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This study explores contradictions that emerge when utilizing a flipped classroom approach to university mathematics education. The work uses Activity Theory and its principle of dialectical contradiction as a theoretical framework to identify and analyse contradictions that arise in flipped mathematics classrooms for engineering students. Data were collected mainly by means of video recording of classroom activities and interviews with two cohorts of first-year engineering students in a Norwegian university over two years. An inductive approach to data analysis based on the interaction between the theoretical framework and the empirical data is used to provide evidence about the contradictions. The results show that contradictions manifest themselves as tensions in flipped mathematics classrooms. They emerge at different activity levels and affect student learning of mathematics. The aim of the study is to add to the lack of theoretical underpinning and limited research on tensions and contradictions in flipped mathematics classrooms at the university level.

Wikis have been recently promoted as tools that foster collaborative learning. However, there has been little research devoted to the criteria that are suitable to address issues pertinent to collaborative learning. This paper proposes a set of criteria to explore technical and pedagogical usability issues of collaborative learning with wikis. The criteria are then used to evaluate students' collaborative writing activities. The units of study are wikis that groups of students developed collaboratively using MediaWiki. This paper also reports on technical and pedagogical implications for the use of wikis as collaborative learning tools in teacher education.

Most software tools that have been developed with the aim of helping students to learn school algebra have not yet achieved successful results in classroom. Almost all of them are menu-based systems that provide transformation rules in menus and buttons. Aplusix is a new interactive software tool for learning school algebra. In contrast to existing software tools in mathematics education, Aplusix has been developed to allow students to freely build and transform algebraic expressions as they can do on paper. In addition, Aplusix provides appropriate feedback and interactivity, and as such, it becomes a source of learning. This work reports on a research project on the investigation of students' learning of elementary algebra with Aplusix. The work uses the Theory of Didactical Situations (TDS) to analyze and evaluate the learning potentialities of Aplusix. The paper also reports on implications for the learning of school algebra and the integration of Aplusix into mathematics classroom. (Contains 6 figures and 2 tables.)

Due to the new possibilities they open up for collaborative writing in education, wikis have received much attention the last few years. As a result, teachers have used wikis to achieve various educational purposes, such as wikis for online courses, teacher evaluation, or class project. However, the novelty and popularity of a technology do not automatically imply its suitability in educational settings. To evaluate the pedagogical effectiveness of wiki-based collaborative writing, there is a need for a theoretical framework that focuses on three essential elements of wikis and their relationships: technology, content, and group work. The framework was used to assess students' perceptions of wiki-based collaborative writing. Even though the results achieved so far are not as satisfactory as expected, the framework provides a promising way of looking at collaborative writing activities in a wiki-based environment. Based, on the results, the article reports on pedagogical implications of using wikis as collaborative writing tools in teacher education.

Web 2.0 technologies are becoming popular in teaching and learning environments. Among them several online collaborative writing tools, like wikis and blogs, have been integrated into educational settings. Research has been carried out on a wide range of subjects related to wikis, while other, comparable tools like Google Docs and EtherPad remain largely unexplored in the literature. This work presents a case study investigating education students' perceptions of collaborative writing using Google Docs and EtherPad. Both tools provide opportunity for multiple users to work on the same document simultaneously, have a separate space for written metacommunication, and are promoted by software designers to be fairly intuitive to adopt without prior training. The work investigates if perceptions depend on factors such as gender, age, digital competence, interest in digital tools, educational settings, and choice of writing tool, and examines if the tools are easy to use and effective in group work. This paper focuses on quantitative results of survey questionnaires. Further qualitative analysis will be presented in a later paper. The theoretical framework is drawn from two learning theories, the social-constructivist learning theory and the community of practice, and their relationships to collaborative tools. Related research literature is characterized by a number of issues: positive elements of use, advantages of using Web 2.0 technologies, critical issues regarding the pedagogical value of Web 2.0, and the role of the teacher in using these technologies. The case study participants were 201 education students who just began their four-year initial teacher education at two study programs with a total of six classes at the university Teacher Education Unit. They were assigned a collaborative writing task and asked to take an on-line survey on completion. When the survey closed, a total of 166 students (83.6%) had participated. The results were analyzed based on frequency distributions. The hypothesis that students with high digital competence and a positive attitude towards digital tools are more positive than average seems to be confirmed. Also gender does not play any particular role. As for younger students being more positive than older, the population of older students was so low that no conclusion can be drawn. The work does not validate that EtherPad users are more positive than Google Docs users, but this may be explained by EtherPad being unavailable for some time during the students' collaborative writing period. Furthermore only 13.9% of the students were motivated to use the tools for collaboration, and only a minority of the students (15.7%) reported that the quality of collaboration in the group increased with use of the tools. Likewise, the tools did not work as expected for a majority of the students (70.5%). Forty-seven percent of the students liked to comment and edit others contributions to group work. Although the results cannot be generalized to a larger group of students, and no definite conclusions can be drawn from the questionnaires about the usefulness and effectiveness of Google Docs and EtherPad for collaborative writing, the results cannot be underestimated since some results are consistent with the research literature. Future research consists of the qualitative evaluation of the students' comments to open ended-questions in the questionnaire, the students' collaborative essay papers, and their contributions to group work. It may also be important to examine the extent and quality of utilization of the tools for collaborative writing. Triangulation of the data collected may shed light on how they really perceived the effectiveness of Google Docs and EtherPad to support collaborative writing among students. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

Web-based learning resources (WBLRs) have provided teachers with a wide range of new teaching experiences that are not possible in traditional classroom. However, little research has been done as to which approach to WBLRs is suitable to address issues that are pertinent to learning. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to explore the design and evaluation of WBLRs in school education. The paper also examines the way in which the framework is used to evaluate students' and teachers' perceptions of WBLRs by means of survey questionnaires. Before developing the framework, a literature review is undertaken to report on the state of research in the field of WBLRs. The literature review reveals a lack of design and evaluation of WBLRs in educational settings. Then, the framework is developed in three steps. First, the concept of WBLR is defined as a learning object that exists at the intersection of content, pedagogy, and technology. Second, concepts of usability are analyzed, and a definition of technical and pedagogical usability is proposed. Technical usability is a self-evident requirement, but it is not sufficient for designing pedagogically usable WBLRs. The usability concept must be extended to capture issues that are fundamental to learning. Nevertheless, technical and pedagogical usability cannot be considered as separate, disjointed activities. Finally, the context of use and evaluation is specified. The context is the totality of relationships between students and surrounding elements within a teaching and learning situation. The WBLR can be considered as an element of the context, and as such, it becomes a source of learning, by means of interaction with the students. To investigate the value of the framework, a case study is undertaken in three classes. To this end, the framework was used to inform the study, and the findings of the study were mapped back onto the framework in order to identify additional features found in classroom settings and points in the conceptual framework that did not significantly impact the case study. The main factor that impacted the design and evaluation of WBLRs was the pedagogical usability. While students and teachers globally agreed about technical usability, the findings indicate that they differed in their perceptions of pedagogical usability. In addition, the conceptual framework and the findings of the case study differed to a certain degree regarding the connectedness of some pedagogical usability criteria. The findings also revealed the existence of cultural values connected to students' preferred choices. This factor has not been explicitly anticipated from the conceptual framework. The findings cannot be generalized due to the limited nature of the study. However, the article proposes elements of a future research work that should be taken forward to generate a more complete picture of usability issues and what constitutes WBLRs in school education. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)

In contrast to software engineering, which relies on relatively well established development approaches, there is a lack of a proven methodology that guides Web engineers in building reliable and effective Web-based systems. Currently, Web engineering lacks process models, architectures, suitable techniques and methods, quality assurance, and a systematic approach to the development process. As a result, Web engineering is still struggling to establish itself as a reliable engineering discipline. The cost of poor reliability and effectiveness has serious consequences for the acceptability of the systems. One of the main reasons for the low acceptance of Web-based applications is the large gap between design models and the implementation model of the Web. It is therefore not surprising that Web engineering education still focuses on technologies, rather than on critical skills that facilitate engineers to solve real-world problems effectively. To meet the challenges of Web engineering, current education must be aligned with a pedagogical model capable of empowering and supporting the acquisition of critical skills. To do this, a new learning environment must be created that promotes change in both pedagogy and course material, in effect, altering the role of the teacher, the expectations for students, and many other educational aspects. This article describes a learner-centered pedagogical model rooted in the constructivist learning theory for teaching students the skills they need to construct Web-based applications more effectively and collaboratively. The model is iterative and encompasses two types of components: the learning management process and learning phases. The learning management process is concerned with monitoring learning activities, such as providing information, assessing project work, etc. The learning phases are an orderly set of interdependent activities moving from context analysis to the communication of learning results. The approach described in this paper is a result of 5 years of teaching Web engineering. The process of designing a pedagogical model can be characterized as an evolutionary process that progresses through a series of experimentations, evaluations, and redesigns. In evaluating the approach after many years of experience, the instructor can draw the following conclusions. First, applying the constructivist learning theory is clearly a challenge for instructors as it requires making a radical shift in their thinking in order to translate the philosophy of constructivism into practice. Second, it takes time and considerable effort to make significant pedagogical changes. Yet constructivism holds important lessons for how to design environments to support active learning. It gives teachers a framework for understanding students' needs and motivations. It helps teachers to expose students to many aspects of the subject matter that are of crucial importance for the profession of Web engineering. It allows focus on what really matters for students--the acquisition of critical skills, authentic tasks, motivational aspects, teamwork, collaboration and negotiation, reading and writing skills, formative assessment, and self-evaluation. (Contains 9 tables and 1 figure.)

During the past several years, there has been a growing demand for skilled software engineers, a demand that, unfortunately, has not been satisfied, resulting in a variety of problems for the discipline. This paper presents a new approach called learner-centered Web-based instruction in software engineering that can be used to educate skilled engineers. The approach is based on three ideas. First, software engineering education must become more realistic. Second, software engineering education has to move closer to the learner. Finally, it must take advantage of the Web since this technology has the power of being a unique tool for implementing change in education. This paper reports and discusses the results from the evaluation of the approach. Index Terms--Constructivism, learner-centered design, object-oriented software engineering, unified modeling language (UML), Web-based instruction.

Aim/Purpose Assess the affordances and constraints of SimReal+ in teacher education Background There is a huge interest in visualizations in mathematics education, but there is little empirical support for their use in educational settings. Methodology Single case study with 22 participants from one class in teacher education. Quantitative and qualitative methods to collect students' responses to a survey questionnaire and open-ended questions. Contribution The paper contributes to the understanding of affordances and constraints of visualization tools in mathematics education. Findings The visualization tool SimReal+ has potential for learning mathematics in teacher education, but the user interface should be improved to make it more usable for different users. Teachers need to consider technological and pedagogical affordances of SimReal+ at the student, classroom, and mathematics subject level. Recommendations for Practitioners Address technological and pedagogical affordances of SimReal+. Recommendation for Researchers Improve the design of SimReal+ to make it technologically and pedagogically more usable. Impact on Society Understand the affordances and constraints of visualization tools in education. Future Research Implement a next cycle of experimentation with SimReal+ in teacher education to ensure more validity and reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] The students did not collaborate much by revising each other’s contributions to the wikis. [•] The students did not use the discussion page to address critical reflections on collaboration. [•] Factors influencing wiki-based collaborative writing in teacher education are discussed. [•] Suggestions for effective use of wikis as collaborative writing tools are presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper reports on an investigation on the real-life situations students in grades 8 and 9 in South Africa and Albania prefer to use in Mathematics. The functioning of the instrument used to assess the order of preference learners from both countries have for contextual situations is assessed using Rasch modeling techniques. For both the cohorts, the data fit the Rasch model. The differential item functioning (DIF) analysis rendered 3 items operating differentially for the two cohorts. Explanations for these differences are provided in terms of differences in experiences learners in the two countries have related to some of the contextual situations. Implications for interpretation of international comparative tests are offered, as are the possibilities for the cross-country development of curriculum materials related to contexts that learners prefer to use in Mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which investigates the way on how the collaboration and active participation of the students with fellow learners are supported by the wiki-based learning environment. The study uses the several data collection and analysis methods including self-evaluation to examine the pedagogical value of wikis. Results show that a number of issues in the wiki approach must be addressed to promote it as constructivist and collaborative learning tools.

Wikis provide teachers with potentially significant opportunities for creating socially engaged tasks that require active student participation and collaboration. Wikis allow students to work together to develop content on the web, giving them a sense of how writing can be carried out collaboratively. Collaborative writing offer opportunities not only to practice literature review, academic reading and writing, but also to stimulate reflection, knowledge sharing, and critical thinking. However, despite the potential capabilities of wikis, true collaborative writing does not work by itself as the research literature clearly reveals. To foster collaborative writing, participation, and active involvement in wiki development, there is a need for a systematic approach to the construction of wikis. The aim of this paper is to allow students to develop wiki applications using a collaborative writing development approach based on rapid prototyping. The paper also reports on the evaluation of the approach by means of qualitative data collection and analysis methods. Finally, the implications of the approach for collaborative writing are critically discussed according to a set of requirements associated with software development considerations and pedagogical issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web-based learning resources (WBLRs) are potentially powerful tools for enhancing teaching and learning processes in school education. They can provide teachers and learners with a wide range of new and exciting experiences that are not possible in a traditional classroom. However, WBLRs are still the domain of technical and software experts rather than teachers and learners. As a result, much of the development of WBLRs is carried out without a true understanding of issues pertinent to learning and pedagogy. Also lacking is user involvement in the development process of WBLRs. The aim of this work is to propose a user-centered approach to the development of WBLRs to translate pedagogical issues into a software tool that supports effective learning. The article also reports on the application of the approach in school education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a huge research literature on the field of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) as a tool in teaching and learning, there is much less research on the area of ICT as a subject or similar designations such as school informatics. As a result, there is a lack of theoretical grounding of the didactics of ICT and associated teaching and learning processes. One of the main reasons for the lack of theoretical underpinnings of the didactics of ICT is that there have been in the past and there persist even now strong disagreements and confusion about the nature of ICT as a school subject. While the content of the subject has been clearly defined in the school curriculum, the didactics of ICT is still unclear. This paper suggests ways forward in formulating a framework for conceptualizing the didactics of ICT. The framework draws on research in learning paradigms, epistemology, general didactics, conceptual, and curricular issues of ICT. The article also reports on implementations and evaluations of the framework that were carried out by trainee teachers in secondary schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) as a school subject in secondary education, there is a lack of an integrated ICT pedagogy that is elucidated within a broad framework of educational practice. The focus is still on technicalities and reproduction of knowledge rather than conceptual understanding of ICT. To realize the potential inherent in ICT, there is a need for innovative ICT pedagogies in secondary education. The purpose of this work is to involve student teachers in applying and evaluating a learner-centered ICT teaching method in their teaching practice at the secondary school level. The goal is to explore student teachers' learning processes when practicing the method and critical factors of success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E-Learning provides a potentially powerful tool for implementing educational requirements rooted in learning theories. But still, much of the development of e-Learning is carried out without a true understanding of how learning theories can be translated into pedagogical requirements that can be implemented using learning technologies. This is because e-Learning lacks a systematic approach to the development process, resulting in poor requirements analysis and pedagogical design. This paper argues for a systematic system development approach to e-Learning to translate educational requirements into a system that supports effective learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ICT training courses have recently undergone some important changes. These changes are made possible by new pedagogical approaches to ICT training. As a result, the focus has changed from memorizing, recall and reproduction of knowledge to conceptual understanding of the underlying software. One of these approaches is the Herskin's understanding-oriented ICT training method. This paper assesses students' learning when confronted with the task of implementing this method. More specifically, it addresses critical factors of success and potential obstacles when implementing the ICT training method in upper secondary schools. It also presents teacher students' common misconceptions and simplifications when practicing the method for the first time. Finally, the article outlines a framework for rethinking ICT training within constructivist learning environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]