Games-Based Online Course Design: Prototype of Gamification for Online Tutors

With the ubiquity of interactive games in students’ lives and the rise of gamified experiences across the web and mobile applications, online tutors and practitioners of technology enhanced learning have been inspired to incorporate games-based elements. This paper introduces a prototype of an online application that helps online tutors to embed gaming to design their online course. We developed a framework for online course leaders which explains how Wikis (as an online learning platform) can support students’ learning, interaction, and sharing of knowledge in the online community. We are presenting a metaphor for the course design in a gameboard like “snakes and ladders”. This metaphoric game enables online tutors to elaborate online interaction among their students. The game methodological design approach for this metaphoric game merges different pedagogical theories such as (socio-constructivism) with practice in online learning (Wiki) and gives the online tutor an idea about what theory/approach is used when selecting any technological tool or moving forward in the game. This framework could help tutors, educational institutions and students to use a common language with students to describe their teaching and learning activities. Primarily, it helps tutors to make decisions about learning activities, facilitate, guide and support students’ communication and collaboration

Archaeological practices, knowledge work and digitalisation

Defining what constitute archaeological practices is a prerequisite for understanding where and how archaeological and archaeologically relevant information and knowledge are made, what counts as archaeological information, and where the limits are situated. The aim of this position paper, developed as a part of the COST action Archaeological practices and knowledge work in the digital environment (www.arkwork.eu), is to highlight the need for at least a relative consensus on the extents of archaeological practices in order to be able to understand and develop archaeological practices and knowledge work in the contemporary digital context. The text discusses approaches to study archaeological practices and knowledge work including Nicolini’s notions of zooming in and zooming out, and proposes that a distinction between archaeological and archaeology-related practices could provide a way to negotiate the ‘archaeologicality’ of diverse practices

Analyzing Digital Literacy Demands, Practices, and Discourses within a Library Computer Programming Club for Children

abstract: Among researchers, educators, and other stakeholders in literacy education, there has been a growing emphasis on developing literacy pedagogies that are more responsive to the ways young people experience literacy in their everyday lives, which often make use of digital media and other technologies for exchanging meaning. This dissertation project sought to explore the nature of these digital-age literacies in the context of children learning through and about new technologies. Conducting a year-long, multimethod observational study of an out-of-school library-based program designed to engage students in self-directed learning around the domain of computer programming, this project was framed around an analysis of digital-age literacies in design, discourse, and practice. To address each of these areas, the project developed a methodology grounded in interpretive, naturalistic, and participant-observation methodologies in collaboration with a local library Code Club in a metropolitan area of the Southwestern U.S between September 2016 and December 2017. Participants in the project included a total of 47 students aged 8-14, 3 librarians, and 3 parents. Data sources for the project included (1) artifactual data, such as the designed interfaces of the online platforms students regularly engaged with, (2) observational data such as protocol-based field notes taken during and after each Code Club meeting, and (3) interview data, collected during qualitative interviews with students, parents, and library facilitators outside the program. These data sources were analyzed through a multi-method interpretive framework, including the multimodal analysis of digital artifacts, qualitative coding, and discourse analysis. The findings of the project illustrate the multidimensional nature of digital-age literacy experiences as they are rendered “on the screen” at the content level, “behind the screen” at the procedural level, and “beyond the screen” at the contextual level. The project contributes to the literature on literacy education by taking an multi-method, interdisciplinary approach to expand analytical perspectives on digital media and literacy in a digital age, while also providing an empirical account of this approach in a community-embedded context of implementation.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Learning, Literacies and Technologies 201

Understanding vision: students’ use of light and optics resources

We present a qualitative study designed to examine how students construct an understanding of the human eye and vision from their knowledge of light and optics. As would be expected, vast differences are shown to exist between pre- and post-instruction students in terms of not only resource use, but also willingness to transfer their existing knowledge. However, we have found that appropriate scaffolding can facilitate resource activation and guide students to construct an understanding of vision and vision defects

The psychological dimension of transformation in teacher learning

Against a background which recognises pedagogical content knowledge as the distinctive element of teacher competence/expertise, this theoretical essay argues for its central construct - that of transformation – to be understood by teachers and teacher-educators in psychological terms (as was originally proposed by Dewey). Transformation requires teachers to fashion disciplinary knowledge such that it is accessible to the learner. It is argued that for transformation to happen, teacher thinking must include a sophisticated grasp of cognition and metacognition if teachers are to be characterised as competent, let alone expert. This article is written within a context of considerable social and academic scrutiny in the United Kingdom of the form and content of professional teacher preparation and development. In recent years the contribution of psychological knowledge to teacher-education has been filtered through procedural lenses of how best to 'manage classrooms', 'assess learning', 'build confidence' or whatever without a matched concern for psychological constructs through which such issues might be interpreted; thus leaving teachers vulnerable in their professional understandings of learning and its complexities. That society now requires high-level cognitive engagement amongst its participants places cognitive and metacognitive demands on teachers which can only be met if they themselves are conceptually equipped

Webbing and orchestration. Two interrelated views on digital tools in mathematics education

The integration of digital tools in mathematics education is considered both promising and problematic. To deal with this issue, notions of webbing and instrumental orchestration are developed. However, the two seemed to be disconnected, and having different cultural and theoretical roots. In this article, we investigate the distinct and joint journeys of these two theoretical perspectives. Taking some key moments in recent history as points of de- parture, we conclude that the two perspectives share an importance attributed to digital tools, and that initial differences, such as different views on the role of digital tools and the role of the teacher, have become more nuances. The two approaches share future chal- lenges to the organization of teachers'collaborative work and their use of digital resources.Comment: Teaching Mathematics and its Applications (2014) to be complete