Computer programming is perceived as an important competence for the development of problem solving skills in addition to logical reasoning. Hence, its integration throughout all educational levels, as well as the early ages, is considered valuable and research studies are carried out to explore the phenomenon in more detail. In light of these facts, this study is an exploratory effort to investigate the effect of Scratch programming on 5th grade primary school students' problem solving skills. Moreover, the researchers wondered what 5th grade primary school students think about programming. This study was carried out in an explanatory sequential mixed methods design with the participation of 49 primary school students. According to the quantitative results, programming in Scratch platform did not cause any significant differences in the problem solving skills of the primary school students. There is only a non-significant increase in the mean of the factor of "self- confidence in their problem solving ability". When the thoughts of the primary students were considered, it can be clearly stated that all the students liked programming and wanted to improve their programming. Finally, most of the students found the Scratch platform easy to use.
The paper aims to present research results on using Web 2.0 tools for learning personalisation. In the work, personalised Web 2.0 tools selection method is presented. This method takes into account student's learning preferences for content and communication modes tailored to the learning activities with a view to help the learner to quickly and accurately find the right educational tools, and to implement this method in prototype of knowledge-based recommender system. In the research, first of all, personalised e-learning technological peculiarities i.e. recommender systems applications for learning personalisation and those systems components were investigated. After that, selection methods for Web 2.0 tools suitable for implementing learning activities were analysed. The novel method of integrating Web 2.0 tools into personalised learning activities according to students learning styles was created, and prototype of the recommender system that implements the method proposed was developed. Finally, the expert evaluation of the developed system prototype that implements the method proposed was performed.
This research explores the effect of mobile technology in Lebanese higher education classrooms. Three components were utilized to evaluate the impact: student attitudes, student achievements, and educational process. This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the research questions. The main sources for data collection were surveyed, discussion group, achievement scores, and classroom observations. Thirty-eight volunteer students participated in this study in the spring 2013 term. The findings of this study showed that when Mobile with 3G technology used in education, it affected students' attitudes such as take pleasure in class, positive learning experience, and student prospects of the common effectiveness of mobile technology. Mobile technology, was also found to have positive influenced on students learning outcomes. It was also positively impacted the interactions between students as well as between the instructor and students.
New technologies, such as social networks, wikis, blogs and other social tools, enable collaborative work and are important facilitators of the social learning process. Many companies are using these types of tools as substitutes for their intranets, especially software development companies. However, the content generated by these tools in many cases is not appropriately organized. Therefore, this information is often not accessed by the company. Learning objects and units of learning are two e-learning concepts that allow content to be organized in a suitable sequence, thus improving its learning and reuse. Therefore, an approach is proposed to generate learning objects and units of learning from social tools in order to organize information for easy reuse. To evaluate the proposed approach, an experimental study was conducted and subjected to discursive textual analysis. The results show that the approach is viable for improving organizational learning in software development teams. Furthermore, the approach is efficient, especially in terms of the acquisition of new knowledge. It also helps to maintain the organizational pattern and minimize the reinvention of solutions and the repetition of errors.
Ontology is a knowledge representation technique which aims to make knowledge explicit by defining the core concepts and their relationships. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is a statistical technique which aims to explore the core factors from empirical data and estimates the relationship between these factors. This article presents an application of Structural Equation Modeling to construct a lightweight ontology of good teaching characteristics. The principal factors from SEM are used as concepts of the proposed ontology. The OAsys approach is used as an ontology development process. The proposed ontology consists of three levels: super-class level consists of 6 components of teaching; the first-level sub-class consists of 12 latent factors from SEM; and the second-level sub-class consists of 66 classes of questionnaire items. The experimental result indicated that the proposed ontology which constructs from the core factors of SEM is well-structured, free from a node with multiple parent classes. There is no cycles loop between sub-classes. Having well-balanced of ratio between parent classes and sub-classes. The structure of this proposed ontology corresponds to the principle of conceptual balance.
Generally, universities have complex and large websites, which include a collection of many sub-sites related to the different parts of universities (e.g. registration unit, faculties, departments). Managers of academic institutions and educational websites need to know types of usability problems that could be found on their websites. This would shed the light on possible weak aspects on their websites, which need to be improved, in order to reap the advantages of usable educational websites. There is a lack of research which provides detailed information regarding the types of specific usability problems that could be found on universities websites in general, and specifically in Jordan. This research employed the heuristic evaluation method to comprehensively evaluate the usability of three large public university websites in Jordan (Hashemite University, the University of Jordan, and Yarmouk University). The evaluation involves testing all pages related to the selected universities faculties and their corresponding departments. A list of 34 specific types of usability problems, which could be found on a Jordanian university website, was identified. The results provide a description regarding the common types of the problems found on the three Jordanian university sites, together with their numbers and locations on the website.
The article presents a method of explaining the principles of 3D graphics through making a revolvable and sizable orthographic parallel projection of cuboid in Excel. No programming is used. The method was tried in fourteen 90 minute lessons with 181 participants, which were Informatics teachers, undergraduates of Applied Informatics and gymnasium (grammar school) students. Questionnaire surveys were conducted. The results are being discussed.
This paper presents results of a questionnaire focused on investigating students' confidence and behavioral intention in the area of programming, particularly that of structures, problem solving, and programming commands (Conditional - Loop). Responses from 116 1st year students regarding informatics were used. The results indicate that the engagement with programming logic yields a positive impact on students' confidence and acceptance. In addition, all the measured factors are related relatively strongly. Our findings demonstrate that students' prior direction (at Lyceum) has a significant impact on their Confidence for using Programming Commands (CPC) and Confidence for using Data Structures (CDS); however, prior direction does not have any impact on learners Problem Solving Confidence (PSC) and Behavioral Intention (BI) for programming. In the conclusion, several issues regarding the courses of programming are discussed.
This work is part of a research project whose main objective is to understand the impact that the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has on the teaching and learning process on the subject of Physics. We will show that, with the use of a storm simulator, physics students improve their learning process on one hand they understand storm phenomenon, and on the other hand they assimilate in better way physics ideas. Computer technology is a positive supplement to bridge the gap between education and the technological world in which we live. Computer-assisted technologies at the university offer students a great access to information, an eager motivation to learn, a jump-start on marketable job skills and an enhanced quality of class work.
The article presents results of the empirical research revealing readiness of adults to participate in the lifelong learning process using e-learning, m-learning and t-learning technologies. The research has been carried out in the framework of the international project eBig3 aiming at development a new distance learning platform blending virtual learning environments, television and mobile technologies. Readiness to learn in a distance mode using e-learning, m-learning and t-learning technologies has been analysed on the ground of self-assessment of adults' computer literacy, usage of e-services including e-learning in a distance mode, experience in and attitude towards the choice of the mode of learning.