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Though expanding computational thinking to primary school students has become more prevalent, there is a lack of appropriate didactics. Educational robotics offers a possible approach. However, innovations can only find their way into the classroom if teachers find them feasible and meaningful. Thus, appropriate training and further education of teachers are becoming a necessity. This paper reports on investigating professional development for teachers in programming robots by integrating the method of storytelling in their teaching. It draws on the Technology Usage Inventory (TUI) model to explore how an interdisciplinary intervention with programmable robots, combined with the storytelling method “Tell, Draw & Code” can influence the intention to use them in the classroom. Comparing the pre-and post-test and the qualitative data analysis shows a significant increase in positive attitudes towards the use of robots. The learning scenarios produced by the participants show how successful implementation can succeed. These findings highlight the need for teachers to explore, reflect, and experience the potential of new technologies as part of their teacher development to implement innovations sustainably. The quasi-experimental study shows that this problem-based and interdisciplinary didactic setting is particularly well received by teachers because it promotes computational thinking, narrative, and reading skills in primary school students in equal measure, and it can be easily taught and transferred.

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Basic Digital Education (BDE) is already planned to be integrated with the forthcoming curriculum for Austrian primary schools (6–10 years) as it was already implemented for lower secondary schools (10–14 years) in 2018. BDE includes the most essential and novel developments of Computational Thinking (CT), which are fundamentally responsible for nurturing students' problem-solving skills. Thus, evaluating teaching materials, scaffolding guidelines, and assessments is becoming increasingly important for the successful implementation of CT in Austrian classrooms. This study is a part of a longitudinal multi-cycle educational design research project aiming to explore how to foster CT and to raise the awareness, importance, and confidence of teachers and students in applying CT for everyday uses. Our paper focuses on a sub-study in which teaching units for grade 3 and 4 students (8–10 years) were designed by combining an Open Educational Resource (OER) textbook and Physical Computing with the micro:bit device. The designed learning environment consists of three units and was implemented in two classes over 3 weeks. The two classes were further split into two groups each, to ensure better support during implementation. The class teachers received upfront teacher training and conducted pre- and post-test assessments with the students. The resulting data was then analyzed to gain insights into the effects on CT skills of the young learners. Results showed that combining block-based programming and physical computing devices could become a promising approach to promote computational thinking skills in lower school grades. Furthermore, the observed direction of the designed units supports low-barrier access to increase the desired uses of CT in classrooms.