ICT use at home and at school: A study on 8- to 12-year old students in Luxembourg

in INTED2015 Proceedings (2015, March)

The proliferation of mobile computing and ubiquitous internet access creates enhanced opportunities for digital activities and interactive engagement in everyday life for adults, youngsters and children ... [more ▼]

The proliferation of mobile computing and ubiquitous internet access creates enhanced opportunities for digital activities and interactive engagement in everyday life for adults, youngsters and children. By introducing mobile devices into formal education contexts, the present study is investigating ICT-enhanced learning opportunities of younger students in their life and school contexts. The focus of this paper is to 1) delineate the ICT environment, that 8- to 12-year old students face in their home context, 2) map the ICT-related practices this age group experiences within the family context, e.g. patterns of usage, frequency, 3) identify the kind of ICT-based activities which kids prefer and in which they are actually engaged, 4) trace differences in ICT-enhanced classroom activities between students with a strong and a weak ICT home background. The analysis combines data from an online survey and interviews with 8- to 12-year old students. All data have been gathered in an ongoing national project on “Creative inquiries with tablet-cloud systems in elementary science”. This project aims at exploring the impact of interactive technologies on inquiry-based learning processes in elementary science education (Max & Hack, 2014; Max & Song, 2014). The results show that the students have large use of ICT equipment at home and extended access to the internet. Children access the web through a wide range of ICT devices (e.g. PC, laptop, tablets or mobile phone). A majority of this age group goes online alone so that their internet activities are not necessarily guided and supervised by parents. Most kids use a range of different ICT devices for specific purposes on a regular basis ranging from simply consuming digital resources such as listening to music or playing games to searching information online up to creating digital content such as taking pictures and/or making videos. Considering their young age (8-12), our results show that sharing digital content through social media activities is somewhat limited. As regards the impact of a strong or weak ICT background on the students’ school-based ICT activities, we can say that both groups show a similar attitude towards ICT practices in school. The tablet-enhanced school activities are complementary to the leisure-driven activities at home and therefor beneficial for both groups of children. [less ▲]

Learning with tablet-cloud systems in elementary science education

in IATED (Ed.) EDULEARN14 Proceedings (2014, July 06)

Mobile and interactive technologies offer sophisticated learning opportunities in everyday life so that some authors speak about a new era of mobile learning. Especially tablets fascinate people of all ... [more ▼]

Mobile and interactive technologies offer sophisticated learning opportunities in everyday life so that some authors speak about a new era of mobile learning. Especially tablets fascinate people of all age and induce novel ways to interact, create and communicate. After proliferating in everyday contexts, these high performing mobile devices are currently entering formal learning environments. First experiences in classrooms describe tablets as promising means to improve learning in respect of 21st century challenges. A myriad of educational applications is being offered for all kind of classroom use. But up to date, less is known about opportunities how to integrate this flexible and versatile tool into inquiry-based learning approaches thanks to the device’s potential to a) gather own data, b) facilitate multimodal and multimedia productions c) back interactive forms of collaborative learning. Our study analyses how tablet-cloud systems re-shape the learning landscape of inquiry-oriented science classrooms, i.e. to what extent do tablets facilitate student-led explorations and explanations of scientific phenomena, support the formation of scientific thinking and stimulate creative classroom productions. We are particularly focussed on the situated ways which 8-12 year old students (n=240) create to make sense of science topics in tablet-enhanced inquiry activities. In science education, inquiry is emphasised both as a method and an outcome. Student-centred inquiry activities are advocated as a promising way of learning, encouraging students to actively explore the world and engage in critical thinking. Inquiry activities amplify the development of inquiry skills, which are core outcomes of probably any science education curriculum. That’s why we focus on how a series of learner-centred pedagogical choices of the teacher coupled with the use of tablet-cloud systems facilitates creative inquiry processes. Evidence is gathered through different data sets, collected either by researchers (video recordings from science lessons, stimulated recall interviews) and/or students (uploads of own videos and multimodal documents on the internal school cloud). The various kinds of data are triangulated in order to create a multi-perspective understanding of the processes occurring in the tablet-supported practices. The preliminary analysis shows that integrating tablets into the science class increases the gathering of student-initiated data and supports interactive forms of student inquiries. Students quickly acknowledge the potential of these devices for gathering information, documenting their science investigations or hands-on activities, (re)-evaluating own explanations for science phenomena, communicating targeted inquiry results or reflecting on their learning. Technology-enhanced inquiry activities shift easily to a more learner-centred and open form of inquiry, when the use of tablets is encouraged by a series of well-designed hands-on activities together with rich interaction opportunities (collective or collaborative). [less ▲]

How LLP projects use Internet and social media for communication purposes: a desktop research

in Proceedings of the LINQ conference: The future of Learning Innovations and Learning quality: how do they fit together? (2012)

The Web2LLP project (“Improving Internet strategies and maximizing the social media presence of Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) projects”, http://www.web2llp.eu/ is a two-year project running from ... [more ▼]

The Web2LLP project (“Improving Internet strategies and maximizing the social media presence of Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) projects”, http://www.web2llp.eu/ is a two-year project running from January 2012 to December 2013. The partnership consists of six project members: University of Luxembourg, Web2Learn, ATiT, Coventry University Entreprises, Pixel and PAU Education. The original idea for the project stemmed from the need that we felt, as project managers and members involved in LLP projects for several years, for skills and competences that were missing - in both technical and communication terms - regarding the effective use of Internet social media tools, and their embeddedness in the communication strategies that are fundamental to the success of an LLP project. We realized, through informal exchanges with colleagues at EACEA Info days and other project meetings, that although the social web is a reality that cannot be disregarded, its communication potential for LLP projects has not so far been exploited, due to a) a lack of information and appropriation opportunities regarding ways of effectively using these tools as part of a communication strategy, and b) lack of visibility of good practice regarding what is reasonable and achievable in an LLP context. Moreover, although communication is a fundamental piece of every LLP project proposal (one of the required work packages and also a feature under which the project is evaluated both in the intermediary and final reports), there are no guidelines on how to set up a coherent Internet strategy featuring social media tools appropriate to the project. Our project was designed to respond to these needs and it has been selected for funding in 2012 in the highly selective (7% success rate) KA4 action. [less ▲]