An Interactive Book Authoring Tool to Introduce Programming Logic in Schools Andr´ e Campos 1 , Alberto Signoretti 2 and M´ ario Rodrigues 3 1 DIMAp, Federal University of RN - UFRN, Natal, Brazil 2 DI, State University of RN - UERN, Natal, Brazil 3 ESTGA/IEETA, University of Aveiro - UA, Aveiro, Portugal Keywords: Computational Thinking, Storytelling, Digital Interactive Book, Computer Science Education. Abstract: In the past years, there was a growing interest in teaching computational thinking in elementary and high school institutions. Although the idea is spread and well accepted among academics, it has been rarely put in practice in the classrooms. Currently, when a programming-related activity is offered, with some few ex- ceptions, it is usually presented as an extra-curricular (optional) activity. However, it does not need to be disassociated from the common school curriculum. The present work is based on the idea that programming logic can be used transversally with different subjects, such as history, geography, science, literacy, mathemat- ics, among others. The authors envisage to accomplish this goal by enabling programming as a supporting tool for teachers and students, allowing them to create digital interactive books. The tool, named piBook, has its main focus in the production of interactive storytelling using non-linear narratives. Besides, it is also possible to create textual games (such as role-playing games), interactive activities (such as quizzes), tutorials, chatbots and similar applications. 1 INTRODUCTION Recent articles has shown the importance of align- ing the education of “digital natives” (Prensky, 2009) with the development of digital skills and compe- tences (Leonard et al., 2016). However, a consid- erable number of schools still do not address this need. In several schools, computers are being primar- ily used as tools for information research, text editing and presentations. In some contexts, computers are also used as a motivational tool for learning, through the use of games and playful digital activities (Felicia, 2014). However, even in these latter cases, there is no direct stimulus for the students to know how these games and applications are built. Knowing how to use tools is the most basic rela- tionship one can have with technology, which differs significantly from knowing how to apply concepts to construct them. In the today digital society, this abil- ity is highly appreciated in any career. Furthermore, knowing or identifying the logic behind a computer- based solution can help the student’s autonomy to solve objective problems by developing the ability to think in a systematical and critical way (Wing, 2006). Ten years after Jeanette Wing’s influential article, where the term Computational Thinking was coined (Wing, 2006), the idea has still not been widely adopted. Despite the growing interest in the subject, there is a huge difficulty in putting her ideas into prac- tice, especially in countries with strong resistance to change or to provide more flexibility to their scholar curriculum. As a consequence, several educational in- stitutions that adopt computational thinking and cor- related activities, usually do so through extracurricu- lar activities, following the learn-to-code movement (Kafai and Burke, 2014). Several institutions and entities worldwide have been supporting this movement in the last years. This is mainly due to the stimulus that programming offers to logical thinking, creativity, reasoning and problem solving through abstractions and decompositions (Lye and Koh, 2014). Therefore, it is critical to spend ef- forts in introducing computational thinking and, more specifically, programming logic in the early years of education. The present work is complementary to the exist- ing learn-to-code initiatives in extracurricular activ- ities. However, differently from them, it considers that teaching programming logic does not necessar- ily have to be disconnected from the current existing 140 Campos, A., Signoretti, A. and Rodrigues, M. An Interactive Book Authoring Tool to Introduce Programming Logic in Schools. DOI: 10.5220/0006333501400148 In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2017) - Volume 1, pages 140-148 ISBN: 978-989-758-239-4 Copyright © 2017 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved