Effective Computer Programming Instruction for pre-University Albanian Students

Abstract

The relationship between pre-university students and technology is frequently overrated.While we receive glowing reports about how young people are knowledgeable aboutcomputers, the truth is that their knowledge is typically about computer content and themanipulation of applications. Young students too often treat the actual programming andunderstanding of computers as a sort of magical mystery.In this paper we look at a new Albanian initiative to identify and nurture the mosttalented of our pre-university students. In particular we look at contributions to the goalof making Albanians the most talented programmers in this area of Europe.The study addresses the issue of how to get young people interested in programmingby focusing on non-syntactic procedures. The authors consider two programmingenvironments that teach through the use of objects and problem solving skills.