Tangible e Block Programming per introdurre il pensiero computazionale

Over the last few years the debate on Computational Thinking has risen not only in the academic sphere. There is an increasing number of projects aimed at introducing the basic coding concepts in each level of education: early school years, high school, vocational training and first university courses. Despite efforts to facilitate the initial approach to the world of information technologies, the difficulties faced by at least part of beginners in addressing the writing of the first programs are still evident. Most of these difficulties arise from problems related to problem solving and the design of applications, but also the syntactic problems, associated with the use of the most common programming languages, cannot be neglected. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the potential of an early approach to coding based on Block and Puzzle Programming, as opposed to classic text-based programming. In relation to the introduction of coding for young and very young students (K12 training), we also believe that efforts are needed to make the first programs for the computer easier and user-friendly. This requires to define, in addition to teaching methods, also the tools to use, similarly to how man-computer interaction (HCI-Human-Computer Interaction) has evolved over time. We analyze the concept of Computational Thinking and how this is tied to the world of computing and coding. The analysis of the various projects aimed at the spread of com- putational thinking by coding in the school and preschool years leads us to further spread the block programming paradigm. Block Programming environments are based on simple graphical user interfaces (GUIs) where blocks are selected and linked. In this context, we present our codOWood (CODe Of WOOd) project that replaces the virtual blocks of the GUIs with physical blocks that are arranged on the work surface to form a puzzle that represents the solution algorithm of the proposed problems. We developed a web application and an Android app for tablet and smartphones which recognizes each block and converts it into the equivalent code. Our development environment then replaces the graphical programming interface (GUI) with a “physical” (TUI) interface. After analyzing the teaching methods, the tools and the content of the introductory programming courses (CS1) in university and high school, we focus our attention on the Object-First model that introduces the Object Oriented paradigm in introductory courses. At the University of Parma, we have developed OOPP (Object Oriented Puzzle Pro- gramming): a didactic environment for designing applications that aims to blend the positive features of Block and Puzzle Programming with the Object Oriented paradigm. OOPP has been the subject of a first experimentation in an introductory coding course with more than satisfactory results, especially for students who did not have previous coding experiences.