Scaffolding through the network: analysing the promotion of improved online scaffolds among university students

This article explores how to enrich scaffolding processes among university students using specific Computer Supported Collaborative Learning –CSCL- software. A longitudinal case study was designed, in which eighteen students participated in a twelve-month learning project. During this period the students followed an instructional process, using the CSCL software to support and improve the students’ interaction processes, in particular the processes of giving and receiving assistance. Our research analyzed the evolution of the quality of the students’ interaction processes and the students’ learning results. The effects of the students’ participation in the CSCL environment have been described in terms of their development of affective, cognitive and metacognitive learning processes. Our results showed that the specific activities that students performed while working with the CSCL system triggered specific learning processes, which had a positive incidence on their learning results

Linking Discourses in a Wiki: Analysis of Primary Students’ Dialogic Interactions Across Time-spaces and Communicative Modes

The pervasive use of digital technologies in the ‘post truth’ era creates educational challenges as well as opportunities. In this session, we explore innovative ways of analyzing how young people can learn to engage in constructive dialogue through or around digital platforms. Taking a primarily methodological focus, we explore strategies researchers may use to analyze multimodal and multilevel dialogic interaction in technology-mediated learning environments. Further, we outline and consider challenges facing researchers in this area. Only by acknowledging such issues can we develop analytical strategies to mitigate against these in the future. Structured to maximize interaction, the session will promote sharing of ideas between those interested in approaches to analyzing the role of technology in supporting productive dialogue for learning

Using interactive technologies to promote a dialogic space for creating collaboratively: a study in secondary education

This research expands our understanding on the role of interactive technologies to draw learners into a dialogic space capable to promote ways of thinking creatively together. Grounded on dialogic theory, the research examines and characterizes the emergence of co-creative processes in an interactive technology framework. To this end, this paper reports on an empirical study with secondary-school students who followed a technology-enhanced dialogic pedagogy that promotes co-creativity in real secondary-education classrooms. Qualitative methodology was used to document real-life multimodal interaction. The video data was processed in different phases to develop an analytical framework capable of identifying strings of episodes indicating typical facets of technology-enhanced co-creative processes. Results provided seven typical co-creative facets: 1) collective framing of the task; 2) overcoming technological challenges; 3) engagement in generating a shared pool of ideas; 4) developing intersubjectivity; 5) fusing ideas for a new perspective; 6) evaluation of ideas and 7) making ideas a reality. Furthermore, the findings show that each co-creative facet covers specific objectives in the co-creativity cycle and presents distinct features along three key dimensions: a) co-creative processes involved, b) typical discourse features and, c) dialogic use of specific technology affordances (e.g. visibility, interactivity, responsiveness, multimodal representation, provisional, stability, re-usability) for co-creating. Future educational implications to design a more effective technology-enhanced dialogic pedagogy that can connect learners to their creative potential are also discussed.This research was funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of the Spanish Government (project number: EDU2016-80258-R)

Promoting social creativity in science education with digital technology to overcome inequalities: a scoping review

Enhancing creativity and developing technology skills in the classroom are the future of education and can turn out to be powerful tools to smooth out inequalities in class. This paper presents a systematic scoping review study of the literature focusing on cases of social creativity and digital technology embedded in science education. To this end, 23 empirical studies were selected from several databases all in English and subjected to a blind peer-review process to address the interconnectedness of key themes encapsulated in the following three research questions: (i) which digital technology roles support collaborative and creative processes in science education? (ii) which forms of technology and technological features support and organize the aforementioned creative processes? and (iii) what pedagogical principles guide the promotion of social creativity using technology in science education and involve all the students? Results show that technology can play different roles in promoting social creativity: (1) as a tutoring device that nurtures some key science creative processes; (2) as a tool that shapes students' creative thinking; and (3) as a medium that builds the supportive environment to perform collective creativity processes. In our project, these three roles were performed using a wide range of web 2.0 technologies (e.g., web-based environments, digital platforms, mobile technology) that both engaged all students in active and rich user experience for collective knowledge creation and equipped all learners with the necessary skills that would turn them into active, i.e., dynamic and resourceful, citizens in a swiftly changing world.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of the Spanish Government under Grant EDU2016-80258-R

Teaching how to learn with a wiki in Primary Education: what classroom interaction can tell us

Understanding how wikis are used to support collaborative learning is an important concern for researchers and teachers. Adopting a discourse analytic approach, this paper attempts to understand the teaching processes when a wiki is embedded in a science project in primary education to foster collaborative learning. Through studying interaction between the teacher and students, our findings identify ways in which the teacher prompts collaborative learning but also shed light on the difficulties for the teacher in supporting student collective collaboration. It is argued that technological wiki features supporting collaborative learning can only be realized if teacher talk and pedagogy are aligned with the characteristics of wiki collaborative work: the freedom of students to organize and participate by themselves, creating dialogic space and promoting student participation. We argue that a dialogic approach for examining interaction can be used to help to design a more effective pedagogic approach in the use of wikis in education, to shift into Web 2.0 learning paradigm and to equip learners with the competences they need to participate in knowledge co-construction

Breaking up the writing process: how wikis can support understanding the composition and revision strategies of young writers

Understanding how best to support immature writers in the development of their understanding of the writing process is an important concern for researchers and teachers. Social technologies have become key features of leisure and work place writing, yet knowledge about how to design educational settings that take full advantage of the affordances of web 2.0 technologies to support early writing is scarce. This paper presents a small scale study that investigated how writing in a wiki environment might facilitate and support students’ use of composition and revision strategies. Our findings show that wiki can enlarge young writers’ experience of the process of composition and revision both through their own efforts and by observing the process in others. In this study students employed a wide range of types of revisions both surface and text based changes. These revisions took place during the process of composition as well as at the end. It is argued here that writing in a wiki not only provides young writers with experience of a mode of composition prevalent in the contemporary work environment, but breaks up the process of writing in a way that may support students’ understanding of the processes of composition and revision

Enhancing students' attitude towards statistics as a tool for building an egalitarian society

This paper analyses the impact of an innovative educative project about teaching and learning data analytics (DA) on secondary students’ attitude towards statistics. The main objective of this research is to contribute on the improvement of students’ attitude and motivation towards learning statistics. A total of 113 students, aged 14-17, participated in this study. Students solved in small groups a social challenge related how weather affects our lives. During the project, students developed key DA (i.e. define problem, explore and analyse data, draw conclusions and make decisions) and they learned to draw evidence-based conclusions to the question 'How does weather affect us?' A pre-post attitude questionnaire towards statistics was built, validated and used in this study. A likert scale questionnaire of 22 questions was adapted and validated and used to evaluate students’ attitude towards statitiscs. The questions were adapted from four well-known and already validated questionnaires and were divided into six dimensions (cognitive competence, technology cognitive competence, learning statistics with technology, affect, self-confidence and anxiety). Our findings show a significant improvement of attitudes towards statistics in the posttest in comparison with the pretest. Statistical knowledge will lead our students to take evidence-based decisions in order to construct a more egalitarian and social justice world

Evaluation of the Development of Metacognitive Knowledge Supported by the KnowCat System

The aim of this study was to examine the development of the metacognitive knowledge of a group of higher education students who participated actively in an experiment based on a Computer Supported Collaborative Learning environment called KnowCat. Eighteen university students participated in a 12-month learning project during which the KnowCat learning environment was used to support scaffolding process among equals during problem-solving tasks. After using KnowCat, the students were interviewed over their work in this shared workspace. Qualitative analysis revealed that the educational application of KnowCat can favour and improve the development of metacognitive knowledge

Promoting Metacognitive Skills in a CSCL environment: implications for instructional and technology design

This paper aims to better understand the development of students’ learning processes when participating actively in a specific Computer Supported Collaborative Learning system called KnowCat. To this end, a longitudinal case study was designed, in which eighteen university students took part in a 12-month (two semesters) learning project. During this time period, the students followed an instructional process, using some elements of KnowCat (KnowCat key features) design to support and improve their interaction processes, especially peer learning processes. Our research involved both supervising the students’ collaborative learning processes throughout the learning project and focusing our analysis on the qualitative evolution of the students’ interaction processes and on the development of metacognitive learning processes. The results of the current research reveal that the instructional application of the CSCL-KnowCat system may favour and improve the development of the students’ metacognitive learning processes. Additionally, the implications of the design of computer supported collaborative learning networks and pedagogical issues are discussed in this paper

El diseño de contextos educativos mediados por ordenador y el aprendizaje de contenidos procedimentales de matemáticas en la ESO

En este artículo se justifica teóricamente y se evalúa el diseño de un contexto educativo mediado por ordenador para favorecer el aprendizaje de procedimientos de resolución de problemas sobre el contenido matemático de la proporcionalidad. Los principios educativos que han guiado el diseño y el proceso de evaluación son los siguientes: a) estudiar las características del programa informático que pueden potenciar el aprendizaje de estrategias de resolución de problemas. Nuestro trabajo ha utilizado una hoja de cálculo como programa informático; b) contextualizar las actividades y los problemas a resolver en situaciones del entorno cotidiano del alumno y c) facilitar el aprendizaje compartido y colaborativo de procedimientos de resolución de problemas entre los diferentes miembros de la comunidad escolar. Los resultados obtenidos en nuestro estudio muestran que la mediación de la hoja de cálculo en la resolución de tareas matemáticas ha definido una manera de aprender cuantitativamente y cualitativamente diferente