may be characterized as Learn to
Compute (specialization) and Compute to Learn (integration).
All students—regardless of their
special interest, area of expertise,
and future profession—need to be
educated in informatics and apply
those knowledge and skills as an integrated competence in all subjects
and professions. In so doing, they
must ensure that technological development is directed towards the
achievement of a better, safer, fairer,
and more just society.
The second tier of the strategy,
integrating informatics with other
disciplines, has huge educational potential.
Through digital models, subjects
can be taught in novel and more
engaging ways, and data-driven approaches will open doors to new dimensions of understanding and new
ways of learning subjects. Similarly,
through programming of, say, simulations and games, knowledge and
insight in a subject can be expressed
in more individual, novel, useful, and
creative ways (instead of the traditional reproduction of knowledge in
written or oral form).
By integrating informatics in other disciplines, students are provided
the advantage of having an additional
novel, specific way of thinking to describe and explain phenomena (often
referred to as “computational thinking”), complementing that of other
scientific disciplines and contributing to their better, more thorough understanding. This is pursued even in
STEM, for example, Weintrop,
16 and
K– 12 SF.
14
Implementation
The challenge now for the Informatics for All Committee is to bring about
change leading to the realization of
the strategy. It is highly unlikely that
the recommendations will simply be
mandated; rather, a carefully considered approach that leads toward the
acceptance of the recommendations
seems far more realistic.
The implementation problem has
to be addressed within each coun-
try where responsibility for educa-
tion resides. Within each country,
groups consisting of administrators,
academics, teachers, industrialists,
There are different areas of re-
sponsibility and different possible
activities within these areas:
Education authorities.
Administrators have responsibility for the
proper recognition of disciplines,
and related matters. Accordingly,
they have a role in the implementation of certain aspects of the recommendations:
˲ recognition of informatics as a
science,
˲ the education of teachers of informatics, and
˲ the education of all teachers.
Curriculum development (includes
pupils and parents). Within the CECE
report, there are comments that suggest current informatics curricula are
not uniformly popular with pupils
and their parents. For informatics
to be a discipline taken by all, there
is a need to review and revise (and in
some cases, design) curricula to ensure the discipline is considered an
essential one for the 21st century by
all stakeholders, including students
and their parents.
The motivation of students must
be heightened dramatically; all students, including the best students,
must see informatics as highly relevant. The curriculum is predominantly technical in nature, and has to
capture the essence of the discipline,
emphasizing the relevance to people
and society in general and to the
young in particular, thus including
fundamental issues with the practical and more theoretical aspects being carefully interwoven. To motivate
students, attention can be drawn to
creativity, innovation, and applications, and the massive impact these
have on society, particularly highlighting the use of big/deep data, Internet of Things, and developments
in machine learning and their impact
on the ‘future of work.’
Role of higher education. Within
higher education institutions (HEI),
expertise should be mobilized to support the development of competence
and capacity. There are four main aspects:
The emphasis
of the report is
on informatics
education, with
informatics seen
as the science
underpinning the
development of the
digital world—a
distinctive discipline
with its own
scientific methods,
its own ways of
thinking, and its
own technological
development.