Considerations and Technical Pitfalls for Teaching Computational Thinking with BBC micro:bit

Abstract

As many countries are about to make changes in the primary school curriculum by introducing computational thinking, new methods and support for teachers is needed in order help them develop and adapt teaching materials. In this paper, technical pitfalls and other considerations for designing teaching materials with the microcontroller BBC micro:bit are presented. The results are based on a series of 21 workshops in different parts of Sweden aiming to investigate what is important to consider when designing teaching materials with the BBC micro:bit for training Swedish primary schools students computational thinking skills. The contribution of the paper are a number of identified considerations that can be helpful for teachers when designing exercises and planning for teaching computational thinking with the BBC micro:bit.