Towards an Online Service for Learning Computational Thinking Using Scientific Workflows

Computational thinking has recently been widely recognized as a fundamental skill that should be cultivated for everyone and in every field. Although there is an increasing interest in research in teaching and learning computational thinking in recent years, an engaging, effective online learning system is yet to be built for teaching, learning, and applying computational thinking online. To this end, we have developed DATAVIEW, an online social learning system for learning computational thinking concepts and skills online. The main contributions of this paper are: 1) we developed a new, effective online learning model for computational thinking based on our previous widely-applied R2D2 model. A signature characteristic of this new model is being interactive and learner-centered, thus "i" is carried out through the entire learning experiences, which provides teaching facilities to instructors and interactional tools among instructors and learners, 2) we implemented, validated, and refined iR2D2 in our DATAVIEW computational thinking online service, 3) We propose to use the DBR (design-based-research) approach to study the relationship between technology and teaching in the context of computational thinking, generating research results and findings applicable to online teaching in other domains as well.