that was conducted in order to identify students' perception about their experience with iVProg. When analyzed visually, logs of mouse clicks obtained in the introductory programming course showed that the construction of algebraic and logical expressions required a higher number of interactions in both interface versions. Although students found the fixed menu interface less mental demanding, the overall workload of the fixed menu interface was much higher when compared to the context menu. Moreover, the participants of the introductory programming course obtained better results, with grades higher than class average.

This full paper presents the process and the results of a systematic review about students' difficulties in basic mathematics concepts in higher education. The main goal of this review is to identify the basic mathematics topics in which students face most difficulties. This tough relationship with mathematics begins a long time before the university, it can be identified at the first levels, during basic education, when students are introduced to arithmetic. According to studies, in most cases, there are two kinds of problems that can explain this learning difficulty: the first one is identified when it is related to the child's cognitive development, while the second kind of common learning difficulty is related to problems outside the child or in another particular problem. Also, it has been identified in the literature that when studying mathematics, a range of feelings can be triggered in students, ranging from positive feelings to negative ones. This perception can explain why students with a history of failures in mathematics believe that they are not able to construct the necessary knowledge to pursue higher education in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) courses. In Brazil, for instance, only 17% of students apply for a STEM course, while in countries in North America and Europe, this percentage reaches 24%. Therefore, this systematic review was conducted in order to analyze publications regarding difficulties related to basic math, faced by students in higher education. The results indicate various difficulty levels in a variety of mathematics topics, including functions and fractions in practical situations. The analyzed papers also point to the fact that the problems are faced when students are in the primary education and persists in higher education.

This Research Full Paper presents a literature review about overcoming accessibility barriers for People with Severe vision impairment in Web-based Learning Environments.People with vision impairment face several barriers while interacting with web-based environments.Among them, one can cite the lack of suitability of these environments for the use of screen readers, e.g. if the description of the environment elements are not readable by the screen reader.These barriers are also present in web-based learning environments. In this work we present, through a literature review, the most common accessibility barriers faced by people with vision impairment while interacting with web-based learning environments. In addition, we propose solutions that can mitigate this problem, allowing broad access to distance education environments and a better learning experience with them.

Dynamic lectures are collaborative settings in which learners and educators interact with each other and among them to produce, learn, and consolidate knowledge. To take part into collaborative settings, individuals must be able to communicate with others, be aware of the artifacts used and of the objects of interest, among others. On their foundation, these requirements depend on motor and cognitive-related abilities such as arm movement, perception, recognition, and memorization. Impairments may influence these abilities and consequently pose challenges to the participation in collaborative settings. To the best of our knowledge, there is not a guide, a method nor a framework to orient anyone who wants to analyze the scenario of collaborative settings in order to create conditions for the inclusion of individual in such activities. In this context, this paper presents the Colab4All - Collaboration for All, a framework created to support the analysis of collaborative settings involving people with impairments. The framework uses the well known Human Processor Model with two complementary objectives: first, to derive questions that must be asked to support the analysis previously mentioned, and then to combine these questions with a collaboration model in order to establish the way potential challenges can be addressed. In order to test the proposed framework, we used it to orient a research on the inclusion of individuals with blindness in a class activity based on graphical notations. The results of such research were tested in a real setting and presented promising results. We consider that the framework proposed in this work is a first step to orient research, derive collaborative and inclusive models, and to define requirements for technology that supports such collaborative settings involving people with impairments.

E-learning is a modality of education that has been growing all over the world. However, in computing and engineering education programs, the frequent use of graphical representations creates obstacles to the inclusion of visually impaired learners. Besides, many of the strategies and tools used in traditional lectures are not appropriated in e-learning lectures because of the distance among participants. In this context, this paper presents an evaluation of learners' perceptions during e-learning lectures on software requirements specification using UML/SysML use case models, as well as their associated learning assessment. Visually impaired and sighted learners attended online lectures in real-time with spatial distance. Participants used an external remote communication tool and some features of Model2gether to communicate and coordinate lecture activities. Model2gether was also used for collaborative real-time interaction with use case models. Learners responded a pre-survey and were interviewed prior to the lectures. After the lectures, learning assessment was twofold: by group work and an exam. Their perceptions were gathered through a post-survey and an interview. The quantitative data was statistically analyzed. The results indicate that, with appropriate tool support, it is possible to include visually impaired learners in e-learning activities based on graphical representations. Moreover, the post-survey indicates that the learners did not recognize their colleagues are sighted or not while collaborating using Model2gether.

Programming capabilities are important to the new professionals. Although several initiatives all over the world haves been proposed for teaching programming to people at all levels. Many undergraduate students still fail in the programming courses. Proposed strategies have included visual programming and automatic evaluation of exercises. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of knowledge about students' perceived difficulties in using these strategies in practice: that is, their challenges to learning how to program. In this paper, we report a study aimed at understanding these difficulties and strategies in a STEM course. We used an environment comprising a visual programming tool to introduce algorithms, iVProg with iAssign, and the virtual programming lab (VPL) to introduce programming in C, both with automatic assessment integrated to Moodle. We report quantitative and qualitative results and future directions. Teachers and tool designers can leverage these results to better support programming learning.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are playing an increasing role in our daily lives and it is changing knowledge delivering. For engineers and related careers, where new trends and technologies are delivery continuously, having professional success depends on being updated with them. By adopting web-based learning so that both, students and professionals may accelerate such achievement. Nevertheless, the dropout rate of courses delivered by the World Wide Web (Web) used to be very high, mainly for the ones delivered by MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses). The reasons for that rely on several causes, mostly the ones related to the difficulty of students adapting themselves to the routine of individual studies. Therefore, finding strategies to deal with this difficulty may mitigate dropout rate in web-based learning. In this paper, we describe a systematic review of the literature to find evidences for the relevance of proposing a model to support web-based courses and foster collaboration between pairs as a mean to address the top three problems identified as reasons for the high dropout in distance learning. We also sketch iMPaCTS, the resulting model.

This paper presents iPlan, a model to implement a system to support the creation of lesson plans. It was the result of a systematic review on tools that help teachers on authoring courses that must be delivered through the World Wide Web (Web). The iPlan system aims to simplify teachers' workload while preparing lessons that will be available online in some Learning Management System (LMS). It will provide authoring tools that enable teachers to create and edit lesson plans based on Pedagogical Patterns. By Pedagogical Patterns we mean tested lesson plans or roadmap lessons. Teachers will be empowered with means to create custom patterns, as well. The main feature that distinguishes this study from previous researches is the integrated approach with LMS, lesson plans and pedagogical patterns. In order to allow teachers to store new pedagogical patterns, iPlan uses iRepository, a repository of educational digital content which is also integrated with Moodle. iPlan is being developed for Moodle environment and will be distributed under the GNU Public License (GPL).

Nowadays, computer programming and logical thinking skills have been proposed as a fundamental knowledge, even to young learners. On one hand, in undergraduate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) courses, the first contact of students with the logic of programming usually results in high failure rates. The literature and experiments conducted by the authors point out that this occurs regardless the adopted programming language. On the other hand, the literature presents some positive results when the paradigm used to introduce the subject is Visual Programming (VP), where the learners use icons to build their programs. This approach is successful even with young learners. In this context, a relevant question is whether, and how, the Visual Programming can help learners to understand a traditional textual programming language. The proposal of this work is to study differences between visual and traditional programming by analyzing the mental workload of using both paradigms during the introduction of algorithms and basic concepts of programming in the context of an online course of introductory programming. In order to perform such analysis, we adopted the NASA TLX protocol.

Interactive Geometry (IG) is a computational approach to teach geometry using interactive geometric objects. It is based on the learning-by-doing method where the representation and manipulation of geometric spaces can support students to construct their knowledge through experience. Several research findings indicate various benefits of using IG in classroom. Nevertheless, IG software developed to date has been based on the desktop model where the interaction between a user and the IG software occurs through the conventional inputs and outputs methods: keyboard, mouse, and a monitor. Currently, this model is being challenged by the widespread adoption and use of mobile devices. In this scenario before building an IG software that can be effectively used in mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, where the input is based on touches and movements of fingers and the output is a small screen, there is a need to rethink the interface and what interaction methods should be employed. In response to this need, our paper examines the design and development of a GI application for mobile devices. In this study, we have proposed and implemented an interface and interaction model that is suitable for developing a GI software for mobile devices.

The demand for digital learning content has been increasing in the last years and the advent of the Learning Objects (LO) concept has the goal of mitigating some of the difficulties related to authoring such kind of digital content, by proposing a reusable model and an open metadata standard classifications for them. Nevertheless, digital learning content authoring is often an expensive and time-consuming task that requires many distinct professional skills. One attempt to overcome it is the adoption of Learning Object Repositories (LOR), in order to smooth LO manipulation experiences for teachers and content authors. Some of its keys characteristics are: to promote LO dissemination and reuse to users in a unified spot; and, to serve LO through flexible searches and enforce a metadata standard classification. This paper proposes an innovative repository model to support LOR and their use in web-based courses in the context of an specific LMS, the Moodle environment. The model is flexible, enhances digital content searches and can be fully integrated with an institutional LMS. Moreover, it offers a social environment for peer evaluation and, more important, information about the student performance, resulting in an efficient evaluation of the available contents.

Moodle is a well-known open source system to support teaching and learning through the web. It provides Quiz, a tool for learning assessment, which is also adopted by a large community along the world. Another tool that allows automatic assessment within Moodle is the iAssign package. iAssign provides means for integrating interactive Learning Modules (iLM) to Moodle, empowering it with interactive intense activities concerning specific issues implemented in iLM. However, such tools present some limitations that prevent their users to take more benefit of the question types and iLM such as (i) authoring is not a simple task; (ii) iAssign integrates iLM to Moodle without incorporating Moodle questionnaires; (iii) Quiz database for questions and questionnaires is not integrated to a repository with search and retrieving tools; (iv) in the current version of Moodle, Quiz didn't allows the incorporation or exportation of assessment content that follows the IMS-QTI 2.1 (Question and Test Interoperability) specification. In this paper we address such limitations proposing a generic model and its implementation for the Moodle system.

One of the big challenges that teachers and students face at early stages of CSET (Computer Science, Engineering, and Technology) courses are the difficulties related to teaching and learning algorithms. Usually, such knowledge is presented during introductory programming related disciplines, when students are also presented to some programming language to describe simple algorithms. Therefore, they need to learn not only the new language but also a formal way to describe the solution of problems using that language. This is much different from any formalism they were presented in their previous student's experience. This paper presents iVProg, a system conceived to overcome some of these difficulties by using visual programming. Some experiments were conducted during three years to evaluate students' performance without the system support and with it using different didactic approaches.

Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) provide many features that improve learning and teaching experiences. ITS are usually interactivity-intense and content-specific. Interactivity-intense assignments are recommended for scaffolding learning, while content-specific systems can offer low flexibility regarding its possible pedagogical approaches and its uses by teachers. In order to overcome this limited flexibility, there are systems which let content-specific interactivity aside to provide authoring tools, with which teachers can author intelligent tutored assignments without programming. The generic model proposed herein intends to address this problem providing flexible authoring tools for interactivity-intense assignments with tutoring features, letting teachers benefit from the flexibility of content authoring tools as well as the interactivity usually restricted to content-specific ITS. We introduce an application framework which implements this model, which is available as free software.

The interface is the main mechanism of communication between user and system features. In educational software, successful user interface designs minimize the cognitive load on users, thereby users can direct their efforts to maximize their understanding of the educational concepts being presented. We investigated whether a reduced interface make few cognitive demands on users in comparison to a complete interface. In this context, this research aims at analyzing a reduced and a complete interface of an interactive geometry software, and verify the educational benefits they provide. To this end, we designed the interfaces and carried out an experiment involving 69 undergraduate students. The experimental results indicate that an interface that hides advanced and extraneous features helps novice users to perform slightly better than novice users using a complete interface. After receiving proper training, however, a complete interface makes users more productive than a reduced interface.

The development of good quality educational software is expensive, time-consuming and faces some underlying issues. In order to deal with such issues, many attempts were made, mainly on code reuse. Following a similar approach, the development of an application framework for implementing a family of interactivity-intense educational software called Interactive Learning Modules - iLM is presented. The framework main goal is to reduce development efforts while being part of a Software Product Line - SPL, an innovative technique regarding interactivity-intense educational software. The framework specification is presented by analyzing the common features of existing iLM. Therefore, the resulting component architecture is outlined. Currently, the design phase is finished and the implementation ongoing. Also, its instantiation is planned for an existing iLM, as a proof of concept.

There are different approaches that drive the development and use of educational software, such as Interactive Geometry Systems - IGS and Intelligent Tutoring Systems - ITS. Considering their benefits to teachers and students, these systems may be used to complement each other. The ongoing development of ITS features in an existing IGS called iGeom is presented. First, the limitations of both approaches are listed, describing possible benefits of using them together. Then, the resulting component architecture of the conducted analysis and software design is outlined. The ITS paradigm chosen was Example-tracing Tutors. The current state of research is the tutoring features implementation and planning for testing in classrooms and in distance learning courses.

An important discipline in the basic education of CSET students is related to mathematical functions and associated issues. Therefore, technology advances on building and delivering software to support such subject had been benefited students all over the world. However, most of such software are stand alone systems that don't provide support for their integration to Learning Management Systems - LMS. In this paper we present iGraf - interactive Graphics on the Internet, a new software that provides the basic resources for general-purpose plotting tools, as well as resources that make possible its easy integration with LMS. Moreover, it provides a simple model for authoring and automatic assessment features. Both, authoring and automatic assessment were designed based on a systematic study of the literature related to Calculus and K-12 math courses. In order to produce a proof of concept, it was integrated to Moodle with the iAssign package and some experiments with K-12 math teachers and undergraduate students were conducted. iGraf can be freely downloaded from http://www.matematica.br/igraf.