As core computing concepts become increasingly integrated into school curricula, schools increasingly expect teachers to address CS topics without formal training. Many teachers report confidence in using digital technologies in their everyday teaching. However, whether this confidence extends to teaching core computing concepts remains unclear. This poster examines the differences in how teachers self-assess their competence in general digital practices versus in algorithmic thinking and programming. The analysis draws on responses from a nationwide survey of lower secondary school teachers (n = 833). Participants rated their competencies across several digital competence domains on a five-point self-assessment scale. Preliminary observations reveal a clear divergence between domains. Teachers rate themselves highly in areas such as digital communication, media use, and responsible data handling. In contrast, they report noticeably lower competence in algorithmic thinking and programming. The poster visualizes these competence patterns and urges educators, policymakers, and researchers to discuss concrete strategies to better prepare and support teachers in developing confidence for teaching algorithmic concepts and programming.

Computing educators strive to align curricula with workforce needs yet rarely articulate how professional competencies, behaviors, and responsibilities develop across different educational pathways. As the community moves beyond the 2027 curriculum revision cycle, bridge pathways spanning vocational, undergraduate, graduate, and non-computing entry routes are rapidly expanding. At the same time, widespread AI use requires curricula to more explicitly address professional judgment, accountability, and ethical reasoning, in addition to technical skills. This working group brings participants together to map, compare, and synthesize real curriculum and pathway artifacts using shared academic and workforce frameworks. Participants will build a competency-oriented pathway framework, identify recurring bridge pathway designs and gaps, and produce practical, post-2027 guidance that supports coherent, scalable, and internationally transferable computing curricula.

No matter whether young or old, almost everyone likes to play games. Even though digital games have the opportunity to motivate students and foster digital skills, games in an educational context are typically described as a minor matter in class. However, games can provide an environment to work intensively on and consolidate topics from the classroom. Especially if students have the task of developing a game themselves, it is necessary to work on the topic in depth while the content is learned and anchored playfully. As part of the COOL Informatics project, which had the goal of spreading digital education and programming in the educational sector, a Game Design Challenge was launched. In this challenge, pupils, and teachers from all over Austria were invited to develop their own educational games. It is planned to relaunch the Game Design Challenge in 2021 with the goal that more and more students can be introduced to the basics of Computational Thinking.

Despite great effort in research and teaching as well as in raising women's quotas in the public sector and in enterprises, a gender gap in computer science can still be observed. The reasons are manifold, including the lack of interest of girls because of existing stereotypes of male nerds, misconceptions in the field of computer science, and concrete differences in students' self-concept and performance. Girls do not choose schools or studies in the field of computer science because working on computers or coding is unattractive to them. Research shows poorer performance, missing interest, and lower self-concept for girls in secondary computing education as well as a high dropout rate of female students in computer science courses at the bachelor's level. Software development exams contribute to those high dropout rates, and women often choose a different subject or even stop their university education altogether. This leads to fewer female employees in the field of computer science, and this situation calls for special measures at several levels. The current paper provides an overview of the initiatives of our university that aim to address several aspects of the gender gap. The programs offered aim to (1) increase interest in computer science and recruit (highly) gifted girls for our talent programs, (2) recruit and support female bachelor's and master's students in computer science, and (3) redesign programming courses and teaching materials to reduce the gender gap in performance and support, especially for female students. This study also describes a "cyber tutoring" program in which highly gifted girls between 13 and 16 years collaborate with and are supervised by female role models in higher positions in STEM. The evaluation results gained in the first year of this case study are promising and suggest that the extension and further development of the program would be advantageous.

Many people believe that programming is hard. This might appear true, when looking at the education, but not necessarily due to the subject itself. Often, the complexity lies in mathematical problems that can be hard to comprehend or relate to for students. Due to the current structure concerning exams, high drop-out rates are seen at university level, with students either leaving university or changing subjects. Moreover, a major gender-gap can be seen. This in turn leaves society with a growing shortage of educated programmers. Aiming to tackle this, a COOL (cooperative open learning) concept has been established, where students engage in a weekly, peer-learning and peer-teaching course. The course focuses on software development, and utilizes the COOL concept of peer-learning and peer-teaching. This concept has already been applied successfully as part of the Business Informatics bachelor program at the Johannes Kepler University (JKU) in Linz, where it throughout its three running years have seen a decrease in dropouts. The connection between the implementation of the program and the lowered drop-out rate requires further observations to be established.