ICT competition for kids

Ivailo Ivanov, iivanov@fmi.uni-sofia.bg

Dept of Information Technologies, Sofia University, 5 James Baucher Str., Sofia, Bulgaria

Vessela Ilieva, vessela.ilieva@abv.bg

Private Language School St. st. Cyril and Methodius, Sofia, Bulgaria

Abstract
The first National IT competition in Bulgaria for children from 1st to 4th grade was held during the
2006/2007 school year. The competition was held on-line at a specialized site: http://it-kids.eu.
Pupils were divided into three groups according to their age. The day before the competition the
students had to register on the web page.
The task was coloring a picture. For example, in a network formed by geometrical figures of the
same kind the kids had to create a shape or a complete image. The variations in the different
age groups came from the different types and complexity of the network, given to the students.

After the end of the contest, all problem solutions were published on the web site to be voted on.
Only students, form the corresponding contest groups, who were registered for the contest, were
allowed to vote and every one of them was allowed to choose the 5 best solutions.
At the beginning of 2007 an adaptation for Bulgarian language was created on Imagine. This
adaptation in addition to Plug-in for web pages allowed its use as a platform for development of
software solutions for the competition.

Keywords
Primary school; competition; internet; Imagine
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Ivailo Ivanov, Vessela Ilieva

The Preconditions
As a part of the National ICT Educational Strategy during the 2005/2006 school year all the
schools in Bulgaria were equipped with one or more computer labs.
During the 2006 / 2007 school year IT became an obligatory subject for all the students from 5th
to 7th grade and elective for the students from 1st to 4th grades. It this respect the Ministry of
Education assigned the creation of standards and curriculums to groups of experts who were
ready before the beginning of the school year.
Training teachers to teach IT from 1st to 4th grades has been done since 1998, when a standard
curriculum for Working with computers and IT for 1st 4th grades [1] was created. The training
was conducted at schools, which were able to provide a computer lab with compatible software
and a well-prepared primary teacher.
During the 2005/2006 school year 34,307 children were able to study IT by means of this
educational form. In contrast, during the 2003/2004 school year, their number was 12 670. In
order to ensure the IT education in the primary school, a specialized software environment
ToolKid, based on the Comenius Logo [2], has been developed and used. Over the last couple
of years more than 1500 teachers have been trained in different after-graduate forms and
specializations and gained the needed qualification to teach IT in primary schools.
To conclude, all this made it possible to organize the first National IT competition for children
from 1st to 4th grade during the 2006/2007 school year.

The organization
The participants were divided into 3 groups according to their age:

group A: students from 1st grade (7 years old);

group B; students from 2nd and 3rd grades (8 9 years old);
group B: students from 4th grade (10 years old);

The competition was held on-line at a specialized site: http://it-kids.eu.

The different software programs used by the students on the day of the contest were published
on this site. In this way were ensured:

usage of the same software by every participant;

possibility for evaluation of the students ability to learn and use unknown software;
possibility for participation in the competition from home, which provided a solution of the
problem with the shortage of computers in schools.

ICT competition for kids

The day before the competition the students had to register. The registration provided the
options of choosing a city, school, grade and entering a participants name. After the registration,
the participants automatically received a number that was used in the competition day.
On the day of the competition (12 may 2007) each group was allotted 90 minutes within a
different time zone to complete their task. The reason for doing this was because at the schools
the number of the participants was bigger than the number of the computers and a computer
access for all groups was ensured.

The task
The task was coloring a picture. In a network formed by geometrical figures of the same kind the
kids had to create a shape or a complete image. The variants in the different age groups came
from the different types and complexity of the network, given to the students. By using this task
we wanted to assess not only the students abilities to work with computers but also their abilities
for creative and combinatorial thinking, their keenness of observation, and quickness of mind as
well as their abilities for aesthetical combining and harmony of color and forms. We chose a task
connected to the fulfillment of a graphical project, having in mind that this kind of activity is a
favorite one for the children from this age group and at the same time highly motivating. We
created several kinds of networks in advance which were then given to 1st 4th grades students
from our school in order to check their reaction to such tasks and what the most suitable kind of
graphical network for each competing group is (Fig. 1).

Figure 1.Kinds of networks

This research was important in order a better balance between the complexity of the contest
problem and the childrens skills form the different age groups to be effected. As a result we
chose 3 variants of graphical networks for the different groups. Each one of them allows variants
for end results varying from traditional and plain to unexpected and quite complex combinations.
Practically it allows every single child to solve a problem and to have a personal achievement
and at the same time the level to vary in a quite a wide range, showing the individual abilities of
every single child (Fig. 2).

Ivailo Ivanov, Vessela Ilieva

Figure 2.Childrens works

Purposefully we refuse our idea to give a specific theme the children to work on. The most
important for us was to follow out how children at the same age, having similar experience and
abilities, placed at the same situation, and using the same resources, will achieve similar or
entirely different results. At the same time the results do not depend directly from the students
artistic talent but demonstrate more universal abilities as keenness of observation, quickness of
mind, creativity, nonstandard in using the available instruments. In another words we wanted
with solving the problem and the realization it i to come from the children, without the
involvement of the teachers.

The Evaluation
After the end of the contest day all problem solutions were published on the web site for voting.
Only students form the corresponding contest groups, who were registered for the contest, were
allowed to vote and every one of them was allowed to choose the 5 best solutions. In this way
we wanted to ensure the children participants active position not only at the time of the contest
but in the process of evaluation and choosing the winners.
By means of including the children in the process of evaluation we sought to achieve:
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ICT competition for kids

Popularizing of the all participants projects among the students from their age. It creates
conditions for active exchange of ideas between the kids; we thought, that looking at the
published on the web site projects will sharpen the kids keenness of observation not just
informative but purposefully; it will provoke a lot of comparisons between the published
solutions and the own one; additionally, it will provoke much more emotional engagement
to the activity as whole and to the personal involvement into it.

Forming of criteria for giving an opinion, displaying of critical attitude and self critical
attitude to the end result from different activities; at this age the egocentric position of the
kid is still very strong. Giving to the kid the possibility to point not only one but five from
the best solutions we ensure the possibility to feel well, voting for himself and at the same
time to come out of this position, to evaluate the other solutions and publicly to give them
the well-deserved.

Maximum objectivity of the results by means of a big number of voting kids; this was the
way to escape the subjectivity of a jury, composed of exact number of people, even
carefully chosen.

Authenticity of the evaluation criteria, due to he fact that not adult but kids evaluate kids.
We wanted to escape the very often met talking at cross-purposes between adults and
kids. We wanted to understand the kids point of view and not to impose our one. We
think that an evaluation, given by students at the same age has a much bigger value for
the kid in such a situation.

The voting lasted for one week. After that the winners were announced and awarded in the
schools.
Meanwhile, to see how the land lies, we gave an opportunity to the primary school teachers who
had conducted the competition in their schools to prepare a poll and an unofficial top list of their
own. The teachers were warned that their votes are not important for the participants final
positions, hoping that they would give their best objective score without being partial to anyone.
Our desire was to compare the results of the teachers votes with the childrens votes in order to
assess to what extent the teachers notice and value that, which is important for their students,
and if there were any similarities and differences in the evaluation.

The Software
From the beginning of 2007 an adaptation for Bulgarian language was created on Imagine [3].
That with the presence of Plugin for web pages allowed its usage as a platform for development
of software solutions for the competition. Other significant advantages, which the program
environment lends to its users, is the opportunity to select certain options in dialog boxes to
program the behavior of the turtles; to create images by defined instructions; to work with pages,
which allowed the use of internal graphic files only.
These advantages allowed the creation of software solutions in the last days of the competition
by a team of primary teachers using IT (fig. 3).

Ivailo Ivanov, Vessela Ilieva

Figure 3.Software

Imagines main disadvantage is the impossibility to save and print the typed text when it is saved
in a web page format. This made necessary the creation of a special ActiveX control for Internet
Explorer with the main purpose of saving the content of the clipboard as a graphic file and then
saving it on the server.
At the end of the task, the children had to perform a series of actions using buttons, such as
,copying the created information on the clipboard and sending it to the site of the competition
(saving was kept secret, and each name was generated using each competitors personal
number).

Outcomes
As of today the competition has not yet been carried out. Therefore, the results (in respect to the
expected educational effect on children as well as the decisions taken by them) will be
presented at the conference.

Results
Participants
1546 have registered to take part in the competition. The number of participants in the day of the
competition was 1265. We think that the less number is because some of the children did not get
access to the PCs with internet connection. Its also possible that some of the children did not
manage to send the completed tasks.
Analyzing the information of the participating children showed that they are coming from different
regions in the country: not only from the big towns, but also from the smaller ones. The number
of boys and girls is almost equal. Taking into account that in the last 10 years in Bulgaria the
birth rate of boys is larger than girls' this is quite good activity from the girls.

ICT competition for kids

Graphic projects
The analysis of the children's project shows several tendences:

Big amount of variety of graphic projects. This reveals that the competition task has
provoked children's imagination and has aroused the artistic potential of every child. We
consider this result as very important, because we had as our main purpose to see not
only if children can work with computers, but also if they can use the new technologies to
present their new ideas.

A bigger part of the children did not created only a separate object, but they have created
a whole graphic projects with one or several main objects. They were placed on a
background and enhance the impression and puts forward the main idea of the project.
This is witnessed even in the projects of the youngest children. This shows children's
commitment to the projects, wholeness of the idea, and strong motivation for realization
of the proper development of the idea.

The analysis of the tasks shows that for children it was not enough to use the ready
colours, but they have used the tools of the software to create new colours and shades to
use in their projects. This shows ability for quick orientation in the instrumentarium and
proper usage of it. This fact proves their desire for work, finding optimal options for
graphic development of the project, precise work, showing thought to the project,
searching for different means of impression.

1st place in group A, Joana, girl, 7 y.o., Sofia

1st place in group B, Svetlina, girl, 8 y.o., Varna

Ivailo Ivanov, Vessela Ilieva

1st place in group C, Bojidar, boy, 10 y.o., Pleven

Summary
If we take into consideration that this is the first initiative of this kind for the country, it was
carried out in a short time, without support from the media, but only informing teachers in
different schools, we evaluate the project as very successful. There was big amount of interest
and activity not only from teachers, but also from children in their early stage of using IT and
technologies of that kind. In our opinion the competiution should be carried out in future and the
results should be populized more widely among schools and the society as awhole. We also
think that the task should be creative, because it will provoke children's interest and motivation
for performing the task and showing their potential.

References
Ilieva, V., Ivanov, I. (1999) Informatics and Information Technologies in a Primary School
based Logo Environment, In Proceedings of EuroLogo 1999. Edited by J. Sendova. Sofia,
August. pp. 227-234.
Ilieva, V., Ivanov, I. (2005) ToolKID Logo based software package for children. In Proceedings
of EuroLogo 2005. Edited by Gregorczyk, G et al. Varsaw, August. pp. 390 397.
Blaho, A., Kalash, I. (2001) Object Metaphore Helps Create Simple Logo Projects. In
Proceedings of EuroLogo 2001. Edited by G. Futschek. Linz, August. pp. 39 43.