CodeBox

Learning to Code in Primary Education

By exploring their surroundings, children nowadays also come into contact with digital systems that increasingly shape our everyday lives. In order to prevent them from getting to know these systems as unapproachable "black boxes", politicians and pedagogues consider it necessary to teach digital media skills to primary school children. This includes a basic informational education that deals with the influence of algorithms on the schoolchildren's own lives and the teaching of initial programming skills.

An interdisciplinary implementation is often challenging for the teaching staff, since existing teaching products are not suitable for primary schools or require extensive knowledge of computer science.

The microcontroller CodeBox is reduced in its equipment to basic elements, which allow for a simple, playful and creative introduction to the teaching of programming both for the children and the teachers. By means of a simplified programming software, which is adapted to the product, algorithms can be assembled and transferred to CodeBox to simulate everyday objects or to represent specially designed games, for instance. The design follows the principle of simplexity – in this case to convey the complex technology of the microcontroller in a simple way and to counteract fear of contact.