Understanding the influence of context in technology integration from teacher educators’ perspective

The perspective of teachers is important for advancing the use of technology in classrooms. A considerable number of research studies have explained context in ways that have narrowed the understanding of its impact on successful technology integration. This study employs the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) model as a lens in understanding factors influencing teachers’ integration of technology in classrooms. Data were collected using focused interviews of 19 teacher educators of three colleges of education from the southern part of Nigeria. The results reveal that among the level contexts, the meso level presented the most challenges to teachers’ efforts at integrat…

Building an Ecosystem for Developing Educational Use of Technology in Finnish Schools

The use of ICT in education can be situated to the enhancement of 21st-century skills, like critical thinking, working, collaboration, and global action. From the perspective of the educational sector, the question is on enabling all children an equal possibility to gain the skills and readiness necessary for their personal life, studies, and upcoming working life.

Co-designing a pedagogical framework and principles for a hybrid STEM learning environment design

AbstractThe importance of engaging and effective learning environments for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has been internationally recognised. However, no comprehensive pedagogical frameworks exist that support STEM learning environment design. In this study, a pedagogical framework and principles for STEM learning environment design were created based on participatory focus groups involving 10–18-year-old students, teachers, school directors, parents, university students and STEM professionals. Representatives of key stakeholder groups in Belarus, Finland, Germany, Greece and Spain (total n = 132) were invited to focus group discussions in which their wishes relate…

Towards the Learning Experience Technology Usability framework

The availability of learning technology has increased over past decades; however, severe usability issues that cause adverse effects on the learning experience can be found in many available technologies. Learning solution usability is commonly evaluated by focusing on either technical or pedagogical usability and rarely both. This artificially separates the two important aspects of learning technology usability. This chapter provides a new framework for designing and evaluating learning solutions that synthesizes the above usability types to consider them a part of a complex and dynamic whole comprising of learning, technological design, content-related issues and context. The proposed Lea…

Technology-Supported Educational Innovations in Finland and Hong Kong: A Tale of Two Systems

The paper presents a comparison of case studies about innovative ICT-supported pedagogical practices in two educational systems, namely Finland and Hong Kong. The two systems were selected for this in-depth comparison for three main reasons. First, Finland and Hong Kong performed well in several international comparative studies of educational achievement. Second, the case studies collected via the SITES Module 2 indicated rather different profiles between Finnish and Hong Kong schools in terms of ICT infrastructure and pedagogical practices. Third, further analysis of the case studies data indicated differences in emergent pedagogical characteristics between the cases collected in Asia and…

Using a mobile application to support children's writing motivation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the use of the prototype of a mobile application for the enhancement of children's motivation for writing. The results are explored from students' and experts' perspectives.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on a field trial and expert evaluations of a prototype of a mobile application. The field trial data consists of questionnaire data collected from elementary school students (n=25) who used the mobile prototype. The expert evaluations (n=8) of the prototype were conducted based on usability and pedagogical heuristics. The main research question is how the mobile application motivates children to learn creative writing.FindingsTh…

Constructing digital portfolios: teachers evolving capabilities in the use of information and communications technology

Abstract The article describes a collaborative action research project, which encouraged teachers to participate in displaying and developing the pedagogical practices of early childhood institutions through networking and digital web portfolios. Special emphasis is placed on examining the progress of teachers ICT capabilities during the first two cycles of action research. The study is based on the ecological approach to virtual learning environments. In the ecological approach, the description of virtual communities is extended to include features of the overall environment: technical devices, programs, materials, tools for communication and planning, different social and emotional proces…

Digital Games in Early Childhood: Broadening Definitions of Learning, Literacy, and Play

Digital games attract children and young people with imaginary worlds, fascinating stories, and shared experiences with peers. They also can add children’s learning and motivation and offer a variety of new affordances to explore and play with. The pedagogical use of digital games has been found to potentially intensify a more critical use and understanding of varied forms of media. In this chapter, we will focus on analyzing the role of digital games in early childhood, especially from the perspectives of learning, literacy, and play. This chapter examines digital games as playing an essential role in young children’s overall technology experiences, particularly in the context of the socia…

Opetusteknologia koulun arjessa

Opetusteknologia on osa monen suomalaiskoulun – opettajien ja oppilaiden – arkea eri puolilla Suomea. Opetusteknologian hyödyntäminen on avannut luokkahuoneiden ovia ympäröivään maailmaan ja samalla tuonut oppimisen maailmoista kiinnostuneita tahoja lähemmäksi koulun arkea. Edelleen on kuitenkin haasteita, jotta kaikki suomalaislapset ja opettajat saadaan innovatiivisten, inspiroivien ja luovuutta edistävien oppimisympäristöjen ja -kokemusten äärelle. Tässä kirjassa esitellään kansallisen Opetusteknologia koulun arjessa -tutkimushankkeen ensimmäisiä tuloksia. Tekes-rahoitteinen hanke on koonnut yhteen tutkimusryhmiä kahdeksasta yliopistosta ja 13:sta tutkimuslaitoksesta, liikemaailman edust…

Opetusteknologia koulun arjessa 2

Tässä kirjassa esitellään tuloksia vuosina 2009–2011 toteutetusta kansallisesta Opetusteknologia koulun arjessa (OPTEK) - tutkimushankkeesta. Tutkimushanke on kirkastanut tieto- ja viestintätekniikan opetuskäytön haasteita 2010-luvun Suomessa ja osoittanut käytännöllisellä tavalla sen mahdollisuuksia opetuksessa, opiskelussa ja oppimisympäristöjen kehittämisessä. Lisäksi hanke on ollut suuntaamassa ja luomassa strategisia linjauksia Suomessa yhdessä liikenne- ja viestintäministeriön koordinoiman Tieto- ja viestintätekniikka koulun arjessa -hankkeen kanssa. OPTEK-hankkeessa on luotu käytännön ratkaisuja, toimintamalleja ja tuotteita tieto- ja viestintätekniikan ja median palveluiden hyödyntä…

A Framework for Children’s Participatory Practices in Virtual Worlds

In recent years, participation of children in virtual worlds has grown and children are also the largest number of users of virtual worlds (KZero, 2009a). This growth in participation in virtual worlds has brought out discussion about their effects on children’s lives. In this article, we consider opportunities of virtual worlds to engage and educate children about their civic life. The aim of this paper is to establish a framework for participation in virtual worlds and to test the framework by looking at current participatory practices in virtual worlds. In this paper we present a framework for children’s participation in virtual worlds which is based on research review. Our framework see…

Arjen mobiilipalvelut -hankkeen oppimisen ja hyvinvoinnin mobiiliratkaisut

Introducing Assessment Tools for 21st Century Skills in Finland

The Finnish national interest in the enhancement of 21st century skills has highlighted a need for and interest in developing tools and methods for teaching and assessing such skills. In this chapter, we present and analyze the development process of online assessment tools in the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills study (ATC21STM) from the Finnish perspective. (The acronym ATC21STM has been globally trademarked. For purposes of simplicity the acronym is presented throughout the chapter as ATC21S.) The development process was implemented according to the guidelines of the international project through four phases, namely concept checks, cognitive laboratories, pilot studies and …

Children’s conceptions of mental well-being and ideas for its promotion through digital environments

The aim of this study is to further understanding of children’s conceptions of mental well-being and their ideas for its digital promotion. The study is based on the need to provide children an opportunity to actively participate and share their understanding of mental well-being promotion with others in light of their understanding of what online environments and their design can afford for this promotion. The study was implemented as three subsequent workshops in primary school classrooms comprising four teachers and 79 children aged 9-11 years old. In the first two workshops, children reflected on mental well-being, digital environments they utilise and their possible connections to ment…

The Meaning and Use of Digital Learning Terms in Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Austria

It is widely known that in order to communicate, interact and understand each other in different educational context , it is necessary to agree on the terms to be used and their meanings. The need for such agreements was also apparent at the first meetings of the Erasmus+ project “Framework for an Efficient and Engaging Hybrid Education in Lower Secondary Schools”. The project partners used very different terminology when talking about digital teaching and learning in English. Furthermore, even when using the same terminology, we might not understand each other because the meanings of terms could vary from different educational context and from country to country. This prompted us to collec…

Pedagogical framework, design principles, recommendations and guidelines for a STEM learning environment design

Courage to learn and utilize ICT in teaching - building understanding of teachers who lack courage

Innovative use of information and communication technology in education is a topic that has received a lot of attention both in public and academic debate Innovative practices have been communicated and visions for sharing them have been around for years, however, the large scale adoption of such practices has not yet been achieved While highlighting and sharing best practices may be an inherently positively motivated attempt, teachers enthusiastically explaining their innovative ICT practices may be met with even resentful attitudes from colleagues Discussion focusing on praising innovative ICT teaching practices as good ideals may leave those teachers whose current teaching isn’t up to th…

CONSIDERING VARIOUS STAKEHOLDERS’ VIEWS IN THE DESIGN OF A HYBRID STEM LEARNING ENVIRONMENT - PERCEPTIONS FROM FINLAND AND GREECE

Raising young people’s interest in studies and careers related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (i.e., STEM) is an important societal concern both at European and global level. We argue that the creation of attractive and engaging STEM learning environments necessitates involvement of learners, educators, parents, and STEM professionals in their design. In this paper, we will present a study in which primary, lower and upper secondary school students, teachers, school directors, parents, and STEM professionals in Finland (n = 27) and Greece (n = 24) were invited in the participatory co-design of a hybrid (virtual, physical, formal, and informal) STEM learning environment…

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Competence of the Young

This chapter discusses the information and communication technology (ICT) competence of the young. The discussion focuses on students at lower and upper secondary school, especially young people aged 10-18. It explores how the strategic initiatives and implementation efforts of ICY have reached out to the level of young citizens. The aim is to consider their ICT competence as well as their use of ICT in school and during the leisure time. The authors also consider the significance and role of gaming, the gender differences regarding ICT skills and use, and the differences between the young and adults in their skills and use of ICT.

Collecting and Using Students’ Digital Well-Being Data in Multidisciplinary Teaching

This article examines how students (N=198; aged 13 to 17) experienced the new methods for sensor-based learning in multidisciplinary teaching in lower and upper secondary education that combine the use of new sensor technology and learning from self-produced well-being data. The aim was to explore how students perceived new methods from the point of view of their learning and did the teaching methods provide new information that could promote their own well-being. We also aimed to find out how to collect digital well-being data from a large number of students and how the collected big data set can be utilized to predict school success from the students’ well-being data by using machine lear…

Telling Stories with Digital Board Games

In the context of computer games, learning is an inherent feature of computer game playing. Computer games can be seen as multimodal texts that connect separate means of expression and require new kinds of literacy skills from the readers. In this chapter, the authors consider how the computer-based learning tool Talarius, which enables students to make their own digital games and play them, lends itself to literacy learning. The learning subject is a children’s novel, and thus it is narrative by its nature. In addition, the learning tool provides the potential to interweave narrative contents into the games made by it. The focus of this chapter is on the relationship between narrativity an…

The Nigerian Education and the Opportunities ahead for Mobile Learning

: Information technology is providing opportunities to improve education and therefore, research is needed to identify what gaps exist and how these gaps can become opportunities for technology integration such as mobile learning. This paper suggests that successful integration of technology towards improving quality education should be driven by the existing challenges which are contextually peculiar for every country. The case of the Nigerian education was examined alongside practices and policies. The study used secondary data from Nigeria Education Data Survey (NEDS). This paper highlights three major problems that Nigeria faces in basic education, namely: large number of out of school …

Koronakevään etäopiskelu kuormitti erityislasten vanhempia

Miten erityistä tai tehostettua tukea saavien oppilaiden etäopiskelu sujui koronakevään aikana? Minkälainen oli vanhempien rooli opiskelun ohjauksessa? Miten perheet jaksoivat? Muun muassa näihin kysymyksiin haettiin vastauksia kesäkuussa 2020 toteutetulla tutkimuksella. Tutkimuskyselyyn vastasivat lasten ja nuorten vanhemmat, ja vastauksia saatiin yhteensä 616 lapsen tai nuoren osalta. Suurin osa lapsista osallistui etäopetukseen kotona, ja vain kolme prosenttia oli lähiopetuksessa koululla. Pienellä osalla lapsista oli käytössä erilaisia joustavia opetusjärjestelyjä, joissa lähi- ja etäopetusta yhdisteltiin eri tavoin. Muutama lapsi palasi lähiopetukseen kevään aikana etäopiskelun haastee…

A Mobile Application Concept to Encourage Independent Mobility for Blind and Visually Impaired Students

This paper presents a user-centric application development process for mobile application to blind and visually impaired students. The development process connects the assistive technology experts, teachers and students from the school for visually impaired together to participate to the design of the mobile application. The data for the analysis is gathered from interviews and workshops with the target group. The main goal of the project is to examine how mobile application can be used to encourage and motivate visually impaired students to move independently indoors and outdoors. The application allows the students to interact with their environment through use of sensor technology now st…

Fysiikkaa liikkuen : 7-luokkalaisten oppilaiden ja opettajien kokemuksia kehollisesta opetuksesta fysiikassa

Nuorten liikkumattomuus ja poikien motivaation hiipuminen luonnontieteitä kohtaan ovat nousseet esille viimeaikaisissa kansallisissa kyselyissä. Uusi perusopetuksen opetussuunnitelma ja Liikkuva koulu-ohjelma pyrkivätkin jalkauttamaan lisää toiminnallisia työtapoja tavallisille oppitunneille, jotta opetuksen kokemuksellisuus ja oppilaiden koulupäivän aikainen fyysinen aktiivisuus lisääntyisi. Liikunnan vaikutusta aivoihin ja oppimiseen on tutkittu laajasti viimeisen kahden vuosikymmenen aikana, mutta liikunnallistavien opetusmenetelmien vaikutuksesta oppilaiden oppimiskokemukseen on vielä vähän tutkimusta suomalaisen tiedeopetuksen kentällä. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on kehittää uusia…

Children’s Social Participation in Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds provide an arena for children to express themselves and to interact with others. They are a natural and frequent part of children's life today. However, there is not much research on what actually happens in the online worlds and what kind of opportunities those worlds could offer to children and thereby enhance their social participation. The aim in this study is to explore the potential of virtual worlds for children's social participation. The empirical part of the study consists of interviews with 21 Finnish children, aged 11-15 years. By interviewing children, the authors examined their social practices in virtual worlds. In the study, the authors found seven types of so…

Considering Learners’ Perceptions in Designing Effective 21st Century Learning Environments for Basic Education in Finland

Focusing on so called Key Competences or 21st Century Skills urges educational organizations to redesign their psychosocial and physical learning environments. Inspired by studies indicating that considering learners’ perceptions of learning environments can have a positive impact on learning and wellbeing, our study aims at developing design principles for involving learners in the learning environment design. This pilot case study analyzed 7- to 14-years old Finns’ (n = 80) perceptions by using web questionnaires and design workshops. The results are in line with research indicating that Finnish learners value aspects such as safety and peacefulness, the possibilities for rest and physica…

Engaging learners through virtual worlds

Abstract The aim of this paper is to explore how virtual worlds could support the engagement for learning. This paper reviews the results of studies that utilized virtual worlds to engage learners. The results are examined in two levels, namely learning gains and design principles. It has been found out that deeper learner engagement results in higher learning gains. In some studies better content retention is also noted. Many studies also suggest design principles for using virtual worlds for facilitating engaged learning. This paper builds a framework for the design and use of virtual worlds in education for better learner engagement.

Tieto- ja viestintätekniikka Keski-Suomen peruskouluissa vuonna 2016

Digital Mental Health Resources for Children and Youth : Evaluation of Strengths in User Interface Design

The aim of this research is to explore the positive user interface (UI) design of digital mental health resources for children and youth. For this purpose, a heuristic model is introduced and heuristic evaluation is used as a method to systematically assess 49 digital mental health resources. In the assessment, the resources are evaluated by observing the prevalence of UI design strengths defined in the heuristic model. The results of the study indicate that the resources analyzed have strengths especially in the dimensions of visual design, content, reliability, engagement and functional design. Furthermore, all of the resources have at least four design strengths, creating a good basis fo…

Towards a scenario of virtual mental health environments for school-aged children

This study explores student teachers’ future design scenarios focusing on promoting children’s mental health literacy through virtual reality (VR) environments. VR use is on the verge of many breakthroughs in several areas of lived experience. One such area pertains to educational contexts. Student teachers were chosen as the subjects of this study due to the likelihood that they will be the primary users and disseminators of these emerging technologies in educational contexts. The students created five types of future scenarios that contained different environments and activity modes, including those that are still not yet feasible to realize with current technological capabilities. The ai…

Involving students in the redesign of learning environments conducive to learning and wellbeing

Increased understanding of the interrelations between overall wellbeing and learning calls for a holistic and multidisciplinary learning environment (LE) design. Considering learners’ perception in the design of LE supportive to learning and wellbeing is expected to positively influence (a) the design quality, (b) participatory organizational culture, and (c) learning. The nature of this process creates contradictions and difficulties, however. Stand-alone co-design efforts may convert into pseudo-consultation without actual effects; neither is it easy to consider various stakeholders’ perceptions in a balanced manner. And if not planned carefully, instead of experiencing learning benefits,…

Implementation of Digital Portfolios in Early Childhood Education

Curricula, influenced by the digitalization, set requirements for early childhood education (ECE) settings to implement digital practices. However, ECE teachers are struggling to integrate information and communication technology (ICT) and child-centered pedagogy, such as digital portfolios, successfully into practice. Previous research efforts have focused on analyzing the barriers of digital technology implementation. This study, in turn, takes a broader view and addresses the complex task of implementing digital practices into education by analyzing the factors that foster and challenge the implementation process. The results show that human related factors are considered the most foster…

Kohti innovatiivista tietotekniikan opetuskäyttöä : kansainvälisen SITES 2006 -tutkimuksen tuloksia

Tieto- ja viestintätekniikan mahdollisuuksiin opetuksen ja oppimisen edistämisessä on kohdistettu suuria odotuksia viimeisten vuosikymmenten aikana. Nopea teknologinen kehitys ja syvälliset muutokset monissa ihmisten toiminnoissa ovat herättäneet keskustelua siitä, minkälainen rooli koulutuksella sekä tieto- ja viestintäteknologialla on tietoyhteiskuntakehityksessä. Eri puolilla maailmaa on myös strategisilla linjauksilla osoitettu suuntia sille, miten koulutus voisi edistää aktiivisten ja osaavien tietoyhteiskunnan kansalaisten kasvattamista. Kansainvälisessä SITES 2006 -tutkimuksessa selvitettiin, missä määrin ja millä tavoin eri maissa tietotekniikan käyttöä integroidaan opetukseen. Tutk…

Experiences and motivations of the young for participation in virtual worlds

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze the motivations and experiences of children to utilize virtual worlds. The paper identifies the activities that children perform in virtual worlds, features they use as well as the reasons for abandoning these virtual worlds. The paper presents results of a qualitative field study. The results indicate that features that are liked in the virtual worlds are similar to games. The main reasons to abandon virtual worlds were increased needs for social networking and better gaming experiences. Students showed interest in using games and virtual worlds at schools, but were generally rather skeptic about this possibility.

Learning Experience Technology Usability Design framework

Using information and communication technology (ICT) for learning purposes has become more ingrained in curriculums and students’ lives over the past decades. Commonly, the lack of understanding about learning and pedagogy, and more specifically their contexts, will lead to creating learning software that utilize outdated pedagogy or are lacking in critical aspects of pedagogical design. This has created a need to find cost efficient ways to address the multidimensional usability issues found in learning technology. Creating an engaging and pedagogically robust learning product is a complicated task that requires easily accessible knowledge about both the technological and learning related …

Children’s life world as a perspective on their citizenship: The case of the Finnish Children’s Parliament

The latest childhood studies present children’s citizenship as a process of engaging in matters related to children themselves in their everyday lives. However, only a few studies have been conducted on what those issues are and what they actually tell about children’s citizenship. This study explores the nature of children’s participation and citizenship by adopting a life world perspective. The aim is to examine what kind of issues children want to participate in and influence. The data are drawn from an online discussion in the Finnish Children’s Parliament. Altogether 61 children participated in the discussion, with 566 postings. The analysis of the children’s online discussion shows t…

International Perspectives on the Pedagogically Innovative Uses of Technology

The children of today grow up having information and communication technologies (ICTs) as essential and natural parts of their daily life. As they grow, they are expected to become active and self-directed members in their own local communities and also in the information society at large. Technology creates versatile possibilities for the acquisition and creation of information, for self-expression, and for communication and interaction with other people locally, nationally, and worldwide. Active participation in the information society presumes novel knowledge, skills, and work approaches from children and teachers alike.

Minustako maisteri? : maisteriklinikka tietotekniikan opiskelijoiden ohjauksen tehostamisessa

Usability challenges in digital learning solutions

Usability is a key element in successful software. Ensuring the technical usability of a learning solution enables users to focus on their main task, learning. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the results of heuristic usability evaluations of digital learning solutions. Heuristic evaluations were conducted on 24 digital learning solutions from one country (Finland) and two country groups (Asian countries and Spanish speaking countries) concentrating on the usability of the user interface of each evaluated solution. The main results of this study indicate that a few heuristics cover the majority of all usability problems (UPs) observed in learning solutions, but these heuristics c…

The Nature Tour Mobile Learning Application. Implementing the Mobile Application in Finnish Early Childhood Education Settings

This paper explores the process and impact of the implementation of the Nature Tour mobile learning application in Finnish early childhood education settings. The interest is to explore whether the concept of Nature Tour mobile application meets the needs of early childhood education in field trips. The idea of the mobile application is to help recording and comparing nature observations as well as to arouse children’s interest in nature. The feasibility of the mobile application was evaluated through a theoretical framework, which includes the core aspects of mobile learning. The evaluation framework consists of two levels titled core level and medium level. Three of the core level aspects…

Information and Communication Technologies in Finnish Early Childhood Environments

Kohti laskennallisen ajattelun osaamista : oppilaiden laaja-alaisen osaamisen edistäminen ja tieto- ja viestintätekniikan opetuskäytön vahvistaminen

Collaborative Learning and Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Environments

A focus on purely individual cognition has set a stage to social construction of knowledge. New learning environments, in many cases supported by computer technology, are often based on collaborating and sharing expertise. As a result research on Computer Supported Collaborative learning (CSCL) environments is a significant and growing field, which actively seeks new methods to resolve the challenges of human learning across diverse levels of interaction in a modern information society. In this chapter we will discuss the concept of collaborative learning and the issues involved in using information and communication technology to support collaborative learning. We begin with the definition…

Guest Editor s Introduction: International Perspectives on the Pedagogically Innovative Uses of Technology

Technology-Supported Educational Innovations in Finland and Hong Kong: A Tale of Two Systems

The paper presents a comparison of case studies about innovative ICT-supported pedagogical practices in two educational systems, namely Finland and Hong Kong. The two systems were selected for this in-depth comparison for three main reasons. First, Finland and Hong Kong performed well in several international comparative studies of educational achievement. Second, the case studies collected via the SITES Module 2 indicated rather different profiles between Finnish and Hong Kong schools in terms of ICT infrastructure and pedagogical practices. Third, further analysis of the case studies data indicated differences in emergent pedagogical characteristics between the cases collected in Asia and…

Participation of the young ones in virtual worlds : A look at experiences and motivations

Virtual worlds have become very popular and there have been some attempts to find the motivations and experiences of using them. The aim of this paper is to analyze the motivations and experiences of young ones to utilize virtual worlds. The paper identifies the activities that children perform in virtual worlds, features they use as well as the reasons for abandoning these virtual worlds. The paper presents results of a qualitative field study. The results indicate that features that are liked in the virtual worlds are similar to games. The most liked features for virtual worlds were developing characters and doing things in groups. The activities that were liked the most in virtual worlds…