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After the promising results of the pilot phase of "Brain-based Programming", a new teaching concept for introductory programming courses based on neurodidactical principles, the empirical study continues this year in three groups. The results obtained so far in the current semester at our university are promising, too: In the first exams the students of the experimental groups achieved significantly better than their colleagues in the traditional courses and female students seem to benefit even more of the new concept. This paper describes the basics of the teaching concept "Brain-based Programming" and reports on the empirical results regarding the positive impact this concept on the learning outcomes (Cohen's d = 0.42) as well as the students' and teachers' feedback.

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Technology has a deep impact on everyday life of most people in today's society. Informatics is a basic element of this evolution and is. therefore getting more and more important for education, too. To introduce children of all ages to different topics of informatics, the Regional Educational Competence Centre for Informatics in Carinthia, Austria, organized a four-week lasting Informatics-Lab. During their holidays in July 2014, children were able to visit our university, participate in workshops and get a first or a deeper impression of topics like encryption, operating systems, networks or modelling. What distinguished this project from other labs was that the children learned from trainees aged between 16 and 19 years as well as from their peers. Furthermore, trainees and visitors developed new teaching material on their own. This was an important element of the project as it considered different learning concepts like learning by teaching. The lab got positive feedback from both, children and parents. A pre-post comparison showed that the project had positive effects on the interest as well as on the attitude towards informatics. This paper gives some background information about the learning concept and an overview of the activities and stations. Furthermore, the results from an empirical survey are presented.

Software Engineering is definitely an important subject matter and it is taught all over the world: at Universities, at Colleges, and recently also at High Schools. There are international Software Engineering curricula, standards, and certificates, but there is no manifestation of Software Engineering (and related practices) in the course syllabi at primary and secondary schools. There are good reasons for it, but based on the authors' experiences gained in combining Software Engineering topics with school projects and based on discussions with teachers and curriculum designers, this paper shows that informatics education can be much more than just programming. Even more, the paper shows that it makes sense to interweave Software Engineering topics with school projects and to motivate for the most important practices related to that field.