Engl. transl.: Make IT Happen: Final Report 30 February 2020

This report presents an evaluation of the development project "Make IT Happen", carried out in January 2018 through December 2019. The aim of the project was to provide elementary school teachers working in 8 different municipalities in the region of Kronoberg, Sweden, with an opportunity to develop their digital competence as concerns their programming and computational thinking skills. The evaluation relied on quantitative and qualitative analysis of (1) questionnaire data collected both before and after the project, (2) the teachers' written reflections during the project, and (3) their lesson planning following the project's conclusion. All in all, 218 teachers participated in the study. As the questionnaire answers show, the "Make IT Happen" project was much appreciated by project participants, who considered it to have helped them improve their skills in programming and computational thinking in the classroom. A significant proportion of those filling out their evaluation form (33%) felt themselves having a need for more knowledge, lesson design and best practice advice, time, and ideas – or for more tangible resources such as computers, money, and personnel. A somewhat smaller proportion of the participants considered themselves as not having any immediate needs affecting their ability to start carrying out programming instruction upon the project's conclusion. Analysis of lesson plans created by the participants for their final training session shows that they most often merely settled at just reiterating what they had learnt during the meetings; only a few among them had attempted to create something new on their own. This seems to indicate that most teachers may need to first feel more comfortable about programming before they can begin to transform their own teaching practice. As regards the project's general aims, the "Make IT Happen" training resulted in an increased number of elementary school teachers capable of utilizing the possibilities offered by programming in their classroom teaching. More specifically, the project helped to increase its participants' basic programming knowledge and skills while contributing to their computational thinking ability. At the same time, it provided them with meaningful didactic materials for teaching mathematics and technology. It has in many ways helped to deepen our own and the participants' understanding of the relevance and possible uses of programming in the classroom.

The "Make IT Happen" training resulted in an increased number of elementary school teachers capable of utilizing the possibilities offered by programming in their classroom teaching. It helped to increase its participants' basic programming knowledge and skills while contributing to their computational thinking ability. It also provided them with meaningful didactic materials for teaching mathematics and technology. It has in many ways helped to deepen our own and the participants' understanding of the relevance and possible uses of programming in the classroom.