The Art of Programming in a Technical Institute after the Italian Secondary School Reform

The Italian Secondary School Reform became effective with the 2010-2011 school year. It establishes guidelines for the different subjects but leaves large autonomy and responsibility for fixing concrete curricula to teachers. This autonomy is crucial for Informatics because it does not have uniform teaching models as do Mathematics and the other classical disciplines. During the discussions about the Reform, Computer Science faculties and researchers from Italian universities developed the “Manifesto of Informatics in Secondary Schools” which was issued in May, 2010. Hints from the Manifesto along with teachers’ actual experiences are meant to help solidify Reform guidelines and define appropriate school curricula. As a contribution to these discussions, we present here the activities under development in one technical secondary school for first year students, i.e. those about fourteen years old. Integrated with the planning of the second year, 2011/2012, this experience is proposed both as a reference activity for technical secondary schools and as a component of the Informatics course introduced by the Reform in the Applied Science secondary schools in Italy.