Computer simulations seem to be one of the most effective ways to use computers in physics education. They encourage students to carry out the processes used in physics research: to question, predict, hypothesise, observe, interpret results etc. Their effective use requires an availability of appropriate teaching resources fitting secondary schools curricula.
This paper presents a set of computer simulations that cover the curriculum area of Mechanics and are designed to fit directly to curricula and textbooks used at Slovak grammar schools. All simulations are accompanied by brief instructions for teachers, including suggestions for learning activities and problem tasks for students. Some of them are designed as virtual laboratories.
The developed simulations were tested with a group of secondary school students and evaluated also by groups of future and practising physics teachers. The paper presents and discusses findings and conclusions from the both runs of the testing.
The paper outlines curriculum development activities that have been done in science education in the Slovak Republic as a result of an international collaboration within the frame of the Leonardo da Vinci II pilot project Computerised Laboratory in Science and Technology Teaching - ``ComLab-SciTech''. The created teaching and learning materials include integration of science curricula in two meanings: an integration of knowledge and methodology of physics, chemistry and biology, as well as an integration of various true and virtual computerised methods of experiments. The materials contain suggestions for student investigative activities, in which life science processes are studied with the use of laboratory models.
It is commonly agreed that a well-balanced mix of collaboration, training and simulation eventually produce a superior learner. Today's collaborative design and learning environments integrate variety of interactive objects as well as many technological aspects to achieve such balance. Unfortunately, the actual profit of the resulting learning systems is largely reduced by poorly represented interactive objects as well as poor interlinking between such objects. In particular, such objects appear isolated: they neither can be modified sufficiently (e.g., by choosing parameters or enhancing functionality) nor be interlinked properly with their context (e.g., by synchronizing with a guided tour or metadata). We are presenting in this article a model for representing virtual and 3D scenes as learning objects. The model utilizes notions and techniques based on Scene Graphs, X3D, Java3D, and SceneBeans. The prototype accompanied with a simple client-server protocol for exchanging and viewing the 3D SceneBeans. This research aims to extend this protocol by utilizing Sun JXTA primitives to link to the POOL of other learning objects repositories.
This paper deals with the main problem of involving information technology in teacher education - structure and contents of teachers' training courses based on distance learning. In Lithuania, the Standard of computer literacy for educators has been developed. It should be the main source of all teachers' training courses on information technology. The Standard consists of two parts: technological and educational. The main attention of the paper is paid to the analysis and requirements of the educational part that becomes more and more urgent: it requires some psychological, cognitive, social, and pedagogical knowledge referring to the information technology usage in education. This paper comprehensively covers the problems of application of information technology in education, course planning, and implementation of distance teaching, it referring to the teachers' training course on educational issues of information technology via distance learning, carried out by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania and organized by the Centre of Information Technologies of Education, and summarises its results.
Multiple choice questions are a convenient and popular means of testing beginning students in programming courses. However, they are qualitatively different from exam questions. This paper reports on a study into which types of multiple choice programming questions discriminate well on a final exam, and how well they predict exam scores.
This paper presents various methods of computer aided experiments in science education and their integration in Web environment as HTML documents. The concept of the virtual laboratory suitable for science teaching at the secondary school level is described. Some essentials and advantages of this approach are presented in the paper. They are illustrated with a concrete example of the course Integrated Science through Experiments that has been developed as a product of the European funded project Computerised Laboratory in Science and Technology Teaching within the Leonardo da Vinci II programme. The paper outlines the structure of the course accessible to the user via a tabular system of links.
In the project ``Self-guided Learning in Teaching Mathematics - SEC II'' (SelMa), five authoring schools are working out scenarios, media and materials for phases of self-guided learning, which will be tested systematically by 10 trial schools with regard to their everyday suitability. In this paper three approaches to such learning arrangements (independent learning centre, jigsaw classroom and learning at stations) are being outlined and relevant experiences are being made available. Learning diaries prove to be useful for the learners' reflection of their learning process. The development as well as the management of such learning arrangements does place new demands on the teachers.
Computer-based instruction, online or offline, which we will be referring at as e-instruction, provides for the development of new flexible pedagogical frameworks that will offer opportunities for open worldwide lifelong instruction. We claim that these are to be stored in instructional digital libraries in order to be accessible to anyone, anytime, anywhere. While many advances have been made in the creation of digital libraries, there is considerable room both for improving how learning objects are accessed/re-used by educators and learners, and for enhanced support for instruction design and for implementation of sound instructional systems.
We present here our ongoing work that aims to build a core instructional design digital library for reflective, learner-centered, e-instruction and to make it available to its potential users. Firstly, we describe our model for e-instruction design and its support tool. We present further on a construction scheme for storing this evolving model into a digital library, using the services provided by an open digital library service system, OpenDLib, which has been built at ISTI-CNR Pisa, Italy. We have chosen OpenDLib as a ``constructor'' for our digital library because it has a powerful document model, it is open, dinamically expandable, and open source. Finally, our research plan that approaches instructional design that facilitates reflective, learner-centered, e-instruction is shown.
I present and solve several problems related to the settling of multiple debts. The solutions are documented in much detail, with (bright) high-school students in mind. One of the variants has a simple solution, though it is not so easy to code concisely. Another variant is an elegant NP-hard problem.
The problem leads into important areas of mathematics and computing science, making it suitable as an invitation to these subjects.
The new electronic relations have brought as much benefits as duties. The society uses more often computers in every day life than ever. Unfortunately, cyberspace bounds are huge and its regulation is very complicated. In many cases the users are responsible for his security. That is why Electronic Law knowledge is useful and important for the new society.
The most powerful computer and net users are those who are educated in Computer Science. Various authorities in the field of Computer Science education are urging the necessity of topics on legal regulation of the electronic society. Several universities in Latvia starting from the 2002/2003 study year have implemented a new course on ``IT Industry Standards, Legislation, Labour Protection and Ergonomics''. The topic is extended considering the students being programmers, computer users and hired workers.
This paper describes the demand for teaching the legal regulation of electronic processes to Computer Science students, gives and overview of the course preparation, teaching and findings received from the first year experience.