Volume 2 Number 4
Published: 31 December 2009
Responsible Editor: Iuliana Marchis
1.Text
comprehension – learning styles – school performance
Krisztina
Bartha, Rita Fóris-Ferenczi (Romania)
Abstract: The following study interprets the results of a research carried out in 2008 in Romania, on a smaller sample. The aim of the study is the analysis of the text comprehension skills of 14 year old pupils, and the presentation of the connections with the social background, learning styles and school performance. The gathering of the data was completed during the survey with the analysis of the native language curricula and textbooks, class monitoring, as well as with a questionnaire addressed to teachers. The present paper presents the data on text comprehension, as well as the correlations with social background and learning. It summes up the result of the class monitoring, as well as those of the teacher interviews, emphasizing the aspects which are relevant from the point of view of text comprehension developing.
Key-words: text
comprehension, social background, learning styles, school performance,
developing text comprehension
Received 2 November 2009, accepted 17 December
2009
Pages 1-16.
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2. Adaptive teaching via
e-learning form
Kateřina
Kostolányová (Czech
Republic)
Abstract: The proposal of the adaptive form of teaching stems from
the analysis of tested student characteristics. The testing involved modified
questionnaires localized to Czech conditions of teaching (LSI, ISL, …) in
context with e-learning teaching. Based on tipped, most frequently occurred
groups of student characteristics, the optimum procedures for presentation of
the content of study according to learning styles of individual students are
proposed. Students will be recommended the optimum method of the passage
through the course, but at the same time, they will be offered other forms and
methods of presentation of a particular topic of study. The contribution deals
with the proposal of teaching tools according to most frequently occurring
clusters of student characteristics.
Key-words: Adaptive teaching, eLearning
Received
22 November 2009, accepted 19 December 2009
Pages 17-20.
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3. Ways to use ICT in schools to optimize the impact on teaching and learning
Ulf Fredriksson, Elzbieta Gajek, Gunilla
Jedeskog (Sweeden, Poland, Sweeden)
Abstract: The European eLearning Forum for Education 2 (ELFE2)
is a project initiated by the ETUCE (European Trade Union Committee on
Education) and builds on the conclusion of its predecessor ELFE1. ELFE2 aims,
as ELFE1, to contribute to a better understanding of
the strengths and weaknesses of using ICT in education. It identifies ways used to
optimize the benefits of ICT in education. To explore how ICT can be used to
support teaching and learning two schools each in Denmark, England, Latvia,
Poland, and Slovenia were selected based on information that indicated that
they were regarded nationally as schools with an advanced ICT practice. The
idea behind this selection is that by studying schools with what is experienced
as an advance practice it will be possible to get some hints about problems and
challenges other schools will be faced with. ELFE2 indicates that a number of
ways are used in the schools to optimize the positive impact of ICT. Most of
these ways are perceived by teachers and students as positive, but there are
also factors that make the picture more complex. Some factors seem to be an
obstacle for the introduction of ICT in the schools.
Key-words: e-learning, ICT,
teaching, learning
Received
30 October 2009, accepted 28 November 2009
Pages 21-32.
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4. Risks associated with the use of the Internet and its Impact upon students' awareness of perverse issues: literature review
Abstract. There
are a lot of studies that have dealt with the different facets of the use of
the internet. Most studies have identified entertainment and amusement as the
major motivation for internet use with seeking knowledge and making social
relationships coming as distant second and third respectively . Varying lines
of investigation have been taken in this regard by different researchers
notable among which are the impact of internet use on cultural and religious
values, national language, loyalty to the home country, family ties and
relationships, psychological stability and well-being, attitudes towards
learning, educational usages…etc. While few question the learning and educational
benefits of internet use, many authors have voiced their concerns over the
adverse effects on religion and the national culture. Fears have also been
expressed of internet addiction and related problems which may negatively
affect the social behavior of youthful people. However, the evidence on the
impact of internet use remains somewhat mixed and more research –work is
needed.
Key-words: Internet use, motivation, impact, learning benefits
Received 29 October
2009, accepted 3 December 2009
Pages 33-38.
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5.
Experiences
of meaning and the multilingual existence
Abstract. The aim of the article is
to analyse the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the skills of reading
and text-understanding, focusing on the comparative analysis of experiences of
meaning in native language, Romanian and English in the case of Hungarian
pupils. We attempted to present the qualitative indexes and factors of the
process of reading texts written in native, secondary and foreign language with
the help of questionnaires, the students’ data and tests measuring the
performances of reading. The collection of data was realized in the spring of
2009. Through the collected data we attempted to answer the following
questions: What kind of skills of
understanding text do the pupils in the last year of primary school (i.e. 8th
grade) possess? Which are the determining socio-cultural background factors?
Can we differentiate between the common and specific features of reading and
meaning-construction done in different languages? Can we speak about similar
difficulties of reading and about the phenomenon of transfer in the case of meaning-discovery
in different languages? The present study offers the possibility of creating
training programs and teaching strategies based on local specificities, as well
as of drafting curricula based on the pupils’ knowledge of language, desires and
interests.
Key words: bi- and multilingual existence, reading,
text-understanding
Pages 39-50.
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Alexander Fedorov (Russia)
Abstract. The
author of this article thinks, that the basic difficulties of wider
introduction of media education in the Russian and French universities & schools
first of all are connected with patent defect purposefully prepared of media
educators; with the certain inertness of many educational establishments; with
traditional approaches of the education ministry structures concentrating the
attention on support of training computers’ courses and information
technologies and much smaller attention to actual media education problems. The
target to give media education movement a new pulse is connects with the
consolidation of all educational and media educational organizations and media
communities. As a whole the comparative analysis modern media education in
France and Russia in XXI centuries has
shown that, despite of the certain
distinctions, it has common extremely actual in epoch refined media manipulations
vector - aspiration to development of critical and democratic thinking,
creative abilities on media material - at all levels of training.
Keywords: Media education, media literacy, media competence,
comparative analysis.
Received 29 August 2009, accepted 13 October 2009
Pages 51-64.
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7. Children between sustainable development and commercials
Lilla Péter,
Szilvia Balázs (Romania)
Abstract: Our paper deals with the relationship between
sustainability, media advertisements and their effect on children. This topic
is highly actual today, as the children of today, who grow up in front of the
TV will be the consumers of tomorrow. The perpetual growth of consuming and
sgathering material goods is not serving the sustainable development. However advertisements keep on telling us
that we should purchase, buy, have things, as we all are what we can buy. On
can buy happiness or become like protagonists featuring in the advertisements.
Regardless of the actual programme, this is the overall message of the
advertisements. Adults may be able to look at these ads from a critical point
of view, but children, who are much more vulnerable in front of the effects of
television, tend to take a dreamworld for reality. The aim of the paper is an
empirical research on 7-9 years children. The primordial question of our
research is the way how the commercials had effect on the children’s view on
the world, view on themselves, their own and their family’s present and future
consuming habits.
Key-words: children, sustainable
development, commercials
Pages 65-74.
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Maria Eliza Dulamă, Oana-Ramona Ilovan, Cornelia Vanea (Romania)
Abstract: The
purpose of our research was to test the following hypothesis: 6 and 7 years old
children’s representations were strongly influenced by the environment they
lived in. Representations are interiorised models of objects, phenomena and
events, independent of present use of our senses and of the presence or absence
of objects. We realised our research in Grădiniţa cu Program Normal
Floreşti/Floreşti Kindergarten, Cluj county, during the 2008-2009
school year. The sample was represented by twelve children in their last year
of kindergarten, preparing for school. We analysed nine of those children’s
drawings. We identified the representations that appeared in several of
children’s drawings and in the same child’s drawings for several times, then we
identified for each child her or his singular representations and compositions
as a reflection of the world they were living in or of an imaginary world.
After analysing children’s drawings we realised that it confirmed the
hypothesis that 6 and 7 years old children’s drawings were influenced strongly
by their environment. We noticed the following: kindergarten children’s
representations were very diverse, but they were characterised by a certain
peculiarity of the place they inhabited; some objects appeared more often than
others, and that meant that kindergarten children knew them better and could
represent them graphically more easily; kindergarten children preferred drawing
familiar objects that they had drawn before; some drawings included the
essential features of the represented objects and that proved that kindergarten
children had the respective concept and could represent it in drawings, while
one could not identify other objects without writing down what the child said
he or she meant.
Key-words: drawing,
perception, environment, concept, process, mental image
Pages 75-90.
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9. The units tell you what to do
Simon Brown (Australia)
Abstract: Many students have some
difficulty with calculations. Simple
dimensional analysis provides a systematic means of checking for errors and
inconsistencies and for developing both new insight and new relationships between
variables. Teaching dimensional
analysis at even the most basic level strengthens the insight and confidence of
students, and provides them with a tool that can be applied in almost any
context.
Key-words: activity
coefficient; dimensional analysis; equilibrium coefficient; pH
Pages 91-100.
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10. Is
algebra really difficult for all students?
Gunawardena
Egodawatte (Canada)
Abstract. Research studies have
shown that students encounter difficulties in transitioning from arithmetic to
algebra. Errors made by high school students were analyzed for patterns and
their causes. The origins of errors were: intuitive assumptions, failure to
understand the syntax of algebra, analogies with other familiar symbol systems
such as the English alphabet and interference from arithmetic. There were other
psychological factors such as carelessness, anxiety, overconfidence, and lack
of motivation. Three major error types are discussed with their causes using a
cognitive psychological approach. Solution methods of another group of students
show that they were eager to use algebraic methods over arithmetic procedures
even though arithmetic procedures are more straightforward. The paper argues
that creative methods used by some students should be used to reinforce the
learning of other students.
Key-words: Algebra, error analysis, misconceptions in algebra
Pages 101-106.
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11. Chemistry inreach: university employees’ children experiencing university chemistry
Amanda J. Shaw, Timothy G. Harrison, Dudley E. Shallcross, Marcus I.
Medley (United Kingdom)
Abstract: Many university departments provide public
engagement activities, often referred to as ‘outreach’ to school students,
their teachers and other members of the public. It is less common for
University Departments to run activities for their employees let alone the
children of these employees. This paper looks at the value put on an engagement
activity both by participating students and their parents who are employees of
the host university. Analysis shows that the students welcome the opportunity to
experience aspects of their parents’ workplace and those parents are extremely
supportive of such initiatives.
Key-words:
public
engagement, inreach, chemistry, aspiration raising.
Pages 107-112.
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