Teaching Fundamental Concepts of Informatics

The International Conference on Informatics in Secondary Schools: Evolution and Perspective (ISSEP) is an emerging forum for researchers and practitioners in the area of computer science education with a focus on secondary schools. The ISSEP series started in 2005 in Klagenfurt, and continued in 2006 in Vilnius, and in 2008 in Torun. ¿ The 4th ISSEP took part in Zurich. This volume presents 4 of the 5 invited talks and 14 regular contributions chosen from 32 submissions to ISSEP 2010. The ISSEP conference series is devoted to all aspects of computer science teaching. In the preface of the proceedings of ISSEP 2006, Roland Mittermeir wrote: ¿ISSEP aims at educating ¿informatics proper¿ by showing the beauty of the discipline, hoping to create interest in a later professional career in c- puting, and it will give answers di?erent from the opinion of those who used to familiarize pupils with the basics of ICT in order to achieve computer lit- acy for the young generation. ¿ This is an important message at this time, when several countries have reduced teaching informatics to educating about current softwarepackagesthatchangefromyeartoyear. ThegoalofISSEPistosupport teaching of the basic concepts and methods of informatics, thereby making it a subject in secondary schools that is comparable in depth and requirements with mathematics or natural sciences. As we tried to present in our book ¿Algori- mic Adventures. von Hromkovic, Juraj