«Teaching Informatics to all: a European perspective»
Enrico NardelliFull professor of Informatics at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”
Abstract
Informatics is the science explaining the digital technology which over the last twenty years has completely trasformed our society. To adequately prepare citizens for the digital world which is already everywhere it is important to teach informatics in school, exactly like in the past century we introduced physics, biology, chemistry, and others in schools to prepare citizens for the industrial society. While the need for this preparation based on scientific concepts may appear obvious to some, others observe that informatics is just another technology we simply have to teach how to use. In this talk we will discuss why scientific principles of Informatics give it a peculiar role among sciences and which are the advantages gained by its introduction in schools. We also will sketch a roadmap towards this goal.
Bio
Enrico Nardelli is full professor of Informatics in the University of Roma “Tor Vergata” and President of Informatics Europe, the association representing informatics departments and research laboratories in Europe and neighbouring areas. He is also member of the ACM Europe Council.Since April 2014, he is coordinating the project “Programma il Futuro” for the introduction of basic concepts of Informatics as a scientific subject in Italian schools, with emphasis on primary schools and on computational thinking. Since its inception, the project has led in total around three million italian students (half of them in primary schools) to learn the basic concepts of informatics. He is currently working in the fields of informatics education and of interdisciplinary approach to information systems. Previously he did research in various fields of Informatics, including algorithms and data structures, databases and geographical information systems, tools and environments for interaction with information systems, cooperative and distributed information systems, bioinformatics. He is also active in outreach activities aiming at spreading awareness about the importance of Informatics education for all.
