A curriculum of computational thinking as a central idea of information & media literacy

Abstract

Using, processing and evaluating digitized information is relevant to every subject in primary and secondary school education. As this information is represented, modified and perceived through analog and digital media, competencies including critical reflection, knowledge, usage, and creation of information and media have been included in the German education system. Due to the highly inter- and transdisciplinary character of these skills, the development of a combined information and media literacy to teach the critical handling, reflection and design of information and (digital) media similar to a classical literacy concerning reading and writing skills. As this skill is fundamental for understanding the everyday digital environment, Computational Thinking poses a central idea of information and media literacy in order to understand how information of the real or fictional world are represented through digital media, how this digitized information is automaticly processed and displayed using media systems as well as how the resulting representations are interpreted. Information and media literacy adresses every subject and school type which is why it has to be integrated into future teacher education curricula. This paper shows the conception and implementation of an Information and Media Literacy certificate for student teachers with a focus on Computational Thinking. Based on recent studies, established curricula for Media Literacy, Computer Literacy and Digital Literacy as well as present Bavarian school curricula for Computer Science, we built the curriculum for the Computational Thinking part of the certificate upon fundamental ideas of Computer Science: Representation of Information, Software Engineering, Algorithms, Networks, Data Integrity and Data Security, Languages, and Physical Computing.