SUSTAINING SUSTAINING IINFORMATICSNFORMATICS EEDUCATIONDUCATION BYBY C CONTESTSONTESTS

Valentina DagienėInstitute of Mathematics and InformaticsVilnius, Lithuania

ContentContent

Informatics Education: What? Why? How?

Contests on Programming for Secondary Education International Olympiads in Informatics (IOI) IOI Conference and Journal Regional and National Olympiads

Bebras (Beaver) – Contest on Informatics and Computer Fluency

Learning by Contest Ground on Tasks (Attractive)

What is What is Informatics?Informatics?Informatics Education?Informatics Education?

Programming as part of problem Programming as part of problem solvingsolving

How we should teach Informatics?How we should teach Informatics?

When I was at school...When I was at school...

I liked solving Crosswords Rebuses Brain-teasers Riddles Logical quizzes Puzzles

Later I liked creating and publishing puzzles in the journals

My kids and pupils like... My kids and pupils like...

Playing games with computer games with mobile devices table games pencil and paper games

Competing individually and by groups Competing on collective intellectual

level

Why contest?Why contest?

For pupils, playful activities are more interesting and attractive than consistent learning

Contest and competition attract learners raise motivation stimulate the learning process

... and more forster planning and self-discipline ... and very important -- give the possibility to meet peers from all over

the region, country, continent, world

How to develop a contest?How to develop a contest?Two types of strategiesTwo types of strategies

1) Top-down strategy is a challenge to find a suitable international contest, train students, and join it after intensive work

2) Bottom-up strategy stresses an opportunity to establish the original local contest

Olympiads in InformaticsOlympiads in Informatics

International Olympiads in Informatics (IOI)

Regional Olympiads in Informatics

National Olympiads in Informatics

Contests in InformaticsContests in Informatics

International Olympiad in International Olympiad in InformaticsInformatics

IOI is annual international informatics competition for individual contestants from 70-80 countries

IOI is managed by the General Assembly and International Committee

International Olympiad in International Olympiad in InformaticsInformatics

IOI is organized in and by one of the participating countries

IOI competitions focuses of informatics problems of an algorithmic nature -- programming

Country delegation consists of 4 students and 2 team leaders

Two competitions days, 5 hours, 3 (+1) tasks

Evaluation is based on automated testing

Additional credits of Additional credits of the the IOIIOI

Introduction to Informatics education in countries

Influence on developing regional and national contests

Social network for students and team leaders

IOI ConferenceIOI Conference

Two-half days conference during Olympiad

Short and long presentations

Publications

Richard Forster, UK

Valentina Dagienė, Lithuania

Troy Vasiga, Canada

International JournalInternational Journal

2007: 17 papers, 174 p.

2008: 16 papers, 207 p.

2009: 14 papers, 174 p.

47 publications from 30 countries during 3 year

http://www.mii.lt/olympiads_in_informatics

Regional and NationalRegional and National Olympiads Olympiads in Informaticsin Informatics

National olympiads represent informatics teaching traditions of each country

Regional olympiad is a mini model of IOI allows the participants to experience

what they will come through in the IOI assists team leaders in selecting

participants for the IOI

Baltic Olympiads in InformaticsBaltic Olympiads in Informatics - - BOIBOI

Main objectivesMain objectives To provide students experience of an

international competition To bring together national representatives

and create commonly contest tasks To assist team leaders in selecting

participants for the IOI

Important featuresImportant features Based on mutual trust of the participating countries Form of learning for its participants Create neighborly atmosphere, which is highly important

when motivating students for self-help

The BOI contestsThe BOI contestsYear Location Countrie

sContestants

2009 Stockholm, SWEDEN 8 48

2008 Gdynia, POLAND 10 59

2007 Güstrow, GERMANY 9 55

2006 Heinola, FINLAND 9 53

2005 Pasvalys, LITHUANIA 8 46

2004 Ventspils, LATVIA 8 48

2003 Tartu, ESTONIA 7 48

2002 Vilnius, LITHUANIA 8 52

2001 Sopot, POLAND 8 49

2000 Haninge, SWEDEN 7 38

1999 Rīga, LATVIA 7 44

1998 Tartu, ESTONIA 5 40

1997 Vilnius, LITHUANIA 4 36

1996 Rīga, LATVIA 3 20

1995 Tartu, ESTONIA 3 28

Baltic Olympiad in Informatics in Poland in 2001

Baltic Olympiad in Informatics in Lithuania in 2002

BOI task classification 1995BOI task classification 1995––20020099

Categories Number of tasks

Combinatorial search 14

Dynamic programming

19

Graph theory 22

Mathematics 10

Ad hoc 23

Lithuanian Olympiads in Informatics Lithuanian Olympiads in Informatics MMain objectivesain objectives

To bring the discipline of Informatics to the attention of young people

To discover, encourage, bring together, challenge, train for IOI’s and give recognition to the exceptionally gifted in the field of informatics

To develop student creativity, programming style, algorithmic thinking

To stimulate work of teachers of informatics and information technology

Lithuanian Olympiads in Lithuanian Olympiads in InformaticsInformatics SStructuretructure

Two divisions: juniors and seniors

1st round – school round

2nd round – regional round

3rd round, 1st part – national round (by the internet)

3th round, 2nd part – national round (face-to-face)

Lithuanian Olympiads in Informatics Lithuanian Olympiads in Informatics NNumber of participantsumber of participants

Year Round 1st 2nd 3.1 3.2

1990 Not available 57 25

1998 Not available 858 216 46

2001 2990 984 292 47

2002 3857 1124 257 46

2003 3754 1001 292 47

2008 3307 1000 219 47

2009 3000 1000 290 48

EvaluationEvaluation in Lithuanian Olympiads in Lithuanian Olympiads

Programs – the black-box testing

Evaluation of design (algorithm) ideas

Evaluation of programming style

Participation in OlympiadParticipation in Olympiad is is stimulated bystimulated by attractive tasks attractive tasks

Interest and engagement are very important in problem solving

Tasks should be presented in an attractive way

Two types of tasks:

1) developing algorithms (writing)

2) analyzing algorithms (reading)

Contests in InformaticsContests in Informatics

Contests are a source of inspiration and innovation

Test-and attractive-tasks-based contests may be the key to the potential of new knowledge and attractive way to bind up technology and education

Bebras (Beaver) – International Contest on Informatics and Computer Fluency

The main principles of the Bebras contest are borrowed from the international mathematical contest Kangaroo

BebrasBebras – International Contest on – International Contest on Informatics and Computer FluencyInformatics and Computer Fluency Idea came in 2003, in Lithuania

2004, Sept 25, experimental trial, 779 students

2004, Oct 21, first Lithuanian Beaver contest, 3470 students from 146 schools

....

2008: 10 countries have run the contest with all together more than 90 000 students

2009: 11 countries Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Latvia,

Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, The Netherlands, Ukraine

http://www.bebras.orghttp://www.bebras.org

International Bebras ContestInternational Bebras ContestAdresses all secondary school studentsIs usually performed at schoolPupils have to solve 18 - 24 problems within 45

- 60 minutesEasy, medium and hard problemsInteractive and multiple choice answers

Different tasks for several age groups, e.g.Benjamins 10-12 years (grade 5-6)Cadetts 13-14 years (grade 7-8)Juniors 15-16 years (grade 9-10)Seniors 17-19 years (grade 11-13)

Research QuestionResearch Question

How to convey Informatics concepts by a contest?

What kind of concepts?

What are good tasks in an international contest?

How to involve concepts in good tasks?

Attractive tasks – keystone of contestsAttractive tasks – keystone of contests Very important to choose interesting tasks,

powerful, attractive, surprise...

Powerful: what educational power they contains, whether they stimulate the motivation of learning

Different types of tasks: starting from common questions of computer science application to specific integrated problems related to algorithms, computer history, programming languages, logics, discrete mathematics, etc.

Important to choose the problems so that the participants could have as equal positions as possible irrespective of hardware or software

Attractive TasksAttractive Tasks

are interesting, powerful, surprising, inspiring, ...

stimulate and motivate to use ICT in an intelligent way

offer equal chance for all pupils coming from different countries and different school types

offer possibility to learn something interesting

35

Task CategoriesTask Categories INF - Information comprehension representation (symbolic, numeric, visual) coding, encryption ALG - Algorithmic thinking including programming aspects USE - Using computer systems eg. search engines, email, spread sheet,

etc. general principles, but no specific systems STRUC - Structures, patterns and arrangements combinatory discrete structures (graphs, etc) PUZ - Puzzles logic games (mastermind, minesweeper, etc.) SOC - ICT and Society social, ethical, cultural, international, legal

issues

Learning ConceptsLearning Concepts

Students may learn concepts by appropriate tasks

Concepts of Information Comprehension Algorithmic Thinking Modeling Basic Logic Discrete Structures Functionality of Computer Systems Use of Computer Systems etc.

Fastest Way Fastest Way

  Beaver wants to go home as fast as possible. In the drawing you see minutes needed to come from one point to another. What is the best possible time?

A) 17 minutes

B) 14 minutes

C) 15 minutes

D) 16 minutes

Benjamin, hard

PaperchasePaperchase

Peter writes on a paper the letters he finds on his way following the arrows. Some of the arrows have no letter

Which one of the following sequences of letters cannot be written by Peter on his way from START to FINISH?

A. abaabbaB. baC. abaaabD. aab

BebrasBebras Workshops Workshops for develping for develping taskstasksThe Bebras Community has worshops for developing tasks in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 in Balsiai, Lithuania; and 2008 in Torun, Poland

BalsiaiLithuania

2009

May, 2009, Balsiai, Lithuania

ConConcclusionlusion Informatics Education is a fascinating research with

a big impact on the real world, full of spectacular ideas and great challenges

Contests play an important role as a tool of motivation and inspiration

Olympiad in Informatics is a globally recognized way to involve pupils into informatics and strong motive to improve their programming skills

Bebras contest on informatics and computer fluency is established to introduce Informatics concepts to pupils regardless of whether she or he is taught informatics at school or not

THANKS!