Nafsika Pappa

Nafsika Pappa is a PhD. Candidate in Computational Thinking and Educational Robotics at the Department of Informatics and Computer Engineering, University of West Attica, Greece. She holds an MSc in Educational Technology from the National University of Athens, Greece, and a BSc in Informatics from the University of Piraeus, Greece. She works as an ICT Teacher in secondary education, teaching programming and educational robotics. She assisted the organizing committee of the Bebras Challenge (2018-2020) and participated as a researcher in the Erasmus KA2+ FERTILE (2021-2024). Her research interests include computational thinking, educational robotics, and blended learning.

PhD project: This PhD project aims to design a framework where secondary school students cultivate Computational Thinking Skills through collaborative Educational Robotics activities in a Blended Learning context. The main focus of the research is the integration of educational robotics simulators in face-to-face and online contexts. Several exploratory studies will be implemented with students to investigate factors such as the suitability of specific types of simulators for each modality and how the modality affects the cultivation of computational thinking skills. The results will contribute to teacher training on integrating computational thinking through Educational Robotics in Blended Learning contexts.