Friday, July 31, 2015

Positive and negative aspects of using tablets in education

Tablets in education
[Source: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/]
This Worldbank blog article lists tablet-based education initiatives from across the world - some positive and some negative. The article discusses the effects of tablets on education.

Current research studies are quite fragmented and it is difficult to conclude if tablets are beneficial for education.

As with any kind of technology for education, the critical issue lies with the implementation. Buying the devices is one thing, but what do you do with them? What kind of support and training do schools, teachers, and students need and receive? Is the support short-term (e.g. a few hours of introduction) or is it long-term? Does the pedagogical approaches align with the technology, and vice-versa?

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Why does a bicycle stay upright?

This informative video by MinutePhysics explains the physics behind a bicycle rolling down a hill.

Friday, July 17, 2015

How to improve undergraduate science education (Nature News & Comment)

This Nature article outlines some of the challenges university teachers encounter when moving from lecturing to active (e.g. problem-based) learning. Creating and teaching active learning units is much more demanding than lecturing. Teachers need more support (technical and pedagogical) during the entire process (design, implementation, evaluation, re-design).



Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right : Nature News & Comment

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

New article published: The ‘Erfahrraum’: a pedagogical model for designing educational technologies in dual vocational systems

The Erfahrraum model
My co-authors (Alberto A.P. Cattaneo, Jessica Dehler Zufferey, Jean-Luc Gurtner, Mireille Bétrancourt & Pierre Dillenbourg) and I are happy to announce the publication of our paper "The ‘Erfahrraum’: a pedagogical model for designing educational technologies in dual vocational systems".

Vocational education taking place in the dual contexts of workplace and school often lacks integration of concrete experiences with theoretical knowledge. The interplay between workplace and school contexts and their often antagonistic priorities call for a specific model that transforms these divergences into learning opportunities and connects different forms of knowledge into an integrated body of knowledge that contributes to developing vocational competence. This paper presents a multidimensional pedagogical model, called the ‘Erfahrraum’, for the design and implementation of educational technologies as a way to foster this integration in initial dual vocational education and training (VET). The ‘Erfahrraum’ model informs the design of shared spaces for capturing and reflecting on experiences made in different contexts in which VET takes place. The model particularly emphasises the importance of shared reflection processes to turn concrete experiences into relevant integrated knowledge. Examples of implementations in different professions using a range of different technologies illustrate the power of the ‘Erfahrraum’ model.

You can find the article here: Erfahrraum paper

Saturday, July 11, 2015