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11 – 20 of over 121000The purpose of this paper is to share the lessons learned in teaching programming skills to refugees during a time when circumstances were changing quickly and constantly and the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to share the lessons learned in teaching programming skills to refugees during a time when circumstances were changing quickly and constantly and the needs of the target group were not well known.
Design/methodology/approach
The integration of refugees poses serious challenges for the hosting society’s education system. A large number of refugees can put a strain on all kinds of public resources, and difficulties with differences in languages, previous curricula, falling behind due to having to spend time outside of education, and psychological traumas have to be expected. In response to the refugee crisis and in order to manage mass migration, the adaptive nature and rapid development of civic approaches can contribute to overcoming some of these challenges. To evaluate the impact of civic approaches, the authors have paid attention to refugees{code} an Austrian coding school for refugees which was developed by the civic community and which shows great potential in terms of providing rapid, innovative and adaptive kinds of educational support for refugees, as well as helping to combat the lack of programmers in the Austrian job market.
Findings
As the great potential that initiatives like refugees{code} have for education, there are also substantial challenges. As we learned from the first course, course completion rates were very low. Therefore, it is important to build an infrastructure and a learning environment around the course. This learning environment includes providing mentoring and support, creating spaces where participants can learn. It was also found that having a pedagogically trained staff who is sufficient in the English language, too, is necessary to cater to a heterogeneous group. Also varying teaching strategies according to the needs and skills of the learner is necessary. One of the issues that confronts projects like refugees{code} is also receiving legal status. The collaboration with universities and colleges can be greatly helpful because they are already familiar with the structure of public authorities as well as with heterogeneous groups. Initiatives like refugees{code} are agile and flexible and know how to take advantage of that. The authors conclude that bringing successful education to heterogeneous and culturally different groups is multi-faceted. It is not something any individual organization or project can do; it can only be the result of a system of different actors working together with traditional educational institutions.
Originality/value
This research study reports on two courses of programming for refugees and seeks to offer practical advice for further research and for the implementation of such courses into the educational system. Therefore a framework is proposed which should be taken into account in case of doing similar work.
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Computer programming as a job or profession was unheard of a few years ago. Now thousands of people work at programming. Newspapers are full of advertisements offering high‐paying…
Abstract
Computer programming as a job or profession was unheard of a few years ago. Now thousands of people work at programming. Newspapers are full of advertisements offering high‐paying jobs. Self‐styled institutes display posts practically promising to double your salary if you take their short course in programming.
Olga Mironova, Irina Amitan, Jelena Vendelin, Jüri Vilipõld and Merike Saar
This paper aims to present a teaching approach to achieve the most personal support for students with different backgrounds and preferences in studying an Informatics course.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a teaching approach to achieve the most personal support for students with different backgrounds and preferences in studying an Informatics course.
Design/methodology/approach
The presented methodology is based on the main principles of flexible and blended learning. The authors considered three main aspects: student’s background, the level of knowledge and the most suitable style of learning. At the beginning of the course, students were randomly divided into reference and test group. The test group students were continuously supported by different tools within an e-learning environment. The learning process for the reference group students was held in a traditional form.
Findings
The success of the experiment presented in this paper is demonstrated by comparing the results of the test group who were taught using the new strategy with the reference group who were taught in a common way. The statistical analysis shows that the test group students had better achievements compared to the reference group.
Research Limitations/implications
This presented study was carried out with non-IT first-year university students from social sciences, economics and technical faculties. Each year the number of students varied from 150 to 300.
Originality/value
Based on developed methodology, the model of individualization of the educational process in an e-environment was created and implemented in the course of Informatics in Tallinn University of Technology.
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Tessa Withorn, Jillian Eslami, Hannah Lee, Maggie Clarke, Carolyn Caffrey, Cristina Springfield, Dana Ospina, Anthony Andora, Amalia Castañeda, Alexandra Mitchell, Joanna Messer Kimmitt, Wendolyn Vermeer and Aric Haas
This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2020.
Findings
The paper provides a brief description of all 440 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.
Originality/value
The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested in a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.
Details
Keywords
Carolyn Caffrey, Hannah Lee, Tessa Withorn, Maggie Clarke, Amalia Castañeda, Kendra Macomber, Kimberly M. Jackson, Jillian Eslami, Aric Haas, Thomas Philo, Elizabeth Galoozis, Wendolyn Vermeer, Anthony Andora and Katie Paris Kohn
This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy. It provides an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy. It provides an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts. The selected bibliography is useful to efficiently keep up with trends in library instruction for busy practitioners, library science students and those wishing to learn about information literacy in other contexts.
Design/methodology/approach
This article annotates 424 English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, theses and reports on library instruction and information literacy published in 2021. The sources were selected from the EBSCO platform for Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Scopus, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and WorldCat, published in 2021 that included the terms “information literacy,” “library instruction,” or “information fluency” in the title, abstract or keywords. The sources were organized in Zotero. Annotations summarize the source, focusing on the findings or implications. Each source was categorized into one of seven pre-determined categories: K-12 Education, Children and Adolescents; Academic and Professional Programs; Everyday Life, Community, and the Workplace; Libraries and Health Information Literacy; Multiple Library Types; and Other Information Literacy Research and Theory.
Findings
The paper provides a brief description of 424 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.
Originality/value
The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy within 2021.
Details
Keywords
Erno Lokkila, Erkki Kaila, Rolf Lindén, Mikko-Jussi Laakso and Erkki Sutinen
The purpose of this paper was to determine whether applying e-learning material to a course leads to consistently improved student performance.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to determine whether applying e-learning material to a course leads to consistently improved student performance.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper analyzes grade data from seven instances of the course. The first three instances were performed traditionally. After an intervention, in the form of applying e-learning methodologies, more data were collected from four course instances. These data are then analyzed and compared.
Findings
The main finding of this paper is that the application of e-learning improved the overall grades and decreased the fail rates of students who took this course.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrates the efficacy of applying e-learning methods to an undergraduate course. This paper is of special interest to educators, who wish to improve and enhance their teaching.
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Mikko Apiola, Erno Lokkila and Mikko-Jussi Laakso
Digital learning has become a global trend. Partly or fully automatic learning systems are integrated into education in schools and universities on a previously unseen scale…
Abstract
Purpose
Digital learning has become a global trend. Partly or fully automatic learning systems are integrated into education in schools and universities on a previously unseen scale. Learning systems have a lot of potential for re-education, life-long learning and for increasing access to educational resources. Learning systems create massive amounts of data about learning behaviour. Analysing that data for educational decision making has become an important track of research. The purpose of this paper is to analyse data from an intermediate-level computer science course, which was taught to 141 students in spring 2018 at University of Turku, Department of Future Technologies, Finland.
Design/methodology/approach
The available variables included number of submissions, submission times, variables of groupwork and final grades. Associations between these variables were looked at to reveal patterns in students’ learning behaviour.
Findings
It was found that time usage differs per different grades so that students with grade 4 out of 5 used most time. Also, it was found that studying at night is connected to weaker learning outcomes than studying during daytime. Several issues in relation to groupwork were revealed. For example, associations were found between prior skills, preference for individual vs groupwork, and course learning outcomes.
Research limitations/implications
The research was limited by the domain of available variables, which is a common limitation in learning analytics research.
Practical implications
The practical implications include important ideas for future research and interventions in digital learning.
Social implications
The importance of research on soft skills, social skills and collaboration is highlighted.
Originality/value
The paper points a number of important ideas for future research. One important observation is that some research questions in learning analytics need qualitative approaches, which need to be added to the toolbox of learning analytics research.
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Stefania Siozou, Nikolaos Tselios and Vassilis Komis
The purpose of this paper is to compare the effect of different representations while teaching basic algorithmic concepts to novice programmers.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare the effect of different representations while teaching basic algorithmic concepts to novice programmers.
Design/methodology/approach
A learning activity was designed and mediated with two conceptually different learning environments, each one used by a different group. The first group used the learning environment “Visual Flowchart”, which enables the students to construct and examine an algorithm using visual representation based on actual flowchart objects. The second group used the software “Language Interpreter”, which allows the students to express an algorithms using pseudocode.
Findings
Analysis of results among the two groups showed no statistically significant differences in the students’ performance with respect to the tool they used to solve the activity, the school stream they followed in high school and their gender.
Research limitations/implications
The lack of difference among the two groups could be attributed to the non‐complicated nature of the given activity. In addition, longitudinal studies of the effect of the different representation in the frame of an introductory first semester academic course in computer science could further validate the results.
Practical implications
Two alternative learning environments aimed to support learning of basic programming skills.
Originality/value
Two alternative learning environments were presented and discussed in detail, aimed to support learning of basic programming skills. The conclusions of the present study are in contrast to the research that has taken place in the past which compared usage of flowcharts and pseudocode to educate novice programmers, and wider adoption of “flowcharts” was depicted.
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Elisha Ondieki Makori, Cephas Odini and Joseph Bernard Ojiambo
The paper aims to establish the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in education and training of undergraduate library and information science (LIS) students…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to establish the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in education and training of undergraduate library and information science (LIS) students in two selected Kenyan universities and suggest recommendations to improve ICT education and training in the country.
Design/methodology/approach
The study utilised a qualitative method. A survey research design was used to collect data from various categories of respondents in LIS including lecturers, undergraduate students, information professionals and employers. Interviews and document analysis were also used to collect data from the respondents.
Findings
Findings show that the graduates lack preferred ICTs knowledge, competencies and skills important in the modern information environment such as web technologies, information programming skills, software development, distributed systems, virtual libraries and digital information systems. Information sciences education in Kenyan universities and other institutions of higher learning need to review the curriculum and provide ICT education and training that address the needs and demands of the current job market and performance requirements.
Research limitations/implications
The study was effectively carried out at Kenyatta and Moi Universities being the leading universities offering LIS programmes in Kenya.
Practical implications
In the twenty-first century and beyond, students can no longer be confined to traditional practices of LIS education. Information sciences programmes from around the global have recognized the importance to fully integrate ICTs education and training in order to meet the needs and demands of students and employers.
Originality/value
Present employment and career opportunities favour information professionals with intensive technological competencies and skills.
Details
Keywords
Wherever there is a substantial volume of facts or figures to be processed, there you will find a computer. It may be, for instance, despatches to be valued, invoices to be…
Abstract
Wherever there is a substantial volume of facts or figures to be processed, there you will find a computer. It may be, for instance, despatches to be valued, invoices to be produced, medical statistics to be analysed, stress calculations to be performed, or weather maps to be constructed. Whatever process a computer is used for, or whatever the variety of tasks done by any given machine, essentially four different types of human job need to be carried out: