Informatics in Education

With the growing search for qualified professionals in the exact area, teaching in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) areas is gaining importance. In parallel, it appears that drones are an increasingly present reality in the civil area; however, there are few scientific studies of their application in the pedagogical environment, and their insertion is still practically nil in the school environment. Thus, this work aims to analyze the feasibility of using a set of technologies based on drones, designed based on the theory of significant learning through the use of active methodologies. The study was carried out with 30 high school students and followed a line of quali-quantitative analysis, in which the quantitative data were collected from the results obtained in a pre and post-test and the qualitative ones through recordings during the interventions, observations of the researcher, and a semi-structured press interview. Finally, a triangulation between the methodologies was carried out, looking for congruent aspects between the different techniques used. As a result, it was found that the workshops with the platform based on drones helped in the understanding, construction, and interpretation of the content covered, and it can be concluded that there is a significant relationship between the use of the technological set proposed in the pedagogical process and the possibility of significant learning in the STEM areas by the students.

Nowadays, solving problems is substantial for the social relationship human. Computational Thinking (CT) emerges as an interdisciplinary thought process encompassing mental abilities to help students solve and understand problems. Researchers invest in the methodological proposal of activities aimed at CT stimulation, educational approaches, and the conception of technologies that support these activities’ execution. Educational Robotics (ER) is one of these technologies that stand out at different educational levels to favor teamwork, logical thinking, and creativity, skills intimately articulated with the computing paradigm. The main objective of this work is to investigate the impact of ER activities on CT development and subjects learning in the Technical and Vocational Education in High School. For this, we accomplished a study of intervention research type with students and teachers analyzing quantitative and qualitative aspects. The results indicate that the introduction of ER can favor students in the development of CT skills and learning High School subjects.

It is important today to prepare pre-service teachers to integrate social media tools into their lessons and to teach them how to use social media as a learning environment for educational context. Based on this, an undergraduate course was designed to fulfil this need. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the behaviours and perceptions of 27 pre-service teachers enrolled to a 14-week social-media enriched blended course. Facebook was used to support an out-of-class teaching and learning process. During the course, students developed educational content and were informed on how to use social media as a learning environment in an educational context. After implementation, they were asked to respond to an open-ended questionnaire related to the 14-week course process and social media usage in lessons. According to the findings, pre-service teachers stated that the use of social media tools, in addition to face-to-face learning, can enhance the dissemination of announcements, communication between students and instructor, the sharing of instructional activities, discussions, and the use and creation of multimedia tools and applications 24x7, by extending the limits of normal class hours. Most also stated that they would use Facebook for material and announcement sharing once they were in-service teachers. In addition to Facebook, they emphasised that they would also use Prezi, Glogster, MindMeister and Edmodo for their lessons and that they had learnt new concepts and social media tools during the course. They also suggested increasing the number of course hours and reducing course content per course session.

The increasing number of children who need special education in Finland also requires an increasing amount of resources from teachers and a restructuring of the education system. Technology can be a part of the solution to this resource problem; however, for the technological solution to work, technologies need to be designed and implemented in new ways. Technologies used in special education in Finland can roughly be divided into four main categories; assistive technologies, communication technologies, and learning software. Last and the newest category concretizing technologies, such as educational robotics, have successfully been used in the Technologies for Children with Individual Needs Project. Possibilities provided by educational robotics have been extensive, not only because of the technology itself, but also because of how the technology has been implemented in innovative projects with school students. From this point of view, students with individual educational needs as well as those involved in inclusive education and harmonized school days could benefit from the use of technology.

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education is one important competence that student teacher should develop in their academic studies. To be capable of using ICT in education, students should study both pedagogical and technical issues. In order to affect student teachers' willingness to use ICT in education, more attention should be paid to their learning experiences. In this research, student teachers' attitudes toward the use of ICT in education were studied before and after the web-based course. Based on students' learning experiences, attitudes and evaluations of the web-based learning environment, dimensions of a successful web-based learning environment were examined. According to the results, ``motivation and accuracy'', ``learner-interface interaction'' and ``learner control and self-directed learning''are the dimensions of a learning environment that encourages student teachers' to use ICT in education. A well designed learning environment also gave a realistic overview and knowledge of the possibilities and limitations of the use of ICT in education.