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This study represents the first research effort to explore the transition from traditional teaching into distance teaching in Swedish schools enforced by COVID-19. Governments made gradual and injudicious decisions to impede the spread of the pandemic (COVID-19) in 2020. The enactment of new measures affected critical societal functions and included travel restrictions, closing of borders, school closures and lockdowns of entire countries worldwide. Social distancing became the new reality for many, and for many teachers and students, the school closure prompted a rapid transition from traditional to distance education. This study aims to capture the early stages of that transition. We distributed a questionnaire to teachers' (n = 153) to gain insights into teacher and school preparedness, plans to deliver distance education, and teachers' experience when making this transition. Results show that the school preparedness was mainly related to technical aspects, and that teachers lack pedagogical strategies needed in the emerging learning landscape of distance education. Findings reveal four distinct pedagogical activities central for distance education in a crisis, and many challenges faced during the transition. While preparedness to ensure continuity of education was halting, schools and teachers worked with tremendous effort to overcome the challenges. Results expand on previous findings on school closure during virus outbreaks and may in the short-term support teachers and school leaders in making informed decisions during the shift into distance education. The study may also inform the development of preparedness plans for schools, and offers a historical documentation.

This article introduces the Learning Activity Design (LEAD) framework for the development and implementation of mobile learning activities in primary schools. The LEAD framework draws on methodological perspectives suggested by design-based research and interaction design in the specific field of technology-enhanced learning (TEL). The LEAD framework is grounded in four design projects conducted over a period of six years. It contributes a new understanding of the intricacies and multifaceted aspects of the design-process characterizing the development and implementation of mobile devices (i.e. smart phones and tablets) in curricular activities conducted in Swedish primary schools. This framework is intended to provide both designers and researchers with methodological tools that take account of the pedagogical foundations of technologically-based educational interventions, usability issues related to the interaction with the mobile application developed, multiple data streams generated during the design project, multiple stakeholders involved in the design process and sustainability aspects of the mobile learning activities implemented in the school classroom.

With the digitalisation of education increasing, the relationship between student engagement in Technology-enhanced Learning (TEL) and digital skills has remained largely unexplored. There is a strong consensus that engagement is necessary for students to succeed in school. We hypothesised that students reporting high and low levels of general engagement display differences in terms of their engagement in TEL, and that students' digital skills correlate with their engagement in and disengagement in TEL, which in turn is related to their learning outcomes. We used statistical tests to explore the relationship between the students' (N = 410) general engagement and engagement in TEL, and investigated how digital skills were related to engagement and disengagement in TEL. We found significant correlations between students' digital skills and engagement in TEL, showing that the possession of high levels of digital skill is related to engagement in TEL. Interestingly, digital skills were not related to disengagement. This suggests that students reporting both high and low levels of digital skills disengage to some extent when learning with technologies. We also identified variables reflecting both engagement and disengagement in TEL that predict student performance as measured via final grades, implying that in order to understand and support students who learn with technologies, a broader understanding of the factors influencing engagement and disengagement is key.

Teachers around the world have started teaching programming at the K-9 level, some due to the formal introduction of programming in the national curriculum, others without such pressure and on their own initiative. In this study, we attempted to understand which skills -- both CT-related and general -- are developed among pupils in the process of working with programming in schools. To do so, we interviewed 19 Swedish teachers who had been teaching programming for a couple of years on their own initiative. The teachers were selected based on their experience in teaching programming. Our thematic analysis of these interviews shed light on what skills teachers perceive pupils develop when programming. This led us to identify three themes related to CT skills and five themes related to general skills. The CT skills identified corresponded well with and were thus thematically structured according to the dimensions of CT proposed in the framework of Brennan and Resnick, namely computational concepts, computational practices and computational perspectives. In addition to the CT skills, our thematic analysis also resulted in the identification of general skills related to digital competency and 21st century skills, namely cognitive skills and attitudes, language skills, collaborative skills and attitudes and creative problem-solving skills and attitudes.

Information and communication technologies have increasingly been integrated in our everyday lives, and as many would say changed how we acquire knowledge and how we learn. It is against such a background this paper will describe how higher education students engage with technology during self-studies and how they in particular utilize different semiotic affordances of information and communication technologies in order to learn course content. Consequently, focus is put on how university students design their learning during self-studies through exploiting multimodal literacy and by constructing knowledge through different modes and media. The paper reports on a mixed-method study and presents findings that points to that (1) students are becoming active designers of learning due to access to new modes and media that can be tailored to their needs, (2) that students have developed a multimodal digital literacy to various degrees, and (3) that students are provided opportunities for enhanced and more effective learning than before because of the availability of affordances of contemporary technology. Thus the paper calls for a pedagogical shift that take departure from a design-oriented, multimodal understanding of learning.

In this paper, we argue that in order to gain a deeper understanding of collaborative mobile learning in schools, it is important to know not only how mobile devices affect collaborative learning but also how collaborative learning emerges and is mediated by these devices. We develop our argument by applying the instrumental genesis theory and the collective instrumented activities and situations model for the analysis of learners' collaborative learning in the tablet-mediated classroom. This analysis is grounded in data collected in four elementary Swedish schools (i.e., from fourth to eighth grade). From the data, we considered the learners' conversation in English as a foreign language, inquiry-based learning in the natural sciences classroom and game-based learning in the arithmetic classroom. On the one hand, the scrutiny of these specific activities led us to distinguish the pragmatic, epistemic, and reflexive instrumental mediations that have already been theorized in the instrumental genesis theory. On the other hand, they helped us to identify two additional ones, which we call emotional and spatial. Based on these findings, we claim that collaboration in the tablet-mediated classroom is a complex activity that emerges from a variety of instrumental mediations that configure contemporary collaborative mobile learning.

Learning analytics (LA) is an important area of study in technology-enhanced learning that has emerged during the last decade. In earlier years, several systematic reviews have been conducted that focused on the theories behind LA or on empirical studies that utilized LA-based methods to improve learning and teaching processes in higher education. However, to date, there has been no systematic review of papers that have adopted a software perspective to report on the many forms of learning analytics software (LAS) that have been developed, despite these being used more frequently than before in higher education to support learning and teaching processes. To fill this gap, this paper presents a systematic review of LAS with the aim of critically scrutinizing the ways in which the use of interactive software in real-world settings may both support students in improving their academic performance and assist teachers in various pedagogical practices. A thematic analysis of 75 articles was conducted, resulting in the identification of three categories of LAS: at-risk student identification (ARSI) software; self-regulation software; and collaborative learning software. For each of these categories, we analyzed (i) the embedded functionality; (ii) the stakeholder (teacher and student) for which the functionality is intended; (iii) the analytical and visualization approaches implemented; and (iv) the limitations of the software that require future attention. Based on the findings of our review, we propose future directions for the development of learning analytics software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nickel Chromite nanoparticles were successfully synthesized via a modified sol-gel method using nickel acetate and ammonium dichromate in melted stearic acid as a complexing agent. The diffractograms of the nanoparticles confirmed a pure formation of NiCr2O4 spinel without any minor phase. The coordination structure of as prepared nanoparticles shows a series of absorption bands below 1,000 cm−1 were evidenced the M-O (Cr-O, Ni-O) bond in the sample. Optical band gap, magnetic properties and color parameters (L*.a*.b*) indicates that the final nanoparticles are optically and magnetically active. The particle size of NiCr2O4 was calculated using Scherrer equation at about 24 nm. Optical band gap obtained at 1.7 eV indicating that NiCr2O4 nanoparticles are semiconductor material and can be used in electrical devices.

Mobile technologies have not yet triggered the knowledge revolution in schools anticipated, in particular, by the telecommunications industry. On the contrary, mobile technologies remain extensively used outside the frontiers of formal education. The reasons for this are many and varied. In this paper, we concentrate on those associated with the prevalent methodological weakness in the study of innovative educational interventions with mobile technologies. In this context, the paper investigates the following question: what is the potential of second-generation cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) for characterizing learning activities mediated by mobile technologies? To this end, an empirical study was designed with the goal of examining five small groups of students (fifth grade, age 12) who were using mobile devices in authentic educational settings, within a natural science inquiry-based learning activity outdoors. Second-generation CHAT was operationalized as an analytical and dialectic methodological framework for understanding learning activities mediated by mobile devices. The study contributes a characterization of mobile learning and identification of constraints and transformations introduced by mobile technology into students' tasks.