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Making provides a beneficial learning environment that requires skills and knowledge from the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to design and construct a product or an artefact. In this paper the maker approach reflects on the pedagogical potential of learning through the design and deployment of an automated system that monitors and records environmental parameters in lakes and rivers. IoT technologies are used to connect schools with natural ecosystems, providing the opportunity to students to be actively involved in designing and developing technology artefacts to experiment with, and further, in the formulation of research questions, and in the processing and interpretation of research results and measurements. The study contributes to the research literature on bridging the gap between the school and out-of-school science.

In this paper we explore the motivations of players for engagement in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). We employ a mixed method research (qualitative and quantitative approach) and identify aspects of MMOGs that motivate players, such as the sociability, the achievement, the challenges, the competition, and elements increasing immersion. We situate the findings within a learning context and discuss how these aspects further increase the effectiveness of a learning environment.

In this paper we propose and apply a framework for the investigation of the potential of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) for collaborative learning. We focus on the group structure and processes. The findings suggest the interconnection of design features and players' practices.

This study focuses on the investigation of features of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) relevant to the support of collaborative learning processes. Through qualitative research (interviews with players, participant observation in MMOGs, research in websites and for a) we identify and describe motivational, cognitive and social features of the tasks and the player interactions emerging within such environments.

The features and potential of MMOGs to constitute environments for collaborative problem solving activities for learning are the main focus of this paper. Principles from the area of CSCL, problem-solving, cognition and learning can be applied to the design of an educational MMOG so as for effective interactions and collaboration among the players to be fostered. We attempt to propose a framework for the investigation and design of effective collaborative problem solving tasks within MMOGs.

Observation and understanding of real world activities and phenomena is a basis of inquiry and reasoning and subsequently building of scientific knowledge. This involves moving from the perception of real world phenomena to constructing and exploring qualitative and quantitative relations that hold among the main elements. The transition between the two phases is not always smooth for the learners involved. In this paper, we present tools and activities that attempt to bridge the gap between the physical world experience and the abstract modeling and reasoning phase. Firstly, we discuss a modeling approach and the various representations involved. Then, we present the Video2Frames tool of ModellingSpace which is proposed to be used in order to create educational material by allowing the creation of abstract entities from video recordings of phenomena. Next an example of creation of educational material, using this approach is presented and discussed.

How to really support young students in cognitively demanding modeling & collaborative modeling activities? ModellingSpace environment was designed to deal with this problem. This short paper is focused on its main design principles and features related to modeling primitives, data representations, collaborative activities' support, metacognitive support for students, as well as to teachers' support.

This paper presents Synergo, a collaboration support environment that monitors the activity and permits visualization of various quantitative parameters, like density of interaction, symmetry of the activity, degree of collaboration etc, particularly useful for understanding the mechanics of collaboration. Synergo has been proposed as a testbed for analysis of small-group model-building synchronous interaction.