Thierry FOREST, University of Le Mans
Certified teacher of BTS in IT Services for Organizations, I chose to put my career on hold in order to contribute to research.
My research focuses on Human Learning Computer Environments (EIAH), particularly on educational games (Serious Games for education).
My research topic is: "Promoting the adoption of serious games by teachers for learning computational thinking." I have been working on this research theme since January 1, 2024. Iza Marfisi supervises my thesis, and Bertrand Marne provides my academic guidance. I am a member of the Engineering of Computer Environments for Human Learning (IEIAH) team at the Computer Science Laboratory of the University of Le Mans (LIUM), and we are based on the campus of the IUT in Laval.
As part of my research, I am involved in leading the GTnum Forges Thematic Digital Group. The goal of this working group is to bring together teachers and researchers to address the challenge of software forges being used by all teachers. Our proposal is to design education-oriented interfaces for forges. This involves implementing a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to ensure technical developments. These interfaces will be designed to promote the sharing and maintenance of free digital commons.
Session
The French Ministry of Education has provided LaForgeEdu a GitLab software forge, specifically intended for primary and secondary school teachers. However, this software forge was not designed with teacher’s practices in mind, and it’s interface and the terms it uses (eg: fork,commit, merge request) are difficult to apprehend. With the help of educational professionals, our aim is to lower the entry barrier for using software forges by providing a new teacher-centered interface called ForgeEditor. This paper presents the new ForgeEditor interface and two first user studies with 24 teachers.