The DIGITAL FIRST consortium partners have a wide range of ongoing activities, as well as mutual collaborations, going in parallel with the project in developing innovative approaches to informatics education.
Our two partners Vilnius University and the University of Turku recently collaborated with Taiwan within the scope of an interesting gamification project for informatics education.
Professor Ting-Chia Hsu is currently a visiting faculty member at Vilnius University from June 1, 2024, to August 31, 2024. She is visiting Dr. Valentina Dagienė, an internationally renowned professor known for creating the Bebras Challenge, a popular computational thinking assessment tool used worldwide. Professor Hsu’s visit aims to collaborate on informatics education and developing new assessment items for the Bebras Challenge, enabling primary and secondary school students globally to evaluate their computational thinking skills.
From June 10 to 17, both professors visited Turku University, Research Institute for Learning Analytics (TRILA) in Finland and presented a Board Game for teaching informatics at schools — Robot City, which is funded by the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan.
Figure 1. How close between previous the Bebras Challenge item and the Robot City board game.
Professor Hsu developed a computational thinking board game which has become a part of the compulsory education curriculum for information technology. Students can learn and practice computational thinking without needing to know any programming syntax while playing this board game. For an introduction to this computational thinking board game, “Robot City,” please watch the video here: Robot City Introduction.
Figure 2. Professor Hsu has also conducted several research studies related to this board game.
As an example, this screenshot shows a research paper for the computational thinking board game. (Link)
During this visit, Professor Hsu presented the computational thinking game, including three different versions. The physical version, made of paper, is called the “Robot City” board game.
Figure 3. Professor Ting-Chia HSU introduced National Taiwan Normal University and the computational thinking board game named “Robot City”.
The online version of the game, called “Online Robot City,” is played by users over the internet. You can watch an introduction to the online game here.
. Figure 4. Prof. Valentina Dagienė links the research team from Finland, Professor Ting-Chia Hsu from Taiwan, and Prof. Linda Mannila to discuss computational thinking.
The final version of the game is an AI-STEAM learning extension of the “Robot City” board game, named “AI2 Robot City.” If you are interested in learning more about it, please watch the introduction video here.
Figure 5. Professor Hsu introduced AI2 Robot City to the team at the University of Turku, Finland.
Professor Dagienė is also the Principal Investigator of the projects “Computational Thinking and Mathematical Problem Solving, an Analytics-Based Learning Environment“ (Erasmus Programme 2022-1-LT01-KA220-SCH-000088736) and “DigiMaths4All: Strengthening Mathematical Problem Solving Using Technology Enhanced Learning and Computational Thinking”, which collaborate with the team led by Professor Mikko-Jussi at the University of Turku.
Figure 6. Professor Valentina Dagienė organized intensive meetings with the team at the University of Turku, allowing Professor Hsu to meet with Professor Mikko-Jussi Laakso, Professor Pekka Räsänen, Heidi Kaarto, Dr. Daranee Lehtonen, and Marika Parviainen in person.
Following this visit, the collaborative team will develop new assessment items soon, significantly contributing to computational thinking education worldwide. We eagerly anticipate the successful cooperation between the University of Turku’s Research Institute for Learning Analytics and Vilnius University’s Institute of Educational Science, as well as the fruitful research visit of Professor Ting-Chia Hsu from National Taiwan Normal University.