Abstract
The question of how and what to teach at schools as Informatics has been a hot topic for years. Different countries have taken different roads - some have focused on teaching basic digital competencies, some have opted for in-depth IT teaching, and some have not decided yet. In Estonia, ways to reform the teaching of Informatics (which is still an elective) has been sought for years. In 2018, it was finally decided to start compiling the Informatics curriculum for gymnasium (secondary school) level, and in 2019 the largest three Estonian universities co-operated in creating the study materials. One of the courses was named Digital Services. Students and teachers of gymnasiums (7 schools, 50 students) were used as the focus group in the pilot. The textbook developed for the course is used by various Estonian gymnasiums and complemented by various training events for teachers. The planned further development includes the compilation of a repository for practical exercises (inviting contributions from various practitioners from business, government, local authority, and education). This article seeks to have a critical look at the situation.
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This research was supported by the IT Didactics project at Tallinn University of Technology.
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Kikkas, K., Lorenz, B. (2021). A Digital Services Course to Promote Teaching of Informatics in Estonia. In: Auer, M.E., Rüütmann, T. (eds) Educating Engineers for Future Industrial Revolutions. ICL 2020. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1328. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68198-2_66
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