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Abstract.Computational thinking is an increasingly important focus in computer science or informatics curricula around the world, and ways of incorporating it into the school curricula are being sought. The Bebras contest on informatics, which originated 12 years ago and now involves around 50 countries, consists of short problemsolving tasks based on topics in informatics. Bebras tasks engender the development of computational thinking skills by incorporating abstraction, algorithmic thinking, decomposition, evaluation and generalization. Bebras tasks cover a range of informatics concepts including algorithms and data structures, programming, networking, databases and social and ethical issues. Having built up a substantial number of Bebras tasks over 12 years it is important to be able to categorise them so that they can be easily accessed by the Bebras community and teachers within schools. The categorization of tasks within Bebras is important as it ensures that tasks span a wide range of topics; there have been several categorization schemes suggested to date. In this paper we present a new twodimensional categorization system that takes account of computational thinking skills as well as content knowledge. Examples are given from recent tasks that illustrate the role that Bebras can play in the development of computational thinking skills.Keywords: Bebras contest, computational thinking, informatics concepts, informatics education, categorization, databases. IntroductionAttracting youngsters to choose to study computer science or computing (widely known as informatics in Europe) at high school has always been a challenge for computer science educators. The idea of developing a contest in informatics and computer fluency for school students originated in the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Lithuania (Dagiene, 2005;. The contest has now been extended to become a "challenge" and is being held in more than 50 countries. The challenge name "Beaver" -in Lithuanian "Bebras" -was chosen in connection with the hard-working, intelligent, goal seeking and lively wild animal.The Bebras challenge is an informatics education community-building model and is designed to promote informatics learning at schools by solving short concept-based tasks (Dagiene & Stupuriene, 2016). Alongside the initial goal of the Bebras project to motivate students to be more interested in informatics topics, there is a strong intention to deepen algorithmic and operational thinking; more recently this is also extended to computational thinking.Tasks are the most important component for developing computational thinking. In accordance with requirements, each Bebras task should include at least one informatics concept, attract children's attention by a story, picture or interactivity, be short (fit on a computer screen), and not require specific technical knowledge. Part of the task development is the categorization of tasks with the intention of having a broad range of tasks across different content areas.In this paper we examine the...

This exploratory study focuses on concepts and their assessment in K-9 computer science (CS) education. We analyzed concepts in local curriculum documents and guidelines, as well as interviewed K-9 teachers in two countries about their teaching and assessment practices. Moreover, we investigated the 'task based assessment' approach of the international Bebras contest by classifying the conceptual content and question structure of Bebras tasks spanning five years. Our results show a variety in breadth and focus in curriculum documents, with the notion of algorithm as a significant common concept. Teachers' practice appears to vary, depending on their respective backgrounds. Informal assessment practices are predominant, especially in the case of younger students. In the Bebras tasks, algorithms and data representation were found to be the main concept categories. The question structure follows specific patterns, but the relative frequencies of the patterns employed in the tasks vary over the years. Our analysis methods appear to be interesting in themselves, and the results of our study give rise to suggestions for follow-up research.

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Informatics or Computer Science is important subject in nowadays school education. Informatics can be presented as a discipline for understanding technology in a deeper way-the understanding behind computer programs. Bringing Informatics to schools means preparing young people to be creators of information technology-not only to be users of technological devices. To achieve that, we need to introduce Informatics concepts to primary, basic (K-9) and secondary education (K-12). From the other side, we need to help people to solve problems by using technology and developing computational thinking in various areas. The paper presents a short overview of Informatics education at schools of Lithuania with focus on future modern Informatics and Information Technology curriculum for K-12 education. The importance of informal education of Informatics concepts and computational thinking through contests is discussed as well. Few examples of short tasks for understanding Informatics concepts and developing computational thinking skills are presented.