Learning aims for Computer Science in the elementary school - Slovenian and ACM K12 curriculum

Abstract

With the nine-year elementary school, Computer Science re-appeared as an elective subject. However, there was virtually no curriculum for Computer Science to be used, no textbook, no exercise book. There was only an idea to include information and communication technology in the elementary school, because of society's growing dependence on it. Not properly trained and severely underprepared teachers had to adapt competency goals to the inappropriate teaching equipment. Because Computer Science is still only an elective subject and hence students attend it at their own will, the quality and importance of the subject is still at the level of an out-of-class activity not recognizing its indispensable role in the modern society. Meanwhile, the leading international professional society ACM (Association for a Computing Machinery) started forming guidelines for teaching curriculum for Computer and Information Science from Kindergarten to Grade 12 (K12) that are already used in several countries.The guidelines could be also used as a reference to define and renew competency goals for teaching in Slovenia. There appears a fundamental question: "Is the Slovenian curriculum for Computer Science well designed?