0000000000219271
AUTHOR
Matti Tedre
Grand theories or design guidelines? : Perspectives on the role of theory in computing education research
A rich body of empirically grounded results and a solid theory base have often been viewed as signs of a mature discipline. Many disciplines have frequently debated what they should accept as legitimate kinds of theories, the proper roles of theory, and appropriate reference disciplines. Computing education research (CER) in particular has seen a growing number of calls for the development of domain-specific theories for CER, an adaptation of theories from other fields, and engagement with theory-based experimental and predictive research in CER. Many of those calls share the same concerns and aims, yet they use very different vocabulary and lack a consensus over an essential concept: theor…
An OLPC Workshop in Rural Tanzania: Preliminary Results
One-to-one computing is an active and widely researched topic in educational technology. Its benefits include, for instance, easily up datable material base, anywhere-anytime learning, adaptability, and simulated experiments in science. The use of one-to-one computing in a developing country context has recently become an active research topic. However, the materialization of the educational benefits requires proper contextualization regarding the necessary pedagogical, organizational, institutional, and other types of adaptation. This paper presents preliminary results from an action research study in a primary school in rural Tanzania. In that study, the utilization of one-to-one computin…
Designing OLPC learning environments: A case on 1:1 pedagogy in rural Tanzania
In the past two decades computers have become a standard educational tool in the industrialized countries. Recently, equipping each student with a personal device (one-to-one computing, OLPC) has been enthusiastically advocated for developing countries, too. However, despite a number of pioneering research studies, broader analyses of pedagogical, technical, and organizational aspects of one-to-one computing in developing countries are largely missing. In this participatory action research in a rural Tanzanian primary school, we identified a number of pedagogical elements that were beneficial for teaching and utilizing ICT in the classroom. We pinpointed exploratory and self-regulated learn…
An easy approach to epistemology and ontology in computing theses
In many research fields---notably social sciences but also in those fields where design, experiment-based science, and social sciences are mixed---researchers must often describe their epistemological and ontological commitments in research reports. The research literature describes those commitments in various ways, often grouped under research paradigms such as positivism, post-positivism, and constructivism, and described as "world views." This paper presents the bare bones of the ontological and epistemological questions in scientific practice. Ontologically speaking, subject matters can be mind-dependent or mind-independent. Epistemologically speaking, elements of research may be more …