“Apps that make things, not apps that do things”: appropriation and assistive learning technologies.

This paper describes three initial case studies of software use by teachers to support learners with special educational needs. In each case, the teachers were observed to be appropriating the software in ways that went beyond the intended use of the technologies. Appropriation has been previously explored as a positive process that provides benefits to users, yet these cases suggest that there may be specific benefits of appropriation for teachers in this context, and this is worthy of deeper investigation in the future

TALES: an e-learning application to teach programming concepts to the early years foundation stage

As a pupil concludes Key Stage 11 they will have been taught to understand basic algorithms, typically in a recipe style, create and debug simple programs and understand why their programs behave the way they do, in addition gaining knowledge of common technologies. Introducing these concepts to children in their pre-school education will prepare them for the new changes to the curriculum. This study describes the development of an educational system called TALES which is designed to teach programming concepts through a series of mini games. It is aimed at children at the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), specifically children with a cognitive ability between three and six years of age, and therefore does not assume the user to be a fluent reader or writer. The application is evaluated through a small user evaluation study. Early results indicate that learners engage enthusiastically with the games, taking more time to follow instructions and greater care as they become increasingly motivated to succeed in advancing through progressively more challenging levels of the game

Teacher's appropriation practices of educational technology: a case study in Tartu International School

https://www.ester.ee/record=b5160257*es