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1.2 THE ALGORYTHMICS RESEARCH GROUP 19
Primary and Secondary Schools. The winners were presented in a special ceremony
held during the ECSS 2013 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Two teams from
Eastern/Central Europe (Romania: Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania;
Poland: Warsaw School of Computer Science) shared that year’s award. The official
website of Informatics Europe states:
The evaluation committee praised the originality of the proposal by Zoltan
Kátai, László Tóth, and Alpár Károly Adorjáni: Multi-Sensory Informatics Education.
Mixing algorithm-learning with sensory experience is a very innovative teaching
experiment. The key concept of this proposal is Computer Science (CS) education
for all, using a creative approach. The committee was impressed and appreciated
this approach of abstracting away almost all details that might hinder understand¬
ing the idea or principle of an algorithm or a paradigm. The enactments thus not
only can be used flexibly in teaching environments irrespective of a particular
programming or spoken-language but can be used as a starting point for the teacher
to drill down into more technical concepts. Another particularity of the project is
its inter-cultural character — sorting algorithms illustrated by Central European folk
dancing (Informatics Europe, 2013).
In the years since 2013, the AlgoRythmics project has expanded in a number
of areas. In this book, we provide a brief description of our fifteen-year research on
the topic of technologically and artistically enhanced multi-sensory computer-pro¬
gramming education. This overview is based on the following research papers:
— On the role of senses in education (Kätai, Juhäsz, & Adorjäni, 2008);
— Technologically and artistically enhanced multi-sensory computer-program¬
ming education (Kátai g Tóth, 2010);
— Multi-sensory method for teaching-learning recursion (Kátai, 2011);
— Selective hiding for improved algorithmic visualization (Kátai, 2014a);
— Intercultural Computer Science education (Katai, 2014b);
— The challenge of promoting algorithmic thinking of both sciences- and hu¬
manities-oriented learners (Katai, 2015);
— Promoting computational thinking of both sciences- and humanities-oriented
students: An instructional and motivational design perspective (Katai, 2020);
— Algorithm visualization environments: Degree of interactivity as an influence
on student learning (Osztiän, Kätai, & Osztiän, 2020).
1.2 The AlgoRythmics research group
The AlgoRythmics project started during the 2003-2007 period at Sapientia
Hungarian University of Transylvania. At that time, the author (Zoltän Kätai) was
PhD student at the University of Debrecen, and one of the topics he addressed
was the multi-sensory approach of CS education. The first investigation that can
be linked to the project (included in the author’s PhD dissertation too) focused on