Programming technologies for social inclusion: An experience in professional development with elementary teachers

Abstract

Nowadays there is a worldwide interest in introducing notions of programming in basic schooling. In line with this, different training programs have been proposed to allow the appropriation of these novel contents. This paper presents a proposal for interdisciplinary training in computer programming for primary school teachers, carried out in Argentina. Taking a socio-technical approach and from a sociocultural perspective of learning, a workshop about programming of technology for social inclusion (TIS) was designed using the Scratch tool. The preliminary results of this exploratory study allow us to identify different phases in the TIS construction process, where participants designed and programmed group productions, starting from problematic situations. In this way, teacher development proposal involved notions of programming, but also generated interdisciplinary pedagogical tools that can act as triggers for multiple activities within the classroom.