Dr. S. Sotiriou
Ellinogermaniki Agogi, Greece
sotiriou@ellinogermaniki.gr
Prof. T. Arvanitis
University of Birmingham, UK
t.arvanitis@bham.ac.uk
Prof D. G. Sampson
University of Piraeus & CERTH, Greece
sampson@unipi.gr
According to modern pedagogy, teaching should be guided by a holistic planning process that takes the students' learning processes, the subject matter and the teaching methods into account. Students' orientation is a very important and significant variable which correlates positively with students' performance. It offers students the chance to link the information presented to their prior experience and knowledge. They have the chance to engage in an active and self-guided learning process. Consequently, effective learning processes should be designed with student's prior experience and knowledge. For to learn science in meaningful ways students need to see connections to familiar problems relevant and important in their daily lives. Additionally, situated learning fosters the ability to transfer acquired knowledge to a variety of different situations. Situated learning is an essential component of acquiring the ability for self-organised and self-regulated learning. Ideally schools should provide opportunities for the development of a competence to learn and, an ability to be an autonomous learner in the future. This includes the development of meta-cognitive learning competences like e.g. elaboration strategies or learning strategies and their application and usefulness. Learning processes in the future will be embedded in communicative situations, where teaching science offers good conditions for fostering communication and cooperation in students' experimental practices.
Over the last two decades the development of technological tools for enhancing education has had a profound impact on the process of science teaching and learning. The design and application of new technologies, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, portable devices, wearable computers, simulations and computer modelling of physical phenomena in science classrooms has allowed the enhancement and enrichment of their current curriculum. However, the introduction of such innovating tools into students’ learning experience itself, cannot improve their learning without the active participation of their educators. With the employment of innovative and highly interactive technologies as well as available authoring tools, the educators are able to implement sets of demonstrators to enhance the quality and effectiveness of the teaching and learning process. Furthermore, technology-enhanced learning tools give the opportunity to connect science education with real life and motivate learners to engage themselves in exploratory learning.
The proposed workshop aims to become a test-bed for exploring the reform of science education supported by innovative technology tools. The application of various leading edge technologies that can transform the educational environment and the teaching and learning processes is further examined. This workshop embraces the interconnection between science teaching and everyday activities, along with the instructional influence upon learning processes. Moreover, modern techniques of organising digital content and metadata are investigated along with educational resources that use these appropriate metadata to form learning objects. The mapping of pioneering technologies to enhance science education identifies sets of technological tools in which science centres and schools should invest in the near future. This will create valuable teaching and learning processes that will effectively capture the needs of modern communities.
The expected results from the workshop are the following:
The workshop is addressed to the following audience:
The workshop will last for 2,5 hours. Speakers will give a presentation of 20 min including the time for a round of questions. The last 30 min of the session will be devoted to a general debate about the presented approaches and the future perspectives.
Authors are invited submit two page papers describing research related to TeSW for inclusion in the IEEE conference proceedings of ICALT2008.
All papers should be in accessible Microsoft Word format and will be peer-reviewed.
Two-page papers for review for inclusion in the IEEE conference proceedings of ICALT2008.
February 29th, 2008 - Paper submission sent to Prof D. G. Sampson – sampson@unipi.gr
March 7th, 2008 - Notification of acceptance
March 15th, 2008 - Final camera-ready manuscript upload to ICALT website and sent to Prof D. G. Sampson – sampson@unipi.gr
The workshop will last for 2 and ½ hours.
The workshop will consist of 3 sessions each based on one of the 3 main questions addressed by the workshop.
Each session will consist of 10 minute paper presentations followed by a 10 minute interactive discussion.
The workshop will last for 2 and ½ hours.
The workshop will consist of 3 sessions each based on one of the 3 main questions addressed by the workshop.
Each session will consist of 10 minute paper presentations followed by a 10 minute interactive discussion.
Dr. S. Sotiriou, Ellinogermaniki Agogi, Greece - sotiriou@ellinogermaniki.gr
Prof. T. Arvanitis, University of Birmingham, UK - t.arvanitis@bham.ac.uk
Prof D. G. Sampson, University of Piraeus & CERTH, Greece – sampson@unipi.gr
Please direct any questions on TeSW to Prof D. G. Sampson, University of Piraeus & CERTH, Greece – sampson@unipi.gr