FLOSS education and computational thinking workshop
@ OSS 2016
Be part of this workshop!

Introduction

FLOSS in education

The presence of FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) in education has not stopped growing in the last years. The trend has been clear both in K-12 and higher education. While using FLOSS can support teaching computer science and other disciplines, its benefits lie in teaching FLOSS itself as part of the curriculum.

FLOSS and computational thinking

Computational thinking education has been globally addressed almost exclusively with FLOSS technologies, both by using FLOSS platforms and programming languages, such as Scratch or Alice, but also by including in the curriculum the social aspects of software development that characterize FLOSS movements, like sharing and contributing to the community.

Workshop goals

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together free software experts and educators to discuss challenges that we face in the educational world at present and and that we will face in the future and how they can be undertaken from a FLOSS perspective.

Topics of interest

and specific research questions

The topics of interest of this workshop include but are not limited to:

  • Teaching experiences with FLOSS/free content
  • FLOSS in higher education
  • FLOSS in K-12
  • FLOSS practices in education
  • FLOSS in the curriculum
  • Computational thinking teaching and FLOSS

Specific questions that are of special interest to this workshop are:

  • Which FLOSS approaches have proven beneficial to education?
  • What experiences do you have in collaboration with FLOSS communities in education contexts?
  • How do you produce and share your educational materials?
  • What assessment and certification models did you apply? Why have those models been chosen?
  • What models for sustainability and revenue generation did work success- fully?
  • What efforts are undertaken to come towards a compatible or standardised curriculum?
  • What indicators are measured to show strengths and weaknesses of the initiative?
  • How is copyright and licensing managed in your institution/initiative? Which (potential) impact does this policy have on sustainability?
  • How can curriculi be designed which foster the spirit of sharing?
  • What FLOSS technologies do you use to teach computational thinking?
  • How do you promote FLOSS social aspects in your lessons?

Important Dates

  • March
    15
    2016

    Deadline for papers

  • March
    22
    2016

    Extended deadline for papers

    Papers must conform to the Springer Formatting Guidelines (LNCS). You may utilize the templates provided in the conference website.

    Papers length: 4 to 8 pages.

    When your paper is finished, submit it in PDF format through EasyChair.

    All submissions will be peer-reviewed single blinded.

    Proceedings will be published in the website. Authors will keep the copyright of their work.

  • April
    05
    2016

    Notification to authors

    Notification of acceptance to authors after review process.

  • April
    15
    2016

    Early bird

    Early bird registration for workshops.

  • April
    27
    2016

    Camera-ready version

    Final version of the paper due.

  • June
    2
    2016

    Be part of this workshop!

    The workshop is scheduled for 2 June 2016.

Workshop organizers

Jesús Moreno-León

Programamos.es

Terhi Kilamo

Tampere University of Technology

Gregorio Robles

Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

Program Committee

  • Yasemin Allsop, University of Roehampton (United Kingdom)
  • Peter Parnes, Luleå University of Technology (Sweden)
  • Oystein Imsen, Lær Kidsa Koding (Norway)
  • Alessandro Bogliolo, University of Urbino (Italy)
  • Joek van Montfort (Netherlands)
  • Jordi Freixenet, University of Girona (Spain)
  • Eduard Muntaner, Inventors for Change (Spain)
  • Petri Ihantola, Tampere University of Technology (Finland)
  • Simon Marsden, University of Portsmouth (United Kingdom)

This workshop is sponsored by the eMadrid Network of Excellence.

Venue

This workshop is co-located with the 12th International Conference on Open Source Systems, which will take place 30 May - 02 June 2016 in Gothenburg, Sweden's second biggest city. This city has a strong free software community with several free software associations, companies and enthusiasts. The conference venue is Lindholmen Conference Center. The venue is in te city centre and is an internationally renowned Science Park in the fields of intelligent transport systems, mobile internet and media.

Registration

Workshop registration will be handled via the conference registration system. Conference participants will have access to the workshops. It is possible however to register to workshops only, registration fees will be around 100 Euros for early bird and 130 Euros for late rate.

Programme

Thursday, June 2 2016
8:30 - 9:00 Registration for workshops
9:00 - 10:00 Invited talk:
  • Academic Participation in Industrial High-Confidence Open Source Software Projects - Experiences from the Medical Domain. Jens Weber, University of Victoria
10:00 - 10:30 Coffee break
10:30 - 11:30 Paper presentations:
  • Adopting Open Source IT Certification in Higher Education: Lessons from the Field. Stephen Murphy
  • How social are Scratch learners? A comprehensive analysis of the Scratch platform for social interactions. Jesús Moreno-León, Gregorio Robles and Marcos Román-González
  • Open Source Collaboration Tools and Organisational Learning: On Adopting EtherPad in Small Companies. Yacine Atif, Jonas Gamalielsson and Björn Lundell
11:30 - 12:00 Discussion with a panel of all presenters

Proceedings

The proceedings is a collection of the papers presented at the FLOSSEdu Workshop. The programme contained 3 technical presentations discussing topics related to education and computational thinking, from various angles and perspectives. For the selection of the presentations, authors had to submit contributions that have been peer reviewed by at least two members of the programme committee.

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27661.95208