Informatics in Education

The objective of this article is to present the creation process of Pedagogical Strategies (PS) based on Socio-affective Scenarios mapped in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Every year, enterprises are looking for new technologies that can improve the skills of their collaborators, bringing VLE resources to e-training formations. The PSs are actions carried out by professors or manager in their practice, both for e-learning and e-training. In order to develop a PS, it is important to consider the socio-affective profile. For data inference were used: Social and Affective Map. Using these two tools, 38 Socio-affective Scenarios were mapped and their strategies were developed. This study utilizes an applied qualitative approach. As a result, a total of 228 PSs based on Socio-affective Scenarios were developed by 15 specialist professors. Its main contribution is the creation of PS based on criteria that can be adapted to be applied in the industry context.

The purpose of this study is to identify the perceptions of university students towards their ICT Competencies from two universities, one in Mexico and the other in Hungary. The research type is quantitative and exploratory. The instrument consists of 14 questions related to three types of competencies: Basic, Application and Ethical. The sample was of 567 students, 302 students from the Veracruzana University in Veracruz, Mexico and 265 students from Óbuda University in Budapest, Hungary. The quantitative data analysis was performed with SPSS software using descriptive statistics and ANOVA tests. The situation of education in Hungary and Mexico is not so very different although each country has taken different paths in the field. The results referring to the perceptions of Hungarian and Mexican students towards ICT competencies indicate that they perceive themselves with a positive valorisation. Also the perceptions of the students indicated that the highest ponderation obtained was for Ethical Competencies, followed by Basic Competencies and finally Application Competencies.

The aim of this study is to investigate perceptions of parents in Croatia towards advantages and disadvantages of computer use in general as well as their children's computer use and to reveal parents' concerns and opinions about digital technology (DT) education in kindergarten. The paper reports on research findings from one of the large public kindergartens in the capital city of Croatia. A total of 152 parents of the children aged 3 to 7 enrolled at this early childhood education institution filled in the survey. Results show that although being very well equipped with digital technology hardware at home (99% of surveyed parents owns a computer, tablet or smartphone), parents feel anxious and are not always willing to allow their children to use DT. Results of our survey reveal young children's ability to use DT, but they also show that mere possession of DT at home and enabling children to use computers does not guarantee development of computer literacy and/or information literacy skills.

Information literacy (IL) has spawned a proliferation of studies in the past two decades. Information literacy is deemed pivotal to the pursuit of both personal empowerment and the economic development of a society. Most of the contemporary interpretations of information literacy are inextricably intertwined with lifelong learning. In this paper, we will (1) examine the commonalities exhibited among a variety of information literacy frameworks developed in different regions; and to deepen our understanding of school principals' and teachers' perceptions on information literacy framework and its role in learning. The research findings indicate that the practitioners share the view that IL should embrace learning outcomes of the four dimensions of learning: cognitive, meta-cognitive, affective and socio-cultural. Results of this study indicate that the traditional notion of information literacy is inadequate to address the learning needs in the 21st century and a spiral approach to developing students' information literacy is deemed necessary.

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.