Research Article
Emily Hope Morrison, Dimitrios Vlachopoulos
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 15, Issue 4, Article No: ep473
ABSTRACT
Globally, schools were faced with mandatory shutdowns in the wake of the recent COVID-19 outbreak. To avoid disruption in the education process, teachers and students used alternative education strategies and solutions, switching to emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL). This change was completely unanticipated, and thus can only be perceived as a reactionary measure. The purpose of this basic qualitative study is to explore the experience of secondary students regarding ERTL, as well as their satisfaction with the tools used in the science curriculum. Challenging the assumption that the learning experience during ERTL would be similar in most subject areas, this qualitative study focuses on the aspects of the science curriculum that were complex to offer in an online setting, including experimentation and modelling of phenomena. To achieve this purpose, three focus groups with grade 8 students from an international school were conducted. Most of the participants described ERTL experience as having a predominantly negative affect on their engagement and academic performance, mainly because of their poor home learning environments, the duration of remote teaching, and the distractions that derive from the ongoing use of the Internet. At the same time, the findings revealed that, beyond the accessibility and interactivity appropriate technologies can offer, the use of tools like gamified pop-quizzes, video applications and interactive simulations can enhance the learning experience. The procedure followed for this research is easy to replicate at different contexts and, thus, generate enough data to reimagine science education from the lessons learned during ERTL.
Keywords: emergency remote teaching and learning, secondary education, science curriculum, qualitative research, technology for science curriculum, educational technology
Research Article
Dana Ondrušková, Richard Pospíšil
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 15, Issue 3, Article No: ep435
ABSTRACT
The increasing use of the Internet calls upon the need for adequate cyber security awareness to better face the risk and dangers connected with the online environment. This research presents an experiment that revealed the cyber security awareness of children at Czech primary schools. They were tested for their skills to distinguish different online risks. After the pre-testing children received training and with the time delay they filled in very similar questionnaires. The re-testing measured how well the children retained the training and their ability to use the skills in the virtual environment. The results show only a moderate level of cyber security awareness at the initial testing. The one-off training had only an insignificant impact on their online behavior. The research reveals an important finding. One-off training does not affect their responsive online behavior and is not a suitable solution for effectively improving online safety skills. The task is to involve cyber security awareness education in the whole educational process. Based on the literature and conducted research this paper provides a set of recommendations for the designers of the cyber security school curriculum.
Keywords: cyber security, online risk, education, curriculum
Research Article
Sri Gunawan, Chich-Jen Shieh
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 12, Issue 2, Article No: ep279
ABSTRACT
Learning area integrated teaching, teaching unit topics and the contents of various subjects with team teaching and cooperative learning to have students learn better integrated concepts, is emphasized domestically. Nevertheless, it is discovered that subject-specific teaching is still used in living technology teaching area. The integration and application of knowledge content learned in classes could enhance the problem solving opportunity.
To effectively achieve research objectives and test research hypotheses, nonequivalent test experimental design is applied to the experimental research in this study. Aiming at 312 business school students of Parahyangan Catholic University (UNPAR), Indonesia, as the experimental objects, the research results are summarized as below. 1. STEM curriculum integration model presents significant effects on learning effect. 2. STEM curriculum integration model shows remarkable effects on learning gain. 3. Living technology teaching reveals notable effects on learning effect. 4. Living technology teaching appears significant effects on learning gain. 5. STEM curriculum integration model integrated living technology teaching presents remarkable effects on learning effect. 6. STEM curriculum integration model integrated living technology teaching shows notable effects on the promotion of learning gain. According to the results to propose suggestions, it is expected to have students analyze problems from more aspects and develop diverse solving strategies to effectively enhance living technology learning effectiveness.
Keywords: STEM curriculum, living technology teaching, business school, learning effectiveness
Research Article
Frederick Kwaku Sarfo, Francis Amankwah, Stephen Baafi-Frimpong, Joseph Asomani
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 8, Issue 2, pp. 103-118
ABSTRACT
Research findings in the literature show that teachers’ concern about change process is
extremely personal and it influences the implementation of innovation. This study aimed at
assessing information and communication technology teachers’ stages of concern regarding
the implementation of information and communication technology (ICT) curriculum in basic
schools. It also examined the effects of teachers’ personal factors or variablessuch as gender
and teaching experience on their stages of concern towards the implementation of ICT
curriculum. Modified Stages of Concerns Questionnaires (SoCQ) (Hall, George & Rutherford
1979) based on Concern Based Adoption Model (CBAM) were used to collect data from 346
respondents. Data collected were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics.
The result of the study showed that teachers generally had their first and second high
concerns at informational and consequence stages respectively and with low concern at
awareness stage. Furthermore, statistically significant difference was found between gender
and informational, management, consequence, collaboration and refocusing concerns.
However, according to the results, teachers’ stages of concerns were not related to their
teaching experience.
Keywords: information and communication technology, curriculum implementation, basic education, teacher concerns