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The main focus of this study was the inclusion of informal methods in the educational frameworks of architectural and urban design. The project used is based on the 3D representation of virtual models of new urban proposals in order to re-organize a local market in Tonalá, Mexico. Starting from a formal course, where the students had to develop solutions to real architecture and urban problems, a second phase was designed, based on feedback in an informal environment by the end-users (citizens and professionals). The key objectives of the experiment were to show students to connect and receive feedback through technology, evaluate how these interactions can define new informal ways of learning, and discuss how this informal data can be incorporated into an academic curriculum. The results confirm how the informal interaction constitutes a great contribution in the improvement of student's skills, even considering that the incorporation of informal data into their evaluation still remains challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities are facing severe cuts in funding and a transformation of both the economic model underpinning higher education and the relationship between students, tutors and universities and the traditional forms of support for students’ learning may be eroded. At the same time, mobile communications, instant messaging and social networking are now widespread amongst students and offer possible opportunities for developing new models of support. This paper reports on the use of instant messaging amongst peers, as part of a study of digitally-mediated communication and collaborative activities, crossing formal and informal boundaries, amongst campus-based undergraduate students, at a large university in the UK. It is argued that instant messaging conversations offers a means of sustainable peer support for students by demonstrating how they emerge from everyday practices, drawing on existing relationships and shared histories and redrawing the boundaries between formal and informal settings and practices. The importance of time is highlighted, showing how longitudinal, dialogic conversations were important for both practical and empathetic support. The potential of the instant messaging conversations in supporting the co-creation of artefacts, meaning making, motivation and affective support are also demonstrated, drawing on detailed examples of authentic conversations. However, such peer support practices remain largely invisible and therefore need acknowledging, fostering and encouraging, working alongside students to understand and develop these ideas so that peer support in universities can build on the existing practices of students themselves. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Outreach activities increased primary school students' knowledge of microplastics. • Low and high scorers of Preservation, Utilization, and Appreciation benefited. • Preservation, Utilization and Study Group predicted knowledge. • Hands-on activities enrich science education in-school and out-of-school. Microplastic pollution is a growing issue of concern requiring appropriate classroom instruction. Educational initiatives within this context are supposed to provide relevant background knowledge, raise awareness, and ideally lead to sustainable behavior. We implemented an identical educational module within two different learning environments: formal (in-school) and informal (out-of-school). In both settings, 444 primary school students self-reliably completed hands-on activities at workstations. We monitored students' short-term (directly after the module) and long-term (after six weeks) cognitive achievement. Additionally, when examining the participants' environmental values (Preservation, Utilization) and the Appreciation of Nature, the program similarly appealed to all students independent of the environmental values' intensity. Preservation, Utilization, and the Study Group predicted knowledge levels after program participation; Appreciation did not. While Preservation positively influenced knowledge, Utilization did the contrary. Subsequent implications on learning strategies based on our results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: One of the challenges facing us when we try to bring commercial materials such as video games into the classroom to be used as educational tools is to identify appropriate strategies of collaboration with teachers, families, and even industries. This paper explores how multimedia contexts can be created in which children become active participants in a digital universe where multiple technologies are present (so that video games are just one of several digital tools). We present several examples derived from specific projects carried out in formal and informal educational contexts, in action research and from ethnographical perspectives. As participant observers in and outside the classroom, we designed workshops as innovative educational contexts; all the sessions were video and audio recorded. Our analysis adopted a socio-cultural perspective. Several preliminary results clearly appeared: (a) Children playing commercial games inside and outside classrooms produce different writing texts depending of the context in which they are generated; (b) using video games combined with other digital technologies seems to be an effective way of introducing children to the content and structure of games considered as dynamic systems; (c) using and reflecting on video games in and outside the school, via discussions in digital media such as blogs or pictures, can contribute to the development of digital literacies as a way of using multimodal discourses. Our main goal at this moment is to design digital materials capable of supporting teachers’ and families’ use of games and in particular, to reveal the rules that organize their structure, codes and symbolic universe. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]