An ecological perspective on the use of memes for language learning

Internet memes—usually taking the form of an image, GIF, or video with text—have become an important type of semiotic tool for meaning making. Due to the fact that memes can help learners leverage semiotic modes in social contexts, they hold great potential for language education. Integrating ecological social semiotic frameworks, this comparative case study examined the semiotic affordances of using memes for language learning in the digital wilds, with a focus on self-identified highly-motivated learner-memers in a university-level student-run Chinese-English intercultural chat group. Data sources included meme artifacts, screen shots, and recordings of meme-related communicative practices as well as semi-structed interviews with each participant. Analysis suggests there were four affordances perceived and utilized by the participants, including linking learners to emergent semiotic repertoires, L2 user agency, increased motivation, and personhood development. Key to learners’ experiences was their awareness of perceived semiotic affordances and their agency to participate in meaning making for potentially meaningful learning experiences. We conclude with pedagogical implications for integrating the rich semiotic resources of memes into language classrooms

Coordinating visualizations of polysemous action: Values added for grounding proportion

We contribute to research on visualization as an epistemic learning tool by inquiring into the didactical potential of having students visualize one phenomenon in accord with two different partial meanings of the same concept. 22 Grade 4-6 students participated in a design study that investigated the emergence of proportional-equivalence notions from mediated perceptuomotor schemas. Working as individuals or pairs in tutorial clinical interviews, students solved non-symbolic interaction problems that utilized remote-sensing technology. Next, they used symbolic artifacts interpolated into the problem space as semiotic means to objectify in mathematical register a variety of both additive and multiplicative solution strategies. Finally, they reflected on tensions between these competing visualizations of the space. Micro-ethnographic analyses of episodes from three paradigmatic case studies suggest that students reconciled semiotic conflicts by generating heuristic logico-mathematical inferences that integrated competing meanings into cohesive conceptual networks. These inferences hinged on revisualizing additive elements multiplicatively. Implications are drawn for rethinking didactical design for proportions. © 2013 FIZ Karlsruhe

Primary objects: developing a new type of furniture for the early elementary classroom

The traditional North American elementary classroom is dominated by traditional passive furniture. With the continual use of the traditional typologies of desks and chairs, the classroom furniture fails to challenge the student's development and engage the imagination of the users. As research shows that children learn most through movement, emotions, and exploration, the passive furniture hinders a well-rounded learning experience. In this study, the approach for designing new furniture that fosters a sense of creativity, independence, and active learning is not only guided by the researcher's experiences, but also involves insight from elementary students and teachers. This thesis investigation used a participatory approach to enable the examination of the current activities and interactions occurring within the first and second grade classroom. Using the characteristics of middle childhood, the third teacher theory, and affordance, the researcher developed a line of furniture for active learning that enables the students to shape their learning environment and experience. The resulting classroom furniture provides for intimate interactions, physical activity, social development, and personal customization

Information Uses and Learning Outcomes During Guided Discovery in a Blended E-Learning Game Design Program for Secondary Computer Science Education

This study investigates middle school and high school students’ online information uses and social constructivist engagement during a blended e-learning program of game design for computer science education. Students use a learning management system (LMS) pre-populated with curriculum and resources, participating in an in-school class, daily for credit and a grade for a year, with non-expert teachers. This blended e-learning model aims to contribute to scaling of CS education, towards meeting the needs of teacher shortages in this domain. The study draws on Google Analytics data to describe student activity patterns and investigate relationships between measured patterns and learning outcomes. Findings show two activity factors emerging in student resource uses (less advanced, more advanced), and correlations between uses of more advanced resource, and outcomes. Further, student uses of the “team page,” the locus of their social constructivist game design engagement online, are highly correlated with outcomes. The research offers some support for effectiveness of such blended learning approaches in supporting CS education in this age group through knowledge-building, while also showing areas for improvement in instructional design, including direct scaffolding of information literacy instruction in such contexts

Virtuaaliluokkaretki : virtuaalitodellisuusteknologian koulukäytön mahdollisuudet ja kokemukset

Tavoitteet. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tutkia virtuaalitodellisuusteknologian (VR) soveltamista osana ympäristöopin projektia kompleksisessa koulutodellisuudessa ja raportoida niin oppilaiden kuin opettajienkin kokemuksia ja havaintoja sen käytöstä. Tutkimuksen keskiössä ovat VR teknologian havaitut toiminnan mahdollisuudet ja käyttäjien kokemukset. Vastaavaa on tutkittu aiemmin lähinnä kliinisissä olosuhteissa. Menetelmät. Tutkimukseen osallistui kolme opettajaa ja 59 5.-6. luokkalaista oppilasta kahdesta eri koulusta. Osanottajat olivat vapaaehtoisia VISIOT-hankkeeseen osallistujia. Hanke on valtakunnallinen ponnistus kokeilla ja kehittää virtuaalitodellisuuteen-, lisättyyn todellisuuteen ja esineiden Internettiin liittyvien teknologioiden opetuskäyttöä. Hanketta koordinoi valtakunnallinen Innokas-verkosto. Tutkija ja kaksi opettajaa suunnittelivat yhteistyössä ja designtutkimuksen periaatteita noudattaen VR-teknologiaa soveltavan oppimisprojektin. Opettajat ottivat käyttöön VR-järjestelmän, joka koostui HTC Vive -laitteesta ja Google Earth VR -sovelluksesta. Aineiston keruu tapahtui pääasiassa verkkokyselyin projektin alussa, sen aikana ja projektin päätyttyä. Lisäksi tutkimuksessa mitattiin oppilaiden avaruudellista hahmotuskykyä, ja kuultiin opettajien havaintoja innovatiivisten verkkohaastatteluiden avulla. Pääsääntöisesti laadullista aineistoa analysoitiin sisällönanalyysin varassa teemoitellen aineistoa, ja analysoiden eroja ja yhtäläisyyksiä osanottajien kirjallisesti kuvaamissa kokemuksissa. Tutkimuksessa seurattiin kuinka opettajat keksivät soveltaa VR-järjestelmää osana ympäristöopin projektia. Projekti alkoi joulukuussa 2017 ja päättyi huhtikuussa 2018. Oppilaat arvioivat VR-järjestelmän käyttöä ja siihen liittyviä omia kokemuksiaan niin projektin aikana kuin sen päätyttyäkin. Tulokset ja johtopäätökset. Opettajat kohtasivat vaihtelevasti oppimisen orkestroinnin haasteita, teknisiä vaikeuksia, sekä tilallisen - ja ajallisen ulottuvuuden rajoitteita projektin aikana. Vaikutti siltä, että sovelletun VR järjestelmän sujuva käyttöönotto vaatisi olemassa olevien skriptien purkamista, sekä toisenlaisia ja jouhevia tilallisia, ajallisia ja pedagogisia ratkaisuja, kuin mihin kouluissa oltiin totuttu. Tästä huolimatta oppilaat omaksuivat VR teknologian käytön varsin nopeasti ja kokivat sen erittäin myönteisesti. VR järjestelmää käytettiin projektissa lähinnä motivoivana lisänä. Roolileikkien ja maapallon visuaalisesti tehostetun tutkimisen lisäksi VR järjestelmän havaitut toiminnan mahdollisuudet sisälsivät oppilaiden mielenkiinnon heräämistä, teknologian käytöstä nauttimista, todentuntuisuuden ja mielen uppoutumisen kokemuksia, sekä onnistumisen kokemuksia. Oppilaat pitivät VR laitetta erittäin mukavana ja VR ohjelmaa käyttäjäystävällisenä. Näytti siltä, että sovellettu VR järjestelmä ja sen käyttötavat projektin aikana vaikuttivat oppilaiden käsityksiin virtuaalitodellisuudesta. Tästä huolimatta oppilaat kykenivät kuvittelemaan monenlaisia virtuaalisia maailmoja, joissa haluaisivat vierailla ja opiskella. Tyypillisten kategorioiden lisäksi he kuvittelivat korkean fantasian maailmoja ja aikamatkustusta tulevaisuuteen. Yleisesti ottaen oppilaat vaikuttivat halukkailta jatkamaan VR teknologian käyttöä tulevissa opinnoissaan. Projektin jälkimittauksissa heidän itseraportoimansa minäpystyvyys ja osallistumisen into olivat korkeat. Poikien raportoima pystyvyys oli tilastollisesti merkittävästi tyttöjä korkeampi. Oppilaat pitivät VR ohjelman maailmaa luotettavana lähteenä lähinnä kokemusperäisesti; joko järjestelmän tuottaman todentuntuisuuden takia tai koska virtuaalimaailma vaikutti vastaavan täsmällisesti heidän kokemuksiaan fyysisestä maailmasta. Kaiken kaikkiaan vaikuttaisi siltä, että tutkimukseen osallistuneet 11-12 vuotiaat oppilaat ottaisivat VR teknologian mieluusti osaksi omaa oppimisympäristöään, toisaalta opettajat oikeutetustikin kokivat, että sovellettu VR järjestelmä olisi siihen vielä liian monimutkainen ja vaativa.The purpose of this study is to implement immersive virtual reality (VR) technology as part of an environmental studies project in the actual complex school reality and analyze both the students’ and their teachers’ experiences and observations on the use of VR in learning and teaching. This study focuses on the user experiences and affordances that the appliance of VR technology brings forth in education. There are but few earlier studies on similar topics, most of which have been conducted in clinical settings. Three teachers and 59 students, 5-6th graders, from two different Finnish elementary schools participated in this study. The participants were all volunteers and took part in a nationwide VISIOT-project, coordinated by a nationwide Innokas Network. Its main purpose was to provide opportunities for trying out and developing virtual reality, augmented reality and Internet of things -technologies in education. The three teachers in this study applied a VR system that consisted of HTC Vive -device and Google Earth VR -program. The different ways in which the teachers ended up implementing the VR system turned out to be an important research topic in this study. The project went on for over three months, spanning from December 2017 to April 2018. The students assessed the use of the VR system during and after the project. Their experiences became another key research area in this study. Data was gathered with online questionnaires, pre and post-surveys for students, a test of the students’ spatial reasoning abilities, and with a pre-survey and innovative post interviews for the teachers. This mostly qualitative data was analyzed with clustering content analysis, where I would find similarities and differences in the participants’ answers and place them in schematized categories. The teacher’s encountered technical, spatial and temporal challenges, as well as challenges in orchestrating the implementation of the VR system. It appeared that VR’s implementation in education demanded more innovative scripts and different spatial, temporal and pedagogical arrangements than the two studied schools were used to. Albeit, the students adapted to the use of VR technology rather quickly and had a very positive emotional experience with it. The VR system was mostly used as a motivational addition to learning. Besides the visually enhanced exploration of the Earth and tourist role-play, the VR system’s actualized affordances included enjoyment and interest, realism and mental immersion, and mastery experiences. Students found the device as very comfortable and the program as user-friendly. Their conception of virtual reality was evidently affected by the applied VR system and its uses during the virtual field trip project. Despite of this, the students were able to imagine diverse learning worlds for VR. In addition to typical categories, they imagined high fantasy worlds and time travelling to the future. By and large, the students appeared willing to use VR technology again in the future. Their post-survey measures for self-efficacy and interest to engage with the technology were relatively high. The self-reported self-efficacy of boys was statistically significantly higher than the girls corresponding. The students found the VR program to be a credible source mostly due to the virtual world’s realism or resemblance with their experiences of the real world. Altogether, VR technology appears to be something that these 11-12-year-old students would gladly include in their learning environment, on the other hand, the teachers rightfully felt that the implemented VR system was too complex and demanding for permanent inclusion

An Exploratory Study of Attributes, Affordances, Abilities, and Distance in Children\u27s Use of Mathematics Virtual Manipulative iPad Apps

This exploratory qualitative study investigated the presence of and relationships among constructs that contribute to children\u27s interactions with educational technology, leading to the development of the modification of attributes, affordances, abilities, and distance (MAAAD) for Learning framework. For this study, each of 10 fifth-grade children participated in one individual video-recorded semistructured interview session, during which they interacted with two mathematics virtual manipulative iPad apps and responded to follow-up questions. Video recordings and observation field notes were analyzed for evidence of attributes, affordance-ability relationships, distance, and relationships among these constructs. Constant comparative data analysis using memoing and eclectic coding provided evidence of the presence of each focus construct. Further analysis and interpretation, including quantization of qualitative data for visualization using novel rhombus plots, also led to the identification of emergent themes related to each construct and revealed relationships among the constructs. Emergent themes included categorization, alignment, and modification of attributes, variations and interrelationships among affordance-ability relationships, and the identification of and interactions among mathematical and technological distance. Furthermore, each construct related to each other construct. The evidence and interpretations led to the development of the MAAAD for Learning framework. The results of the study suggest that the MAAAD for Learning framework models relationships among attributes, affordance-ability relationships, and distance in the context of user-app interactions. the framework could serve as a tool for app developers designing apps, educators using apps to support children\u27s learning, and researchers characterizing user-app interactions and the outcomes of those interactions. The constructs, relationships, and framework identified in this study advance the literature on children\u27s interactions with educational technology tools, in particular literature concerning children\u27s interactions with mathematics virtual manipulative iPad apps

Teknologian mahdollistamien kognitiivisten affordanssien mittaaminen : mittarin kehittäminen havainnointityökalusta kyselymittariksi

Tavoitteet. Tämän tutkielman tavoitteena on kehittää Cognitive Affordances of Technologies Scale (CATS) -mittaria. Mittarin tarkoituksena on löytää oppimisen kognitiivisia affordansseja erilaisista teknologiaa hyödyntävistäoppimisympäristöistä. Sitä käytetään koulutuksen kehit-tämiseen. Tässä tutkielmassaei vertailla eri ryhmiä, vaan kuvataan, millaisia tarjoumia erilai-set oppimisympäristöt tuottavat oppijoille. Teoreettinen viitekehys. Kognitiiviset affordanssit ovat ympäristön tarjoamia mahdollisuuksia eli tarjoumia, joita jokainen tulkitsee omasta perspektiivistään. Sulautetun oppimisen (blended learning) ympäristöt sekä virtuaalitodellisuudetta sisältävät oppimisympäristöt kuuluvat teknologiaa hyödyntäviin ympäristöihin. Aiemmassa tutkimuksessa CATS-mittaria on käytetty ainoastaan havainnointitutkimuksessa, ja se on sisältänyt seitsemän kategoriaa ja 41 kriteeriä. Menetelmät. Neljän eurooppalaisen yliopiston opiskelijat ja yhden suomalaisen yrityksen työntekijät vastasivat muokattuun CATS-kyselyyn. Koko aineistoa (N = 134) hyödynnettiin mittarin kehittämisessä. Mittarin testaamisessa käytettiinmuun muassa faktorianalyysiä. Pääryhmät olivat sulautuvaoppiminen ja virtuaalitodellisuutta sisältävä oppiminen. Tulokset ja johtopäätökset. Uudessa CATS-mittarissa on kuusi kategoriaa ja 27 kriteeriä. Pääryhmien osallistujat kokivat, että eniten tarjoumia tulitutkimuspohjaisen oppimisen ja vuorovaikutuksellisen oppimisen kategorioista, joten sulautetun oppimisen ympäristö tarjosi sa-manlaisia oppimisen kognitiivisia affrodansseja kuin virtuaalitodellisuutta sisältävä oppimisympäristö. Tulos ei ole täysin yllättävä, koska kirjallisuuden perusteella virtuaalitodellisuus voidaan tulkita osaksi sulautettua oppimista. Tulevaisuudessa oppimisympäristöjen tutkiminen affordansseittain voi selkeyttää eri teknologioiden rooleja oppimisympäristöissä.Purpose. The aim of this thesisis the development of the Cognitive Affordances of Technologies Scale (CATS) instrument. The purpose of the instrument is to is to map different cognitive affordances of learning indifferent technology-enhanced learning environments. The instrument is used to developand improveeducationand learning modules.In this thesis, dif-ferent groups are not compared, but it is explored what different learning environments offer for learning. Theoretical framework. Cognitive affordances are offerings in the environment that everyone interprets from their own perspective. Technology-enhanced environments include blended learning environments and Virtual Reality (VR)-enhanced learning environments. In a previous study building on the CATS instrument, the instrument was only used in an observational study and it contained seven categories and 41 items. Methods. Students from four European universities and employees of one Finnish company filled inthe modified CATS survey. Data collected from all participants (N = 134) were used in the development of the instrument. In testing the instrument, e.g., factor analysiswas applied. The main groups were blended learning and VR-enhanced learning. Findings and conclusions.The new instrument has six categories and 27 items. Participants of the main groups reported having experienced the most affordances in the categories Inquiry-Based Learning and Discourse/Dialogic Learning. Hence, it seems that the blended learning environment afforded similar cognitive affordances of learning as VR-enhanced learning environments. This finding is not entirely surprising, as based on the literature, VR can be interpreted as part of blended learning.In context of educational implementation, exploring the learning environments by affordances could clarify the roles of different technologies in learning environments in future research

Concept Maps as Sites of Rhetorical Invention: Teaching the Creative Act of Synthesis as a Cognitive Process

Synthesis is one of the most cognitively demanding practices novice writers must undertake, and research demonstrates that first-year students’ synthesis writing practices result in more knowledge telling rather than knowledge creation and transforming. Pedagogies used to teach synthesis often focus on developing text-building strategies but lack explicit instruction on the more cognitively demanding conceptualizing behavior. To explore alternative pedagogies and heuristics, this study looks beyond composition scholarship to incorporate studies in neuroeducation and rhetoric to define synthesis as an ongoing, generative act of cognitive invention, effectively shifting pedagogical focus from text-centered product to student-centered cognitive processes that inform development of synthesized texts (a product). The methods were designed to explore any effects a visual intervention might have on developing student conceptual awareness and reflective practice over time, and whether that transferred into a final researched essay as knowledge transforming. This small-scale exploratory study applies a mixed-methods, design-based methodology to a semester-long intervention in first-year writing classrooms using digital concept maps (DCMAPs) as an ongoing, student-designed space of visualized concept construction. A Control group applied traditional reading-to-write text-based synthesis instruction and practice, while the Intervention group used DCMAPs to enact a prolonged, visualized and reflective practice of active construction of associations, relationships, and structural knowledge building. The DCMAP platform affordances positioned students as knowledge designers enacting creative / constructive processes, an approach based on neuroscience research on patterning and visualization. Intervention data includes reflective journals, narrated mapping process reflections, digital concept map images and construction processes, and a final researched essay that required synthesis of source ideas. Because of the exploratory nature of the study, results are not framed as cause-effect but as correlational possibilities that suggest inventional acts of visually creating connections and labeling them using rhetorically-based associational concepts lead to generative learning behaviors. Results suggest a number of possibilities for future iterations and research, as well as implications for our field’s approach to the teaching of synthesis