Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by the CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – www.cnpq.br), an entity of the Brazilian government focused on scientific and technological development and the Google Rise Award 2015.

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Christiane Gresse von Wangenheim

Brazilian Institute for Digital Convergence (INCoD)/ Department of Informatics and Statistics (INE)/ Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC)

Campus Universitário – Trindade, 88049-200 Florianópolis /SC/Brazil

[e-mail]

Aldo von Wangenheim

Brazilian Institute for Digital Convergence (INCoD)/ Department of Informatics and Statistics (INE)/ Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC)

Campus Universitário – Trindade, 88049-200 Florianópolis /SC/Brazil

[e-mail]

Fernando S. Pacheco

Department of Electronics/ Campus Florianópolis/ Federal Institute of Santa Catarina (IFSC)

Av. Mauro Ramos, 950, 88020-300 Florianópolis /SC/Brazil

[e-mail]

Jean C. R. Hauck

Brazilian Institute for Digital Convergence (INCoD)/ Department of Informatics and Statistics (INE)/ Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC)

Campus Universitário – Trindade, 88049-200 Florianópolis - SC, Brazil

[e-mail]

Miriam Nathalie F. Ferreira

Brazilian Institute for Digital Convergence (INCoD)/ Department of Informatics and Statistics (INE)/ Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC)

Campus Universitário – Trindade, 88049-200 Florianópolis /SC/Brazil

[e-mail]

DOI: 10.1145/3043950 ©2017 ACM 2153-2184/17/03 $15.00

also been expressed by their comments on what they liked most about the workshop (e.g., “when the robot throws the balls against the ogre” and “make the robot move”). Parents as well as the children enjoy programming the “superhero” robot and we observed that they immerse themselves into the story. One child, for example, had his mother film him re-telling the story while running the robot he programmed.

Furthermore, by gaining first-hand computing competencies
themselves and with their children, parents are also motivated
to assume a supportive role. A first step for them to encourage
their children to pursue computing activities is that they them-
selves understand that computing is something their children
can master as well as to recognize their child’s interest in this
area. At the end of the workshop, parents pointed out that it
helped them to demystify computing and that they recognize
the importance of computing education as well as the interest
of their child: “I was very happy to see that my daughter was
interested and liked the workshop;” “Finding out that it is very
easy to program a robot, when I imagined that it was a very
difficult thing only few people are able to achieve, and how chil-
dren interacted and were interested.”
Parents also cited as a strength the possibility of having
this experience together with their child creating valuable par-
ent-child activity time (“the chance to work/play with my son”
and “the explanations with practical examples and to see the
motion sensor working with all actions programmed. And we
learned together!”). We also observed further benefits of the
family-based design of the workshops. Parents and children col-
laborated naturally as pair programmers. Typically, the child as-
sumed control by assembling hardware parts and programming,
while the parent sat by his/her side observing and reviewing.
Several times we observed a reversion of the traditional roles
between parents and children, with the children leading and ex-
plaining the activities to their parents. However, as the children
often rushed into the activities aiming at making it work, they
did not necessarily take the time to understand the concepts.
Parents on the other hand often adopted a more systematic ap-
proach and guided their child when something was not working
as expected by carefully repeating the steps to identify the mis-
take. We also observed that the way the workshop is designed,
with constant support by teaching assistants, makes children
and parents feel comfortable in asking for help, whenever nec-
essary. Thus, the workshops yield benefits by contributing to the
children’s education through parental involvement, but also by
reaching a different group—the adults—and, thus, providing
computing education to a larger share of the community.

At the end of each workshop, most participants (parents and kids) were eager to continue at home and/or through other workshops. Due to the success, we plan to continue these workshops as well as our game and app development workshops not only as self-contained events but also as a part of school programs. To broaden access to these workshops, we are also starting to develop teacher courses. Furthermore, we are developing additional activities via online tutorials to enable participants to continue at home afterwards. 