Web Environments for Group-Based Project Work in Higher Education

We discuss problems confronting the use of group-based project work as an instructional strategy in higher education and describe two courses in which course-specific World Wide Web (Web) environments have evolved over a series of course sequences and are used both as tool environments for group-process support and as the product environment of the project work itself. In particular we describe the use of specific Web-embedded shared workspace, communication-management and evaluation tools and their contribution to the management and educational value of group-based project work. The integration of instructional principles and strategies with the Web-based tools is also of particular importance. The 1996-97 versions of the courses analysed in this article can be found at http://www.to.utwente.nl/ism/ism1-96/home.htm for the first-year course in educational media design, and at www.edu.cs.utwente.nl/~aitnlpbg/, for the first-year course in applications of information technology. Both courses, at the University of Twente, use group-based project work as a major organizational form, but integrate all aspects of the courses within cohesive Web environments

MANUAL DE METODOLOGIE I*TEACH

This handbook is intended for teachers and teacher trainers who would like to implement practical methods, methodological tools, and software instruments to support their students in building ICT-enhanced skills and competences. The materials included in it were developed in collaboration with all project partners. Special thanks are due to the teachers, and especially to Nikolina Nikolova, having contributed with valuable ideas and feedback during the project, and to Ron Siemelink who provided some materials.The Methodological Handbook is prepared in frame and with support of the Leonardo da Vinci project BG/05/B/F/PP- 166 038 Innovative Teacher /I*Teach/ (http://i-teach.fmi.uni-sofia.bg), coordinated by Ass. Prof. Dr. Iliana Nikolova, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” – NIS

Positie van het vak informatica in havo/vwo

De vraag van dit artikel is: hoe moet het verder met het vak informatica in de bovenbouw van havo en van vwo? Deze vraag is relevant om een aantal redenen. Enerzijds gaat het om een tamelijk marginaal vak; slechts ongeveer 60% van de scholen biedt informatica aan. Anderzijds is er een discussie op gang aan het komen over de positie van het vak. Zo zijn er mensen die zich afvragen of informatica in de huidige vorm moet blijven bestaan, maar ook mensen die vinden dat de maatschappelijke relevantie van informatica zo groot is dat de positie ervan versterkt moet worden. In dit artikel geven we na een beschrijving van de huidige positie van het schoolvak informatica vooral argumenten pro het laatste standpunt en hoe dat vorm kan krijgen

Giving Teachers a Hand(book) to Develop ICT-enhanced skills,

Shared web-based knowledge bases, enriched with the possibilities of discussing about their content and of proposing new one, seem to offer the opportunity to diffuse pedagogical innovation. To this aim, the knowledge base should enable teachers to put their own ideas at colleagues’ disposal; and moreover, to improve their pedagogical knowledge by availing themselves of colleagues’ proposals and suggestions. Thus, personal growth evolves in shared knowledge and vice-versa, facilitating the formation of a common educational line and the diffusion and reuse of valuable ideas, via the realisation of a learning community of teachers. The Innovative Teacher (I*Teach) project (http://i-teach.fmi.uni-sofia.bg) of the EU Leonardo da Vinci Programme (http://ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/leonardo/leonardo_en.htm) is being developed accordingly. The work focuses on the teaching-learning of ICT-enhanced skills that is the set of behavioural and relational abilities influencing interaction with others. The projects’ aims are to support teachers in devising, realising and sharing educational activities oriented to the learning of these skills. In this paper, we outline the pedagogical framework followed and the methodological tools developed. Hints on the operative tools that are being produced to realise a web-based teachers’ community working and learning on these ideas are also given. Some preliminary impressions based on the opinions of teachers who where involved in pilot trainings about the proposal conclude the paper

Which Way with Informatics in High Schools in the Netherlands? The Dutch Dilemma

Informatics is currently being taught in high schools all over the world. In the Dutch curriculum, computer literacy is taught in the lower grades as a compulsory subject, Informatics is taught as an elective in the higher grades of some schools. As a follow-up to the outline of Grgurina and Tolboom (2008), the discussion about the future of Informatics education in the Netherlands is investigated and elaborated in this paper. Our research brings forward four positions of the stakeholders in the field: the negative-critical view, the positive-realistic view, the no-nonsense view and the innovative view. Extreme positions are either `to terminate the school subject, because teachers are not qualified and there is little relation with Informatics as a scientific discipline', or `to strengthen the school subject because of its social relevance'. The latter position will be substantiated by a discussion of the novice-expert approach for teaching and the importance of enculturation and situated learning. As a way to strengthen secondary Informatics teaching, especially in the Netherlands, Schoenfeld's framework is advised (Schoenfeld, 2010)

The web as process tool and product environment for group-based project work in higher education

This paper discusses problems confronting the use of group-based project work as an instructional strategy in higher education, and describes two technical courses (i.e., courses in online learning and applications of business information technology) at the University of Twente (Netherlands) in which course-specific World Wide Web environments are used both as tools for group-process support and as the product environment of the project work. The focus is on Web-embedded shared workspace, communication management, evaluation tools, and their contribution to the management of group-based project work. It is argued the both pedagogical and technical strategies are needed for efficient and effective support of group-based project work in higher education. A table highlights particular strengths of the courses in relation to persistent problems in the educational deployment of group-based project work