Development of a Computational Thinking Learning Tool Using a Railway Toy and Music

In Japan, programming education in elementary schools has begun in 2020, and it is necessary to foster programming thinking effectively. Various learning tools have been developed to introduce programming concepts, and many studies have been conducted to develop tools using music to foster computational thinking that includes programming thinking. In this study, we focused on the affinity between the basic movements of the railway toy and the melodies and chord progressions, and we developed a learning tool to foster computational thinking by combining music and the railway toy. In this study, an activity using this tool was developed and subjects were asked to experience the activity. Based on the subjects' progress in the activity and their opinions in the questionnaire, the improvement of the activity is discussed.