<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD JATS (Z39.96) Journal Publishing DTD v1.0 20120330//EN" "JATS-journalpublishing1.dtd"><article xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" article-type="article">
<front>
    <journal-meta>
        <journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">INFEDU</journal-id>
        <journal-title-group>
            <journal-title>Informatics in Education</journal-title>
        </journal-title-group>
        <issn pub-type="epub">1648-5831</issn>
        <issn pub-type="ppub">1648-5831</issn>
        <publisher>
            <publisher-name>VU</publisher-name>
        </publisher>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
                <article-id pub-id-type="publisher-id">INFEDU.2019.12</article-id>
                        <article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.15388/infedu.2019.12</article-id>
                        <article-categories>
            <subj-group subj-group-type="heading">
                <subject>Article</subject>
            </subj-group>
        </article-categories>
                        <title-group>
            <article-title>SplashCode - A Board Game for Learning an Understanding of Algorithms in Middle School</article-title>
        </title-group>
                        <contrib-group>
                                        <contrib contrib-type="author">
                                                <name>
                    <surname>GRESSE VON WANGENHEIM</surname>
                    <given-names>Christiane</given-names>
                </name>
                                <email xlink:href="mailto:c.wangenheim@ufsc.br">c.wangenheim@ufsc.br</email>
                                                <xref ref-type="aff" rid="j_INFEDU_aff_000"/>
                                            </contrib>
                        <aff id="j_INFEDU_aff_000">Department of Informatics and Statistics, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) Florianópolis/SC, Brazil</aff>
                                                    <contrib contrib-type="author">
                                                <name>
                    <surname>ARAÚJO E SILVA DE MEDEIROS</surname>
                    <given-names>Giselle</given-names>
                </name>
                                <email xlink:href="mailto:giselle.medeiros@posgrad.ufsc.br">giselle.medeiros@posgrad.ufsc.br</email>
                                                <xref ref-type="aff" rid="j_INFEDU_aff_001"/>
                                            </contrib>
                        <aff id="j_INFEDU_aff_001">Graduate Program in Education, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) Florianópolis/SC, Brazil</aff>
                                                    <contrib contrib-type="author">
                                                <name>
                    <surname>MISSFELDT FILHO</surname>
                    <given-names>Raul</given-names>
                </name>
                                <email xlink:href="mailto:raul.missfeldt.filho@grad.ufsc.br">raul.missfeldt.filho@grad.ufsc.br</email>
                                                <xref ref-type="aff" rid="j_INFEDU_aff_002"/>
                                            </contrib>
                        <aff id="j_INFEDU_aff_002">Department of Informatics and Statistics, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) Florianópolis/SC, Brazil</aff>
                                                    <contrib contrib-type="author">
                                                <name>
                    <surname>PETRI</surname>
                    <given-names>Giani</given-names>
                </name>
                                <email xlink:href="mailto:gpetri@inf.ufsm.br">gpetri@inf.ufsm.br</email>
                                                <xref ref-type="aff" rid="j_INFEDU_aff_003"/>
                                            </contrib>
                        <aff id="j_INFEDU_aff_003">Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) Santa Maria/RS, Brazil</aff>
                                                    <contrib contrib-type="author">
                                                <name>
                    <surname>DA CRUZ PINHEIRO</surname>
                    <given-names>Fernando</given-names>
                </name>
                                <email xlink:href="mailto:fernando.pinheiro@posgrad.ufsc.br">fernando.pinheiro@posgrad.ufsc.br</email>
                                                <xref ref-type="aff" rid="j_INFEDU_aff_004"/>
                                            </contrib>
                        <aff id="j_INFEDU_aff_004">Department of Informatics and Statistics, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) Florianópolis/SC, Brazil</aff>
                                                    <contrib contrib-type="author">
                                                <name>
                    <surname>F. FERREIRA</surname>
                    <given-names>M. Nathalie</given-names>
                </name>
                                <email xlink:href="mailto:nathalie.fortuna@posgrad.ufsc.br">nathalie.fortuna@posgrad.ufsc.br</email>
                                                <xref ref-type="aff" rid="j_INFEDU_aff_005"/>
                                            </contrib>
                        <aff id="j_INFEDU_aff_005">Graduate Program in Design, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) Florianópolis/SC, Brazil</aff>
                                                    <contrib contrib-type="author">
                                                <name>
                    <surname>HAUCK</surname>
                    <given-names>Jean C. R.</given-names>
                </name>
                                <email xlink:href="mailto:jean.hauck@ufsc.br">jean.hauck@ufsc.br</email>
                                                <xref ref-type="aff" rid="j_INFEDU_aff_006"/>
                                            </contrib>
                        <aff id="j_INFEDU_aff_006">Department of Informatics and Statistics, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) Florianópolis/SC, Brazil</aff>
                                </contrib-group>
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    <volume>18</volume>
                                <issue>2</issue>
                                    <fpage>259</fpage>
                        <lpage>280</lpage>
                                <pub-date pub-type="epub">
                        <day>16</day>
                                    <month>10</month>
                        <year>2019</year>
        </pub-date>
                                        <abstract>
                        <p>Teaching computational thinking in K-12 as a 21th century skill is becoming increasingly important. Computational thinking describes a specific way of reasoning building on concepts and processes derived from algorithms and programming. One way to teach these concepts is games as an effective and efficient alternative. This article presents SplashCode, a low-cost board game to reinforce basic algorithms and programming concepts. The game was developed in a systematic way following an instructional design process, and applied and evaluated in a Brazilian public school with a total of 65 students (grade 5 to 9). First results indicate that the game can have a positive impact on motivation, learning experience, and students&#039; learning, as well as contribute positively to social interaction, relevance, and fun. Results of this study may assist in the selection of games as an instructional strategy and/or in the development of new games for teaching computational thinking.</p>
                    </abstract>
                <kwd-group>
            <label>Keywords</label>
                        <kwd>game-based learning</kwd>
                        <kwd>computational thinking</kwd>
                        <kwd>algorithms and programming</kwd>
                        <kwd>K-12</kwd>
                    </kwd-group>
    </article-meta>
</front>
</article>
