Using an interactive whiteboard and a computer-programming tool to support the development of the key competencies in the New Zealand curriculum

Does children’s use of the software Scratch provide potential for the enhancement of key competencies as they work in pairs at the interactive whiteboard (IWB)? This article looks at how children using Scratch collaborated and managed their projects as they set about designing, constructing, testing and evaluating a game for others to play, a task that provided a sustained challenge over six weeks and beyond. The findings showed that the key competencies of participating, contributing, and relating to others were enhanced by the collaborative use of Scratch at the IWB, and that creative and conceptual thinking processes were sustained. Children became increasingly adept at using Scratch, and some children, previously thought to have poor social skills, began to articulate their understandings to others. While a guiding and scaffolding role was evident in teachers’ actions, close monitoring of group progress and direct input from teachers is required to keep the challenge high but achievable, and to extend children’s knowledge and thinking as they use Scratch at the IWB

Report on the Implementation of Work Package 4 “Selection and Testing New ICT Tools” in the Framework of the IRNet Project

This article, prepared by an international team of authors – researchers from different scientific areas, connected with ICT, e-learning, pedagogy, and other related disciplines – focuses on the objectives and some results of the IRNet international project. In particular, this article describes the research tools, methods, and some procedures of the Work Package 4 (WP4) “Selection and Testing New ICT tools”: Objectives, Tasks, Deliverables, and implementation of research trips. Researchers from partner universities have analysed the results of WP4 in the context of the next stages and Work Packages of the IRNet project – International Research Network

Innovating Pedagogy 2015: Open University Innovation Report 4

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fourth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. We proposed a long list of new educational terms, theories, and practices. We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised below in an approximate order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation

Classroom Research and the Digital Learning Media

Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00

Building capacity in climate change policy analysis and negotiation: methods and technologies

Capacity building is often cited as the reason “we cannot just pour money into developing countries” and why so many development projects fail because their design does not address local conditions. It is therefore a key technical and political concept in international development. Some of the poorest countries in the world are also some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Their vulnerability is in part due to a lack of capacity to plan and anticipate the effects of climate change on crops, water resources, urban electricity demand etc. What capacities do these countries lack to deal with climate change? How will they cope? What steps can they take to reduce their vulnerability? This innovative and high-profile research project was part of a larger project (called C3D) and conducted with non-governmental organisations in Senegal, South Africa and Sri Lanka. The research involved several participatory workshops and a questionnaire to all three research centres

STEAM Education in Ontario, Canada: A Case Study on the Curriculum and Instructional Models of Four K-8 STEAM Programs

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) learning and project-based learning are important educational initiatives in North America. However, it is important to consider whether current STEM educational practices are sufficient to prepare students for the world they are to live and work in. This prompts discussions about STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) which is shifting educational paradigms towards art integration in STEM subjects. This study investigates the STEAM education reform movement in Canada to better understand the STEAM curriculum and instructional programs offered by non-profit organizations and publicly funded schools. This research study addresses the following major questions: 1) what curriculum and instruction models of STEAM education are implemented in non-profit and in-school contexts in Ontario, Canada? 2) What do students learn through different models of STEAM education? 3) What types of assessment of student learning is happening in STEAM education? 4) How do classroom teachers view such models of STEAM education in meeting their curriculum and instruction goals? To explore these questions, I took a small sample of four different STEAM programs in Ontario, Canada. I conducted interviews, observations, content analysis of curriculum documents and a focus group interview. At the four research sites, the main pedagogies used are design-based and inquiry-based models which focused on the students’ interests and encourages students to construct their own knowledge. Students learn character-building skills that empower them to solve real-world problems, develop perseverance and grit, engage in their community and develop a global perspective. The instructors/teachers describe the STEAM tasks at each site as rich and authentic experiences. The findings also suggest that sharing the learning in the STEAM program with the community extends the learning experiences to a wider community and contributes to the collective knowledge about how students learn. This study can inform teaching practices for teachers who seek to engage and motivate students by integrating the arts in STEM subjects. This study also promises to deepen the field’s understanding of STEAM education in Canada and to provide new insights into the practicality, affordances, and tensions of designing and implementing a STEAM program