Creative journey uma ferramenta de auxílio ao ensino de lógica e programação para crianças

Abstract

When arriving at the university, many students are faced with great difficulties in the construction of logical reasoning in programming disciplines, since most of them never exercised this knowledge in elementary school. Computational thinking gives the student the opportunity to develop logical and abstract reasoning, but this discipline has not yet been implemented in Brazilian basic education, however other European countries or even Latin American countries such as Argentina already bring subjects such as computational thinking and programming logic in schools . Knowing that there is a lack of incentive in the daily lives of children to study the subject, the present work brings a serious game in 2D with the use of gamification, which is the combination of game elements such as mechanics and accumulation of points with learning. The game proposes to teach logic and programming and the 4 basic principles of computational thinking to students from 9 to 14 years old, since at this age children already have basic math, reading and text interpretation skills necessary to achieve the desired pedagogical goals. . Game development is aligned with learning theories, so the pedagogical materials used in the tool were created from this analysis. The methodology used to build the game is Digital Game Based Learning- Instructional Design (DGBL-ID), it is a game methodology that uses pedagogical techniques making the union of learning and entertainment games. Based on this, the game was developed in a way that was attractive and at the same time brought knowledge to students seeking to align the learning theories studied and using a methodology that contains teaching strategies. The serious game was implemented in a technology school, where a group of students had their first experience with the game, after completing the experiment, the students underwent an evaluation in the form of a form where they answered some questions about motivation, experience and knowledge. about the content implemented in the game. The results of this experiment were satisfactory, showing the ability to use the 2D game as a tool for teaching logic and programming, since all students were motivated to participate in the dynamics and were able to complete all activities with excellence.