Exploring teachers’ perceptions of critical digital literacies and how these are manifested in their teaching practices

Digital systems are increasingly becoming central to the running of contemporary schools. A range of digital tools are also adopted by teachers to facilitate face to face teaching and learning and more recently to accommodate remote schooling. Similarly, digital technologies lie at the heart of how students support their learning but also interact with peers. These digital practices raise questions in relation to teachers’ own critical digital literacies as well as their role in developing students’ critical digital literacies. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study that aimed to develop an understanding of teachers’ current experiences and future needs relating to critical digital literacies within school contexts. Drawing on empirical data collected during focus group interviews with primary and secondary school teachers in Finland, Italy, Spain and the UK this paper looks at teachers’ perceptions of critical digital literacies and explores whether and how these are manifested in their practices. Findings revealed that different dimensions of critical digital literacies were more prevalent for each national group and highlighted the disjuncture between how Critical digital literacies (CDL) is defined and perceived in academic research with a stronger emphasis on the “critical” and between the more “twenty-first century skills” oriented policy agendas and curricula which inform teachers’ practice. The paper goes on to discuss the implications of these findings and identifies gaps in relation to teachers’ understandings of critical digital literacies. Last, it offers original insights for future policymaking, research and practice regarding the challenges of supporting teachers with developing critical digital literacies

A principled approach to REPL interpreters

Read-eval-print-loops (REPLs) allow programmers to test out snippets of code, explore APIs, or even incrementally construct code, and get immediate feedback on their actions. However, even though many languages provide a REPL, the relation between the language as is and what is accepted at the REPL prompt is not always well-defined. Furthermore, implementing a REPL for new languages, such as DSLs, may incur significant language engineering cost. In this paper we survey the domain of REPLs and investigate the (formal) principles underlying REPLs. We identify and define the class of sequential languages, which admit a sound REPL implementation based on a definitional interpreter, and present design guidelines for extending existing language implementations to support REPL-style interfaces (including computational notebooks). The obtained REPLs can then be generically turned into an exploring interpreter, to allow exploration of the user’s interaction.The approach is illustrated using three case studies, based on MiniJava, QL (a DSL for questionnaires), and eFLINT (a DSL for normative rules). We expect sequential languages, and the consequent design principles, to be stepping stones towards a better understanding of the essence of REPLs.</p

UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Extensible Language Implementation with Object Algebras Extensible Language Implementation with Object Algebras (Short Paper)

Abstract Object Algebras are a recently introduced design pattern to make the implementation of recursive data types more extensible. In this short paper we report our experience in using Object Algebras in building a realistic domain-specific language (DSL) for questionnaires, called QL. This experience has led to a simple, yet powerful set of tools for the practical and flexible implementation of highly extensible languages

Extensible Language Implementation with Object Algebras:(Short Paper)

International audienceObject Algebras are a recently introduced design pattern to make the implementation of recursive data types more extensible. In this short paper we report our experience in using Object Algebras in building a realistic domain-specific language (DSL) for questionnaires, called QL. This experience has led to a simple, yet powerful set of tools for the practical and flexible implementation of highly extensible languages

Schools' perceptions and experiences of critical digital literacies across four European countries - DETECT project report 2

This is the second report of the DETECT project. The report aims to develop an understanding of teachers’ needs in relation to critical digital literacies within a school context. It presents the empirical activities carried out as part of Intellectual Output 1 of the project and the relevant findings that emerged. In particular, it presents the findings from the survey and interviews that were carried out between January-June 2020

Critical Digital Literacies framework for educators - DETECT project report 1

This is the first report of the DETECT project. The report presents the Critical Digital Literacies framework that has been created as part of the project’s Intellectual Output 1. This framework is the result of collaborative work across all project partners and has been informed by a range of research and other activities. These included: i) a systematic literature review in the area of critical digital literacies, ii) empirical research conducted across our four primary and secondary EU school partners, and iii) expert panel meetings at various stages that helped to refine and finalise the framewor