Constructivism in the Collaboratory
Great attention has been paid recently to the capabilities of computers to provide environments in which active learners can construct their own understanding through open-ended interaction. Yet discussion of constructivist learning environments has commonly focused on the learner as an individual, learning in isolation from other learners. For example, Perkins (1991) characterizes a learning environment as being composed of five facets: information banks, symbol pads, construction kits, phenome
Computers and Excellence in the Future of Education
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Creatures of Habit: A Computational System to Enhance and Illuminate the Development of Scientific T
Creatures of Habit is a computer-based microworld designed to engage middle-to-high school students in the process of scientific inquiry. The system depicts a universe of interacting programmable “creatures” whose individual behavior is guided by simple rules that may model naive psychology, physical laws, chemical affinities, and other domains. Students can create or revise creature rules and explore the resulting (and often surprising) emergent behaviors within “artificial ecosystems”;
On the cognitive effects of learning computer programming
This paper critically examines current thinking about whether learning computer programming promotes the development of general higher mental functions. We show how the available evidence, and the underlying assumptions about the process of learning to program, fail to address this issue adequately. Our analysis is based on a developmental cognitive science perspective on learning program, incorporating developmental and cognitive science considerations of the mental activities involved in progr
Teaching Reading To Students with ADD/H
This Advice sheet is aimed at children with Special needs (Attention Deficit Disorder). It offers strategies for developing these children's' reading skills.
An innovative teaching and learning environment for school mathematics
The paper presents the main characteristics, the background reference, and educational aims of an innovative teaching and learning environment designed and implemented for promoting arithmetic problems solving skills in children of compulsory school.
The project is partially funded by the European Community Research and Development Project ITALES "Innovative Teaching and Learning Environments for Schools" (IST 2000-23356).
The research addresses a sector (that of arithmetic problem solving) whi
Using the Washing Machine
This activity outlines the skills taught in preparing students for independent use of a household appliance. It is suitable for students in the Moderate / Mild Special Needs range.
Sequenced PE Activity
A sequenced Physical Education activity giving opportunities to explore gross motor skills. Suitable for students with mild/moderate special needs.
Italian Reading Comprehension 1
Journalistic passage dealing with some contemporary issues (poor job prospects, difficulties in finding accommodation, etc.) with questions to test comprehension skills.
Ball Skills
A holistic approach to gross motor skills in a social context. Apart from the growth of confidence in the particular motor skills, ball games are an easy way of becoming more integrated into the peer group. Skills in this area also bring a growth in self-esteem and the opportunity to become involved on teams and in inter-school events.
ELeGI: The European Learning Grid Infrastructure
The purpose of this paper is to describe the ELeGI Project1. ELeGI has the ambitious goal of developing software technologies for effective human learning and promoting and supporting a learning paradigm shift.
A new paradigm focused on knowledge construction using experimental based and collaborative learning approaches in a contextualised, personalised and ubiquitous way will replace the current information transfer paradigm focused on content and on the key authoritative figure of the teache
Towards Collaborative Learning via Shared Artefacts over the Grid
The Web is the most pervasive collaborative technology in widespread use today; and its use to support eLearning has been highly successful.
There are many web-based Virtual Learning Environments such as WebCT, FirstClass, and BlackBoard as well as associated web-based Managed Learning Environments.
In the future, the Grid promises to provide an extremely powerful infrastructure allowing both learners and teachers to collaborate in various learning contexts and to share learning materials, lea
Birds of a feather, an interdisciplinary unit: Language Arts wing
This lesson, which features Mark Twain's "Jim Baker's Blue-jay Yarn," is part of an interdisciplinary unit on birds that contains math/science and language arts components. In the language arts wing, students will explore dialects and personification through this very entertaining tall tale full of the antics of talking blue-jays.
Plate Tectonics: Lake Mead, Nevada
Using animations to illustrate the theory of plate tectonics, this video segment adapted from Discovering Women takes you to Lake Mead, Nevada, to see visual evidence of how plate movement has been stretching the North American continent.
Learning cultures, interventions and transformations: early and emergent findings from the Transform
This project operates in a ‘nested case study’ design and relies on a unique partnership between teachers and researchers. Analysis at the case level is well advanced, whilst that at cross-case level is well under way. A more holistic cross-project analysis, coupled with theoretical development, is the main focus of our work in the remaining year or so.
This paper provides an overview of early and emerging findings, focused on two of the project’s three core aims. In relation to our ai
Explication et préceptorat, à propos d'une étude de cas dans TéléCabri
Après avoir présenté un cadre d’étude des processus explicatifs, nous présentons l’analyse didactique d’une interaction téléprésente entre un précepteur humain et son élève. Nous montrons comment l’explication n’est pas une propriété intrinsèque du discours mais un attribut, résultat d’une construction de signification pendant l’interaction du précepteur avec son élève.
First version of Amaya offering a template mechanism
This deliverable is the first release of the Amaya authoring tool that supports template-driven editing based on the XTiger-language. Its purpose is to demonstrate the main features of this nex editing mode.,PALETTE deliverable - report number D.INF.02
Using online role play to teach internet safety awareness
This paper reports on an evaluation of Net-Detectives, a creative online role play activity aimed at 9–12 year olds. Net-Detectives forms part of Kidsmart, an Internet awareness programme aimed at school children. It was evaluated through a multiple method data collection using questionnaire surveys, follow up telephone interviews with teachers and observation in use in three UK schools during the summer term of 2003.
All sources of data collected agreed that a number of benefits arise from p
Personal Digital Assistants - teachers prefer the personal
This paper was presented at the Mlearn 06 conference in Banff October 2006. It presents the results of a small-scale project, funded by the UK Teacher Development Agency, where 13 teachers and 3 trainee teachers in one secondary school science department were given handhelds (Personal Digital Assistants or PDAs) with cameras and internet access for the academic year. The aims were:
* to build capacity - enabling trainee teachers to share their mlearning practice;
* to enable school based associa
The times they are a-changing: the subculture
of music and ICT in the classroom
This paper reports findings from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded research project InterActive Education, which focused on the ways in which new technologies can improve teaching and learning in educational settings. We draw upon data which emanates from the work of seven music teachers working in English primary and secondary schools, who collaborated with university researchers to research their classrooms. Through our analyses of video data, teacher interviews and teach
