Teaching Informatics in Italian Secondary Schools after the Reform

Despite a long tradition, in Italy the teaching of Informatics has not yet found a well- established place in secondary schools, let alone clear and coherent didactic objectives. The confusion about teaching is closely tied to the public image of computing, full of misconceptions shared not only by outliers but also by students, teachers, and others involved in Informatics education. In this work we carry out a detailed analysis of the current state of Informatics education in Italian secondary schools, focusing in particular on the actual contents of the teaching. Based on our perspective, we highlight some critical issues and suggest changes that, in our opinion, can improve the quality of Informatics education in Italian secondary schools. The realization of our proposals requires the availability of well-trained teachers. To this end, we illustrate a model of competences suited to the design of appropriate training programs for pre-service or in-service Informatics teachers.