The University of Urbino awards 1 credit to students who enrol to Applied Computer Science for Academic Year 2015/2016 having already obtained Code.org certificates signed by their School teachers. This initiative is aimed at contributing to the early development of computational thinking skills, by encouraging secondary schools to adopt Code.org instruments as proposed by Ministry of Education and Consorzio CINI with the “Programma il Futuro” initiative.
The University of Urbino has always worked together with schools to provide early learning opportunities based on playful and intuitive methods: It has took part since the first editions to Computer Science Education Week and Europe Code Week, it has launched the Code’s Cool learning community, it led the Italian participation to Europe Code Week 2014 with CodeWeek ambassador Alessandro Bogliolo, and it’s now offering a MOOC to support school teachers who want to adopt Code.org instruments.
This initiative gives to Italian schools the opportunity to take their students to conquest their first university credit!
The introductory course of Code.org offers approximately 20 hours of playful interactive activities which introduce the main coding principles, contributing to the development of computational thinking and problem solving skills. The MOOC completes the course by showing how to put the concepts into practice to develop original mobile applications. School teachers can directly manage a virtual classroom, which gives them the online instruments to monitor and certify the progress of their pupils. The certificate of completion will be recognized by the University of Urbino in case of enrollment.
“The credit that will be recognized is deserved – says Alessandro Bogliolo, coordinator of the School of Information Science and Technology of the University of Urbino – Students who enrol to a University degree program having already developed basic computational thinking skills are predisposed to learning computer science, are fully aware of the meaning and power of coding, and they are familiar with visual programming tools and teaching methods that are complementary and preparatory to academic study.”
People who is no longer at school can take advantage of the MOOC individually by registering to the virtual class directly managed by Alessandro Bogliolo, who will certify the completion. Certification will be recognized in case of enrollment to the Laurea degree program in Applied Computer Science, delivered both on campus and at the distance.
Additional information can be requested at cdl.informatica@uniurb.it