Teaching schoolchildren in programming within the subject "Informatics": problems and possible solutions

Abstract

In modern conditions, the constantly expanding use of information technologies, the urgent need for high-level IT specialists, which determine both the development of the country's industrial and intellectual potential, as well as its security, and sometimes the very existence of Russia as an independent state, update the problems of teaching programming at school, including the introduction of an independent subject "Programming" into the school curriculum. The study shows that the framework of the school subject "Informatics" is becoming too narrow for the formation of basic training and professional orientation of schoolchildren in the field of algorithmization and programming; there is an urgent need for schoolchildren to study programming as a separate discipline. But the question arises of choosing a programming language to study in a school course. A comparison of the programming languages that are most common in teaching school informatics today, in particular Python and Pascal, allows us to determine their advantages and disadvantages when studying at school as the first programming language and to conclude that preference should be given to the Pascal language, since Python does not allow students to sufficiently develop confident competencies in the field of programming and knowledge of the fundamental elements of programming.