Situation

In this section, we examine the current situation of computer science education at the elementary and middle school levels. We begin by examining the history of basic computing curricula, from the invention of Logo to the development of graphical programming interfaces like Alice. Once we have explored the factors leading to our current state of affairs, we discuss the current situation of early computer science education, including the focus of existing curricula and the kinds of skills students can expect to gain from them. An important component of the current situation is the set of standards that already exist for early computer science education; in general, although we find a few examples of efforts to integrate computer science into early education, attempts to do so have been relatively small or insufficient. Finally, we put primary school programming curricula into a larger context by examining their relationship to early language acquisition and other areas of research.