Urban Data in the primary classroom: bringing data literacy to the UK curriculum

As data becomes established as part of everyday life, the ability for the average citizen to have some level of data literacy is increasingly important. This paper describes an approach to teaching data skills in schools using real life, complex, urban data sets collected as part of a smart city project. The approach is founded on the premise that young learners have the ability to work with complex data sets if they are supported in the right way and if the tasks are grounded in a real life context. Narrative principles are used to frame the task, to assist interpretation and tell stories from data and to structure queries of datasets. An inquiry-based methodology organises the activities. This paper describes the initial trial in a UK primary school in which twelve students aged 9-10 years learnt about home energy consumption and the generation of solar energy from home solar PV, by interpreting existing visualisations of smart meter data and data obtained from aerial survey. Additional trials are scheduled with older learners which will evaluate learners on more challenging data handling tasks. The trials are informing the development of the Urban Data School, a web-based platform designed to support teaching data skills in schools in order to improve data literacy among school leavers

A Study of educational robotics in elementary schools

Every teacher aims to find new pedagogical tools that motivate the students and that are ultimately effective in the teaching/learning process of a broad set of contents. Frequently, novel educational tools are developed that bring new sheds of hope to teachers, parents and students. Some of them are able to survive in the fierce competition, but most disappear in a short span of time. The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), as a whole, have offered lots of promises to education, and some even talk about a huge revolution. Nowadays, it is certain that its impact on the classrooms is still far from these promises, mainly in what regards elementary education. But, it is undeniable that nowadays there are already a number of tools that can be used by teachers and students. The question is shifting from “Will we use ICT in education?” to “How can we use ICT in education to obtain good results?” In this context, Educational Robotics (ER), the research field that studies the application of Robotics as a pedagogical tool, has been growing in importance in the last few years as an emergent approach to Education. This development has been made possible by the technological advances in ICT and electronics, as well as by the progressive drop of costs

Creating an Understanding of Data Literacy for a Data-driven Society

Society has become increasingly reliant on data, making it necessary to ensure that all citizens are equipped with the skills needed to be data literate. We argue that the foundations for a data literate society begin by acquiring key data literacy competences in school. However, as yet there is no clear definition of what these should be. This paper explores the different perspectives currently offered on both data and statistical literacy and then critically examines to what extent these address the data literacy needs of citizens in today’s society. We survey existing approaches to teaching data literacy in schools, to identify how data literacy is interpreted in practice. Based on these analyses, we propose a definition of data literacy that is focused on employing an inquiry-based approach to using data to understand real world phenomena. The contribution of this paper is the creation of a common foundation for teaching and learning data literacy skills

System upgrade: realising the vision for UK education

A report summarising the findings of the TEL programme in the wider context of technology-enhanced learning and offering recommendations for future strategy in the area was launched on 13th June at the House of Lords to a group of policymakers, technologists and practitioners chaired by Lord Knight. The report – a major outcome of the programme – is written by TEL director Professor Richard Noss and a team of experts in various fields of technology-enhanced learning. The report features the programme’s 12 recommendations for using technology-enhanced learning to upgrade UK education

PRECODING ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE STUDENT'S COMPUTATIONAL THINKING SKILLS

Coding means telling the computer to do something. In order to achieve this, the coder must understand what the problem is and what the best solution is. One of the things needed is pre-coding skills, including computational thinking skills. This study aims to improve students' computational thinking skills as a pre-coding ability. This classroom action research was conducted at a public elementary school in Dauh Puri, Denpasar, involving 20 first grade students. Data were collected based on observations in working on activity sheets and the results of student work on activity sheets. The data that has been collected was analyzed by quantitative descriptive. The results of data analysis showed that the students' computational thinking ability increased from pre-cycle activities, cycle I and cycle II respectively from 47.70 % to 65.05% and increased again to 81.50%. This increase in scores indicates that students' computational thinking skills can be improved by using student age-appropriate activity sheets as the basis for coding skills without having to involve a computer

Algoritmilise mõtlemise oskuste hindamise mudel

Väitekirja elektrooniline versioon ei sisalda publikatsiooneTehnoloogia on kõikjal meie ümber ja arvutiteadus pole enam ainult eraldi distsipliin teadlastele, vaid omab aina laiemat rolli ka teistel aladel. Huvi algoritmilise mõtlemise arendamise vastu kasvab kõigil haridustasemetel alates eelkoolist lõpetades ülikooliga. Sellega seoses vajame aina enam üldhariduskoolide tasemel uuringuid, et omada paremat ülevaadet algoritmilise mõtlemise oskustest, et luua praktiline mudel algoritmilise mõtlemise hindamiseks. Algoritmilist mõtlemist kirjeldatakse paljudes artiklites, kuid sageli pole need omavahel kooskõlas ja puudub ühine arusaamine algoritmilise mõtlemise oskuste dimensioonidest. Doktoritöö sisaldab süstemaatilist kirjanduse analüüsi, kus mõjukamate artiklite sünteesimisel jõutakse kolmeetapilise algoritmilise mõtlemise oskuste mudelini. See mudel koosneb järgnevatest etappidest: i) probleemi defineerimine, ii) probleemi lahendamine ja iii) lahenduse analüüsimine. Need kolm etappi sisaldavad kümmet algoritmilise mõtlemise alamoskust: probleemi formuleerimine, abstrahheerimine, reformuleerimine, osadeks võtmine, andmete kogumine ja analüüs, algoritmiline disain, paralleliseerimine ja itereerimine, automatiseerimine, üldistamine ning tulemuse hindamine. Selleks, et algoritmilist mõtlemist süstemaatiliselt arendada, on vaja mõõtevahendit vastavate oskuste mõõtmiseks põhikoolis. Doktoritöö uurib informaatikaviktoriini Kobrase ülesannete abil, milliseid algoritmilise mõtlemise osaoskusi on võimalik eraldada Kobrase viktoriini tulemustest lähtuvalt ilmnes kaks algoritmilise mõtlemise oskust: algoritmiline disain ja mustrite äratundmine. Lisaks põhikoolile kasutati ülesandeid ka gümnaasiumis millga kinnitati, et kohendatud kujul saab neid ülesandeid kasutada algoritmilise mõtlemise oskuste hindamiseks ka gümnaasiumisgümnaasiumitasemel. Viimase asjana pakutakse doktoritöös välja teoreetilisi ja empiirilisi tulemusi kokkuvõttev algoritmilise mõtlemise oskusi hindav mudel.In the modernizing world, computer science is not only a separate discipline for scientists but has an essential role in many fields. There is an increasing interest in developing computational thinking (CT) skills at various education levels – from kindergarten to university. Therefore, at the comprehensive school level, research is needed to have an understanding of the dimensions of CT skills and to develop a model for assessing CT skills. CT is described in several articles, but these are not in line with each other, and there is missing a common understanding of the dimensions of the skills that should be in the focus while developing and assessing CT skills. In this doctoral study, through a systematic literature review, an overview of the dimensions of CT presented in scientific papers is given. A model for assessing CT skills in three stages is proposed: i) defining the problem, ii) solving the problem, and iii) analyzing the solution. Those three stages consist of ten CT skills: problem formulation, abstraction, problem reformulation, decomposition, data collection and analysis, algorithmic design, parallelization and iteration, automation, generalization, and evaluation. The systematic development of CT skills needs an instrument for assessing CT skills at the basic school level. This doctoral study describes CT skills that can be distinguished from the Bebras (Kobras) international challenge results. Results show that wto CT skills emerged that can be characterized as algorithmic thinking and pattern recognition. These Bebras tasks were also modified to be used for setting directions for developing CT skills at the secondary school level. Eventually, a modified model for assessing CT skills is presented, combining the theoretical and empirical results from the three main studies.https://www.ester.ee/record=b543136