Learning through play: an educational computer game to introduce radar fundamentals

The information exchange has evolved from traditional books to computers and Internet in a few years' time. Our current university students were born in this age: they learn and have fun with different methods as previous generations did. These digital natives enjoy computer games. Thus, designing games for learning some selected topics could be a good teaching strategy for such collective and also for undergraduate university students. This paper describes the development and test of an educational computer game revolving around radar. The objective of the game RADAR Technology is to teach students about the fundamentals of radar, while having fun during the learning experience. Based on the principle that you learn better what you practice, the authors want to induce students to discover a difficult to understand topic by proposing them a different experience, in a format better adapted to their generation skills. The computer game has been tested with actual students and the obtained results seem to be very promising

Adolescents from low-income sectors: the challenge of studying in a time of digital environments

This paper is about practices and perceptions regarding the study of adolescents from low-income sectors in the City of Buenos Aires. The methodology consisted of 26 in-depth interviews with low-income adolescents and participant observations in twenty cybercafés of the South Area of the City of Buenos Aires. Among the findings, these students highlight that ICTs allow them to handle information in a more agile and entertaining way, more consistent with their daily uses. However, doing research on school content is what students do the least, since adolescents use technology mainly for communicative, social and recreational ends. These adolescents recognise some disadvantages in using ICTs to study: the unreliable information, the difficulty to distinguish which topics related to school content are more appropriate and the disruptive and continuous use of social networks. In this sense, these adolescents tend to have more problems in benefitting from ICTs for academic purposes than other adolescents. While communication and recreational skills tend to be similar, the evaluation of different sources of information and the skill to make complex searches online are usually more strongly developed in adolescents of middle and high-income households. In conclusion, we think it is necessary to take these problems into consideration in the social sciences research of the area and besides when implementing digital literacy programs.Fil: Linne, Joaquín Walter. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales. Instituto de Investigaciones ; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

A Playful Experiential Learning System With Educational Robotics

This article reports on two studies that aimed to evaluate the effective impact of educational robotics in learning concepts related to Physics and Geography. The reported studies involved two courses from an upper secondary school and two courses froma lower secondary school. Upper secondary school classes studied topics ofmotion physics, and lower secondary school classes explored issues related to geography. In each grade, there was an “experimental group” that carried out their study using robotics and cooperative learning and a “control group” that studied the same concepts without robots. Students in both classes were subjected to tests before and after the robotics laboratory, to check their knowledge in the topics covered. Our initial hypothesis was that classes involving educational robotics and cooperative learning are more effective in improving learning and stimulating the interest and motivation of students. As expected, the results showed that students in the experimental groups had a far better understanding of concepts and higher participation to the activities than students in the control groups

Developing a Mini Smart House model

The work is devoted to designing a smart home educational model. The authors analyzed the literature in the field of the Internet of Things and identified the basic requirements for the training model. It contains the following levels: command, communication, management. The authors identify the main subsystems of the training model: communication, signaling, control of lighting, temperature, filling of the garbage container, monitoring of sensor data. The proposed smart home educational model takes into account the economic indicators of resource utilization, which gives the opportunity to save on payment for their consumption. The hardware components for the implementation of the Mini Smart House were selected in the article. It uses a variety of technologies to conveniently manage it and use renewable energy to power it. The model was produced in-dependently by students involved in the STEM project. Research includes sketching, making construction parts, sensor assembly and Arduino boards, programming in the Arduino IDE environment, testing the functioning of the system. Research includes sketching, making some parts, assembly sensor and Arduino boards, programming in the Arduino IDE environment, testing the functioning of the system. Approbation Mini Smart House researches were conducted within activity the STEM-center of Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University, in particular during the educational process and during numerous trainings and seminars for pupils and teachers of computer science

Chapter 1: Message Design for Instructional Designers - An Introduction

Instructional message design is the use of learning theories to effectively communicate information using technology. Theories involving gestalt, cognitive load, multimedia learning, media selection, media attributes, and general communication systems help us guide design. Our communication designs can be based on a wide variety of technologies or a combination of technologies. Technology in the form of tools and techniques includes the study and the use of typography, color, illustrations, photographs, modeled graphics, augmented reality, animation, video, video games, simulations, and virtual reality. This introduction serves as a brief overview of these theories, tools, and techniques while subsequent chapters will dive much deeper into practical applications in instructional design

High School Stem Curriculum and Example of Laboratory Work That Shows How Microcomputers Can Help in Understanding of Physical Concepts

We are witnessing the rapid development of technologies that change the world around us. However, curriculums and teaching processes are often slow to adapt to the change; it takes time, money and expertise to implement technology in the classroom. Therefore, the University of Split, Croatia, partnered with local school Marko Marulić High School and created the project "Modern competence in modern high schools" as part of which five different curriculums for STEM areas were developed. One of the curriculums involves combining information technology with physics. The main idea was to teach students how to use different circuits and microcomputers to explore nature and physical phenomena. As a result, using electrical circuits, students are able to recreate in the classroom the phenomena that they observe every day in their environment. So far, high school students had very little opportunity to perform experiments independently, and especially, those physics experiment did not involve ICT. Therefore, this project has a great importance, because the students will finally get a chance to develop themselves in accordance to modern technologies. This paper presents some new methods of teaching physics that will help students to develop experimental skills through the study of deterministic nature of physical laws. Students will learn how to formulate hypotheses, model physical problems using the electronic circuits and evaluate their results. While doing that, they will also acquire useful problem solving skills

Early-Childhood Computer-based Testing: Effects of a Digital Literacy Intervention on Student Confidence and Performance

Early-childhood digital students grow up in a fast-evolving age of technology requiring them to use and create with technologies and demonstrate core content knowledge. Although third grade students are mandated to master a new language of standardized testing, a large percentage must also learn a language of technology to complete new computer-based tests to measure content mastery. Krashen (1982) defines high affective filter as negative emotional/motivational factors interfering with understanding and cognition. This high affective filter reduces confidence and negatively impacts measuring content mastery on new computerbased tests. Two third grade classrooms at a high-poverty metropolitan school participated in a quasi-experimental study to measure the effects of a digital literacy intervention on computerbased testing confidence and student performance in social studies and mathematics. The intervention group participated in a digital literacy intervention developing keyboarding and coding skills. The control group participated in a mock digital intervention. Both participant groups received computer-based pretests and posttests in social studies and mathematics, and both groups completed Technology-Use Baseline and computer-based testing (CBT) confidence surveys after each pretest and posttest. A comparison of means was used to analyze change between pretest and posttest. Regression analysis and ANOVA were used to determine any v significant relationships between CBT-Confidence, student performance and digital literacy intervention variables. The study results found a significant relationship with a change in student performance and computer-based testing confidence in social studies but not mathematics. There was also a direct, positive significant relationship with the coding intervention and change in computerbased testing confidence in social studies but not mathematics. The researcher suggests that mode of technology integration within the two classrooms impacted the research study. The research study suggests that learner-centered technology integration within the social studies classroom positively impacted the research study when comparing the teacher-centered technology integration within the mathematics classroom. Research study suggests that school leaders consider providing teacher professional development opportunities for learner-centered technology integration (Chow et al., 2012, Considine et al., 2009). Future research could include larger sample population, using the same teacher to teach both subjects, and implementing longitudinal study to track student performance on standardized testing

Chapter 01: Message Design for Instructional Designers - An Introduction

Instructional message design is the use of learning theories to effectively communicate information using technology. Design is guided by theories including gestalt, cognitive load, multimedia learning, media selection, media attributes, and general communication systems. Our communication designs can be based on a wide variety of technologies or a combination of technologies. Technology in the form of tools and techniques includes, among others, the study and the use of typography, color, illustrations, photographs modeled graphics, augmented reality, animation, video, video games, simulations, and virtual reality. This introduction serves as a brief overview of these theories, tools, and techniques while subsequent chapters in this book will dive much deeper into practical applications in instructional design