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the program the students have to understand each
cryptographic method and give correct answers to
corresponding questions. Therefore it is unnecessary
to control the students at any time.
We will start with explaining the idea of the
extracurricular learning place for computer science
called InfoSphere. After this we give an overview
about the cryptography course with our motivation,
the main idea and the structure of the two-day-
workshop. Section 3 describes the workshop in
detail and gives an insight in the used learning
materials. Afterwards we summarize the results of
the first test run with a group of 23 middle school
students. Thereby we report our impressions and the
feedback of the participants, resulting in an outlook
on our future work. Closing up Section 6 gives a
final summary.
2 INFOSPHERE - AN
EXTRACURRICULAR
LEARNING PLACE FOR
STUDENTS OF ALL AGES
An extracurricular learning place serves to teach
specific topics of one field to students of different
ages. The InfoSphere is an extracurricular learning
place especially for computer science topics. It
opened in summer 2010 under the leadership of the
Computer-Supported Learning Research Group of
the RWTH Aachen University (see Lehr- und
Forschungsgebiet Informatik 9). The InfoSphere
offers several perspectives on numerous facets and
applications of computer science for students of all
ages and types of school beginning with class three.
The InfoSphere provides courses as an addition
to regular school lessons. In Germany, North Rhine-
Westphalia there are no obligatory computer science
lessons in school. This is the reason why many
students do not get in contact with computer science
topics during K-12. This in turn leads to the problem
of many first-year students in computer science
having a wrong idea about computer science studies
(Heine, 2006); (Maass und Wiesner, 2006). High
dropout rates during the first semesters at university
are the result (Heublein et al., 2010). Besides
correcting the students’ idea of computer science
and encouraging interest in this field we try to
reduce these dropout rates by providing a publically
available extracurricular learning place.
For achieving this, the InfoSphere offers a wide
range of courses for half a day, a full day, or several
days. These courses provide experimental and
action-oriented learning with a link to the students’
everyday experiences. One of the essential features
of InfoSphere courses is the very individual access
they offer for the different topics. Combined with
self-directed learning and peer-teaching, this should
encourage school students to discover the various
aspects of computer science on their own. Our idea
is to enable a learning process that is as natural,
exciting and self-discovering as possible. By this
these courses should help to raise interest in
computer science even for those who are not tech-
savvy or did not get in contact with computer
science so far. Another motivation to open an
extracurricular place of learning was to assist
computer science teachers and students in teacher
training in teaching novel topics and becoming more
familiar with modern learning materials, methods
and media. InfoSphere has been designed as a
research laboratory to test and practice different
learning experiences. Moreover, it offers a plethora
of modern media and technology (e.g. multi touch
tables, smartphones and interactive whiteboards) to
help trainee teachers implement innovative learning
scenarios. Furthermore, students in teacher training
get the chance to acquire crucial media competences
in practice. For these reasons the courses are
designed by two to four students in teacher training
under supervision of the members of the teacher
training chair.
Within the InfoSphere we investigate the
following research questions.
• How can an extracurricular learning place like
InfoSphere help to convey a realistic picture of
computer science?
• What are the most significant criteria to change
the existing stereotypes about computer science?
• How can we correct the picture for different
target groups?
• What should a workshop look like to create this
picture as realistic as possible?
• What are the crucial differences between male
and female participants?
3 PROCEDURE OF THE
CRYPTOGRAPHY COURSE
At the beginning of the first day we start with a get-
to-know-round, because the students know neither
each other nor us. After this we randomly split the
participants into four groups. To increase motivation
we show each student group a treasure chest which
is locked and send them on a hunt for the right key.
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