Contemporary developments in teaching and learning introductory programming: Towards a research proposal

The teaching and learning of introductory programming in tertiary institutions is problematic. Failure rates are high and the inability of students to complete small programming tasks at the completion of introductory units is not unusual. The literature on teaching programming contains many examples of changes in teaching strategies and curricula that have been implemented in an effort to reduce failure rates. This paper analyses contemporary research into the area, and summarises developments in the teaching of introductory programming. It also focuses on areas for future research which will potentially lead to improvements in both the teaching and learning of introductory programming. A graphical representation of the issues from the literature that are covered in the document is provided in the introduction

初等教育におけるコンピュータサイエンス教育のカリキュラム編成に関する研究

Tohoku University博士（情報科学）thesi

Using activity-oriented design methods (AODM) to investigatemobile learning

The past few years have witnessed significant interest and developments in researching mobile learning, with a lot of important contributions being made towards understanding and defining mobile learning. However, current research efforts are being redirected towards a new agenda to establish appropriate methods for investigating mobile learning, as this book testifies. This chapter contributes to this research effort by articulating how to adapt Activity-Oriented Design Methods (AODM – see Mwanza, 2002) for use in mobile learning research

Human computer interaction for international development: past present and future

Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in research into the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of developing regions, particularly into how such ICTs might be appropriately designed to meet the unique user and infrastructural requirements that we encounter in these cross-cultural environments. This emerging field, known to some as HCI4D, is the product of a diverse set of origins. As such, it can often be difficult to navigate prior work, and/or to piece together a broad picture of what the field looks like as a whole. In this paper, we aim to contextualize HCI4D—to give it some historical background, to review its existing literature spanning a number of research traditions, to discuss some of its key issues arising from the work done so far, and to suggest some major research objectives for the future

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Experiences from Using Gamification and IoT-based Educational Tools in High Schools towards Energy Savings

Raising awareness among young people, and especially students, on the relevance of behavior change for achieving energy savings is increasingly being considered as a key enabler towards long-term and cost-effective energy efficiency policies. However, the way to successfully apply educational interventions focused on such targets inside schools is still an open question. In this paper, we present our approach for enabling IoT-based energy savings and sustainability awareness lectures and promoting data-driven energy-saving behaviors focused on a high school audience. We present our experiences toward the successful application of sets of educational tools and software over a real-world Internet of Things (IoT) deployment. We discuss the use of gamification and competition as a very effective end-user engagement mechanism for school audiences. We also present the design of an IoT-based hands-on lab activity, integrated within a high school computer science curricula utilizing IoT devices and data produced inside the school building, along with the Node-RED platform. We describe the tools used, the organization of the educational activities and related goals. We report on the experience carried out in both directions in a high school in Italy and conclude by discussing the results in terms of achieved energy savings within an observation period.Comment: to be presented at 2019 European Conference on Ambient Intelligenc

Використання хмарних обчислень для розвитку інформаційно-комунікаційної компетентності вчителів

The article deals with the problem for development of techers’ information and communication competence and use of cloud computing for it. The analysis of the modern approaches to the use of cloud technologies and projects for professional development of teachers and development of teachers’ information and communication competence have been presented.There are the main characteristics of software as a service on the Internet for education leading companies Google, Microsoft, IBM. There are described some actions of these companies, which are conducted to help teachers to master cloud technology for improving the professional activities and development of teachers’ information and communication competence. The examples of ways of development of teachers’ information and communication competence and training teachers to use modern ICT in the professional activity are given in the paper. The Cloud based model for development of teachers’ information and communication competence has been proposed.Стаття присвячена проблемі розвитку інформаційно-комунікаційної компетентності вчителів за допомогою використання хмарних обчислень. Здійснюється аналіз сучасних підходів до використання хмарних технологій та проектів для професійного розвитку вчителів та розвитку інформаційно-комунікаційної компетентності вчителів. Пропонуються основні характеристики хмарних обчислень провідних компаній Google, Microsoft, IBM, з точки зори їх необхідності для здійснення навчального процесу в мережі Інтернет. Описуються дії цих компаній та інші навчальні проекти, метою яких є розвиток інформаційно-комунікаційної компетентності вчителів за допомогою хмарних обчислень. Наводяться приклади шляхів рішення проблеми розвитку інформаційно-комунікаційної компетентності вчителів за допомогою використання сучасних інформаційно-комунікаційних технологій. Запропонована модель розвитку інформаційно-комунікаційної компетентності вчителів на базі хмарних обчислень, виділені основні вимоги та елементи цієї моделі

Developing sustainable business models for institutions’ provision of open educational resources: Learning from OpenLearn users’ motivations and experiences

Universities across the globe have, for some time, been exploring the possibilities for achieving public benefit and generating business and visibility through releasing and sharing open educational resources (OER). Many have written about the need to develop sustainable and profitable business models around the production and release of OER. Downes (2006), for example, has questioned the financial sustainability of OER production at scale. Many of the proposed business models focus on OER’s value in generating revenue and detractors of OER have questioned whether they are in competition with formal education. This paper reports on a study intended to broaden the conversation about OER business models to consider the motivations and experiences of OER users as the basis for making a better informed decision about whether OER and formal learning are competitive or complementary with each other. The study focused on OpenLearn - the Open University’s (OU) web-based platform for OER, which hosts hundreds of online courses and videos and is accessed by over 3,000,000 users a year. A large scale survey and follow-up interviews with OpenLearn users worldwide revealed that university provided OER can offer learners a bridge to formal education, allowing them to try out a subject before registering on a formal course and to build confidence in their abilities as learners. In addition, it was found that using OER during formal paid-for study can improve learners’ performance and self-reliance, leading to increased retention and satisfaction with the learning experience