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These proceedings contain the papers of the 20th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2023), held in Madeira Island, Portugal, from 21 to 23 October 2023 and organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS). The CELDA conference aims to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a fast pace and affecting academia and professional practice in many ways. The CELDA 2023 Conference received 75 submissions from more than 24 countries. Out of the papers submitted, 46 were accepted as full papers for an acceptance rate of 61%; 11 were accepted as short papers and 1 was accepted as reflection paper. In addition to the presentation of full, short and reflection papers, the conference also includes one keynote presentation from an internationally distinguished researcher: Professor Barbara Wasson, Director, Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology, Norway. [Individual papers are indexed in ERIC.]

Adults are independent learners and are expected to direct their own learning. Nowadays, there are many MOOC platforms preferred by adult learners. Many states have adapted to these developments and established an online learning platform in order to carry out the training and development activities of civil servants. The Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye Human Resources Office has established the Distance Learning Gate (DLG) platform in order to carry out educational activities. In this study, learning preferences of adult learners were determined in order to improve the relevant online learning environment and to structure appropriate trainings for public personnel. For this purpose, the training preferences of adult learners were determined according to their title groups and education levels. The participants of the research consisted of 4864 civil servants who received training from the DLG platform. According to the results, it was determined that adult learners preferred personal development training the most and professional development training in the last place. It is seen that the servants in the service title group that watched the most training in all categories according to the title groups. It is seen that the groups that received the least education are the senior manager and manager title group. On the other hand, it has been determined that the number of adult learners' training and the education categories differ according to the education level. According to the findings, it is seen that those who watched the most education are adults at the compulsory primary education level, while those who watched the least education are those who are at the graduate level. This research includes the first phase of a series of research and a design-based research. As a first step, the training preferences of adult learners were determined. In the next stage, a recommendation system will be integrated into the DLG platform based on the determined profiles.

The paper shares the results of the process of forming a cross-disciplinary collaborative team and using a user-centered design framework to co-create a self-directed, self-paced, personalized, flexible learning environment as an alternative approach to preparing PK-8 preservice teachers to teach computational thinking. It is part of a larger project that attempts to respond to the need to create a computer science curriculum within a credentialing learning environment.

Memory palaces are effective tools for learning vast amounts of information in a canonical order using mnemonics. However, our review of the literature revealed a lack of implementation and user study of memory palace in Virtual Reality (VR) for neuroscience education. VR technology enables us to build highly interactive virtual learning spaces that are engaging and interesting. As a result, we implemented a web-based version of VR (known as WebXR) to help students about brain regions for the first time including the name, function, and location of each brain part.

Learning analytics includes interventions that will support learning and improve learning environments. Despite the fact that learning analytics is a promising field of study, the lack of empirical evidence on the effects of learning analytics-based interventions has been widely addressed in recent years. In this context, insights validated by experimental studies may play a crucial role. Therefore, there is a need for a report describing the methodological aspects and effects of current experimental interventions based on learning analytics. This systematic review provides an in-depth examination of learning analytics research that reports experimental findings to evaluate learning analytics-based interventions. The PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) 2020 protocol provided the basis for the work of this systematic review. This review contained 52 papers that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The results show that student-facing dashboards are the most common learning analytics-based intervention. Evidence from how user data is handled for interventions demonstrates that the most common method is the distillation of data for human judgment. This study confirms that a significant proportion of experimental studies employing learning analytics interventions have demonstrated significant effects on learning outcomes. The effectiveness of learning analytics-based interventions is also addressed in this review in terms of motivation, engagement, and system usage behaviors. The findings of this study will contribute to the literature in terms of describing the experimentally validated findings of learning analytics-based interventions in depth.

Science and technology education necessitates teaching and learning experiments involving electronic circuit construction and measurements using experimental equipment. In this study, a novel cross reality system for learning physical circuit construction and performing virtual experiments using virtual experimental equipment with mid-air haptics is proposed. The proposed system possesses a technical novelty that enables a learner to operate virtual equipment with the same motions of his hand and fingers as the operations of the real equipment. An evaluation test using 150 patterns of virtual experiments verified the proposed system's effectiveness.

The present study focuses on smartphone overuse and on problematic behaviors related to it, investigating possible differences at the intergenerational level among the variables considered. Through the administration of self-report questionnaires, the perception of smartphone distraction, smartphone problematic use, phubbing, and cognitive failures were surveyed. Two hundred and twenty subjects took part in the research. The participants, aged between 18 and 57, were divided by generation Z, Y and Z, according to Ristiyono, classification (2022). Data analysis was carried out through the application of Spearman's rho was used to analyze correlations between subscales. The Kruskal-Wallis test was invectively used to analyze differences between participants. The results confirm our hypotheses showing positive correlations between perceptions of smartphone distraction, phubbing behavior, smartphone problematic use, and cognitive failures, and a significant difference was found between generations in perceptions of all variables considered. Generation Z (18-26 years) shows the highest scores in almost all subscales examined.

E-assessment systems such as Numbas are now widespread in mathematics education at the primary, secondary, and tertiary level. However, little is known about the affordances and constraints of Numbas in mathematics teacher education. The purpose of this study is to investigate the emergence, perception, and actualisation of Numbas affordances and constraints, and their effect on teaching and learning mathematics. The study draws on Gibson's affordance theory and associated research in the field of digital technology. It follows a qualitative research design to generate data using semi-structured interviews of six students and two teachers. Data from the interviews were analysed thematically to highlight the affordances and constraints of Numbas and their effect on mathematical learning and teaching. Future work will continue exploring Numbas affordances and constraints for learning and teaching mathematics in similar educational settings to ensure more validity and reliability of the results.

In this paper we illustrate the architecture of the °'°Kobi system, which is aimed at supporting students' education in artistic or design activities. We will outline the scientific and methodological foundations of the educational approach aimed at enhancing the artistic conception and the design ideation. The functional requirements and the system architecture for implementing the °'°Kobi system are outlined. Finally, the paper discusses some relevant aspects concerning the system application in a real educational context and briefly reports about its preliminary assessment.

When examinees perceive a test as low stakes, it is logical to assume that some of them will not put out their maximum effort. This condition makes the validity of the test results more complicated. Although many studies have investigated motivational fluctuation across tests during a testing session, only a small number of studies have investigated motivational fluctuation across items within a single test. This study aims to examine the pattern of test-taking effort across items in cognitive ability tests when items are presented in a random order manner. Response Time Effort (RTE) was used as a measure of test-taking effort. This measure calculates the proportion of rapid responses in the test based on the response times for each item. Data from 213 university students completing the inductive reasoning test was examined using latent class analysis. The results suggested that examinees in low-stakes testing have different patterns of effort across items. Examinees who consistently provided a high level of effort across items had higher test performance, test-taking engagement, and RTE. Item position and item difficulty are also correlated negatively with test-taking effort. Implications of these results for researchers and practitioners are discussed.

An accurate global assessment of gifted children is essential to provide them with educational and counseling programs tailored to their strengths and vulnerabilities. Without neglecting the fundamental role of social-emotional skills on individual well-being and academic success, it is essential to shedding light on the attentional profile of intellectually gifted children. In this regard, findings from empirical studies are not always consistent. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the relationship between the cognitive profile of fifteen gifted children (mean age 9.6 years; SD 2.3), as described through the main WISC-IV indexes (IVE, IRP, IML, IVE, FSIQ), and their attentional profile assessed through AULA, an innovative VR-based ecological assessment tool that evaluates attention and inhibitory control. These first findings highlighted the correlation between intelligence and attention and provided indications for educational interventions. Therefore it is crucial to use innovative and highly ecological assessment tools to engage the IGen gifted learners. In this regard, researchers have recently developed and tested new tools that employ virtual reality (VR) to assess EFs (Climent et al. , 2010; Rizzo et al., 2006). VR-based assessment tools allow children to interact dynamically with realistic scenarios and situations that reproduce aspects of their everyday life. The present study aimed to explore the correlation between the cognitive profile of gifted students, as measured by the WISC-IV paper-and-pencil test, and their attentional profile assessed through AULA, an innovative virtual reality-based attention assessment tool. A previous study by Diaz-Orueta et al. (2014) explored the correlation between WISC-IV indices in a sample of averaged cognitive ability learners diagnosed with ADHD, demonstrating the reliability of the VR-based attention assessment tool in discriminating clinical subjects. To our knowledge, no studies have yet been conducted analysing the attentional profile of gifted children using a VR-based attention assessment tool. Therefore, we expect to provide valuable new information on the peculiar attentional functioning of gifted children.

Theoretical background: Learning in virtual realities (VR) has become increasingly important. In this context, VR appears to be particularly conducive to affective learning objectives, such as perspective-taking in VR actors. Previous research has often focused on investigating cause-effect relationships that focus on the direct effects of different VR visualization technologies on learning outcomes. Little research has been conducted on more complex constellations of learning-related variables. Therefore, the present study aims at elaborating a research design that can be used to investigate both the direct effects of VR visualization technologies as well as the mediating effects of learning process variables latent in VR. For this purpose, the research design will be experimentally tested by comparing head-mounted display (HMD)-based VR with laptop-based VR with respect to the intended learning objectives, and controlling for influences by underlying learning processes (here: the experience of flow within VR). Methods: 132 students of grades eight and nine were recruited. The subjects were assigned to experimental conditions (HMD vs. laptop). The VR content dealt with the exploration of the hiding place of Anne Frank at the time of World War II in Amsterdam. Questionnaires were used to collect several data including sociodemographic characteristics, knowledge gain, perspective-taking, subjective evaluation, and the learning process variable flow. Results: A significant main effect for the variable VR visualization technology was uncovered averaged across all learning indicators. However, a superiority of HMD-based VR was found for the two evaluative indicators and also for the affective learning indicator. For the cognitive learning indicator, the effect was reverse. More relevant than unidirectional relationships are the mediating effects. Mediating effects through the experience of flow were discovered several times. Thus, the experience of flow within VR can significantly explain the cause-effect relationships between VR visualization technology and learning outcomes, even if, for the most part, only effects for evaluative indicators could be determined. Conclusion: The present study was able to exemplify that the investigation of complex interaction structures of VR visualization technologies and learning process variables can make a large contribution to the understanding of learning in VR environments. Advantages of HMD-based VR over laptop-based VR with respect to some learning indicators were uncovered. The significant findings of the mediation analyses point to the fact that the direct effects of VR visualization technologies on parameters of learning can be significantly explained by learning process variables such as flow experience and are systematically overestimated if such learning processes are not taken into account.

E-tutorial learning aids as worked examples and hints have been established as effective instructional formats in problem-solving practices. However, less is known about variations in the use of learning aids across individuals at different stages in their learning process in student-centred learning contexts. This study investigates different profiles of students' learning behaviors based on clustering students' use of worked examples and hints in subsequent learning phases in a naturalistic setting. In a blended instructional format, the study was conducted on 1,072 students over an eight-week introductory mathematics course. By explicitly differentiating between learning to prepare a tutorial session, the first phase, learning to prepare a quiz session, the second phase, and learning to prepare the final exam as third phase, this study aims to contribute to the call for more temporality in learning analytics applications. Our study finds three profiles of learning that differ in the intensity and timing of the use of learning aids. Moreover, different profiles come with different learning dispositions, such as epistemic and activity learning emotions.

This study aims to explore an educational learning environment that supports students to learn conceptual modelling with the unified modelling language (UML). In this study, we call the describing models "UML programming." In this paper, we show an educational UML programming environment for science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) related subjects (especially for Technology or Engineering) in schools, which are able to apply from elementary school to university. At first, we explain why, what, and how doing the UML programming. In this study, we use a state machine diagram for UML programming. To draw this model, the students just put some states in rectangular shape and transitions in arrow shape. Two types of educational model notations in state machine diagram are introduced. Then, some advanced functions of the SRPS are described. They are an educational model editor, and management of users, learning tasks and models submitted by students. Next, two case studies with the SRPS are shown. One case study is adopted to the summer camp for 5th- and 6th-grade students. The participants were 20 students and were engaged in 4 hours workshop. We used a car-type robot with two DC motors, a one-touch sensor, and one infrared sensor connected to a micro:bit. The other case study is a formal technology class at one Japanese public junior high school. One teacher and five classes worked on UML programming for traffic lights. Each class had 20 9th-grade students. One student at this school was given a traffic light robot with three Light-emitting diode (LED) lights, a one-touch sensor, and one infrared sensor connected to a micro:bit. Finally, on the basis of these two case studies using our environment, we discuss the potential for innovative STEAM education with UML programming.

Vocabulary learning that overlooks the discrimination of single sounds in English language learning could lead to communication difficulties, such as the inability to hear and speak English pronunciation. To address this issue, vocalization strategy, in which students listen to the sounds of words and memorize them aloud, is considered a useful learning strategy, and has been reported to influence performance in English language learning. Many studies have shown that metacognition promotes the use of this strategy. In this study, we developed an English vocabulary learning support system using dictation-type speech recognition technology and evaluated whether it activates learners' metacognition and promotes the use of vocalization strategies.

This paper examines the possibilities and limitations of introducing simulated experiments in the psychology domain by practicing a course with graduate students in psychology, in which simulated experiments were conducted in place of real human experiments. The class-learning object was the dual-storage model of human memory. The simulation results showed anomalous results that differed from intuitive predictions. The results were also inconsistent with the results of prior human experiments. Analysis of reports submitted by 15 participants revealed that they focused on the anomalous results emerging in the simulation results and examined them based on the dual-storage model theory. On the basis of these results, future directions for this practice are discussed.

A virtual reality learning unit for the functioning of a router is used to show how students at bachelor level can be provided with another teaching tool in the future, whereby the didactic approach of a change of perspective makes optimal use of the advantages of virtual reality and should enable a more profound understanding. Further studies are needed to determine a long-term learning effect as well as the efficiency of a combination of teaching methods. However, the high demand from students in the field study shows that students are open to virtual reality as a tool beyond traditional teaching methods.

This study investigated how motivational orientations and learning strategies predict ninth graders' non-routine mathematical problem-solving anxiety. Non-routine mathematical problem-solving anxiety classification and prediction were investigated through TwoStep cluster analysis, linear discriminant analysis, and logistic regression. 274 ninth graders participated in the study. The participants were clustered based on their problem-solving achievements and test anxiety levels: high-level and low-level problem-solving anxiety. Extrinsic goal orientation, rehearsal, and peer learning were significant classifiers. Intrinsic goal orientation, self-efficacy, rehearsal, and help-seeking were significant predictors for ninth graders' non-routine mathematical problem-solving anxiety.

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic affects educational system around the world. Online learning is no longer an option, but a compulsory during this pandemic. This paper is to identify how far synchronous online learning in English as foreign language learning at higher education implemented. This study focuses on the use of Zoom meeting platform as technological devices that supports synchronous online learning as well as identifying the students' perception and challenges faced by both lecturers and students in Indonesia. This study applies systemic literature review (SLR) approach by collecting research articles from Google Scholar indexed database. There are twenty-seven articles published in 2020-2022 that meet the criteria which are reviewed. This paper results the voices from students related to the advantages and disadvantages during using using Zoom Meeting platform in EFL classroom as well as the challenges faced by both lecturers and students. The result of this paper can provide insight toward the use of Zoom Meeting platform as technological devices that can be adopted as synchronous teaching tool during social distancing. However, the Zoom user should consider the availability of stable internet connection and teachers' and students' readiness.

Digital resources offer a vast assortment of educational opportunities for students in higher education. From 2018 to 2022, a digital study assistant (DSA), named SIDDATA, was developed at three German universities and consequently field-tested. One of the DSA's features is an AI-driven natural language interface for educational resource recommendation. This paper performs an analysis of the effectiveness of recommendations, by analyzing data generated over the course of two years of DSA usage. We find that although initial user interest is high, only a small percentage of users engage with the recommendation feature. Furthermore, we find that quality of recommendations was perceived as mixed to negative.

Within digitally-supported learning environments, learners need to observe themselves so that they can reflect on their strengths and weaknesses and take a step toward autonomous learning. Within the scope of this research, a technology and analytics enhanced assessment environment in which students can assess themselves was implemented and tested. In order to determine N = 108 students' ability to use the assessment environment, behavioral patterns were determined based on their individual characteristics, system interactions, lesson performances, achievement motivation, confidence, and study interest. Findings indicate different system usage and behavioral engagement with the assessment system. The outcomes of this design-based research project indicate hints on how such assessment systems can be made more effective in future implementation stages.

Digital Study Assistants (DSA) are an emerging type of software that combines web-based software architectures, various data sources, and algorithms from artificial intelligence (AI) to assist learners in improving their learning-related behaviors. In this paper, we summarize the implementation and results of a field study with a DSA for hierarchical goal-setting (HGS) at the Bremen, Hannover, and Osnabrück universities from November 2021 to April 2022. The results show that 70% of students in the sample chose to get digital assistance for educational goal-setting, which is the highest interest rate among the nine assistance functions available. Of the 290 students who chose to use the assistant, only 10 completed the full assistive intervention, which equals only 3.4%. We conclude that we should improve the usability and user experience and reduce the interaction costs of the intervention.

In this contribution, we present a follow-up work-in-progress on an innovative system for facilitating small-group online discussions using an avatar during a video conference. A previous study has shown that the system had an effective, understandable, and more participatory interaction. Here, we examine long-term usage and its effects on subjective perceptions as well as objective engagement measures. Five groups of fifth and sixth grade students had six interactions with the avatar's facilitation. The results of the study show that all measures remained stable throughout the entire interaction, suggesting that the previous results were not due to the novelty effect and that the system is capable of maintaining long-term engagement and learning.

Making education available to everyone is about opening new doors to the future world where people are living with their full abilities and potentials. This vision was acknowledged by UNESCO and it was one of the main motives for introducing Open Educational Resources (OER) in 2002. Over the last two decades, OER have made a positive impact on spreading quality educational information. However, the lack of experience in using and practicing OER is one of the common reasons why people have difficulties utilizing OER without violating copyright laws. To overcome this problem, a workshop concept was designed in order to qualify educators for OER. As part of the workshops, a digital educational game has been developed to elevate the participants' motivation and engagement. The game covers all basic aspects of the OER cycle (creating, editing, using, and distributing OER) and is designed to be played within the practical sessions. By implementing this game and utilizing the concept of Game-based Learning (GBL), we wanted to provide an interactive learning environment to practice OER and motivate learners to explore the OER world. In this paper, we present the concept of the game and demonstrate its technical foundation as well as its functionalities.

Systematic classroom observation is often used in evaluating and enhancing the quality of classroom instruction. However, classroom observation can potentially suffer from human bias. In addition, the traditional classroom observation is too expensive for resource-constrained environments (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Central Asia). A cost-effective automation of classroom observation could potentially enhance both quality and resolution of feedback to the teacher, and hence potentially result in enhancing quality of instruction. Audio-based automatic classroom observation using supervised deep learning techniques has yielded good results in limited contexts. However, one challenge when using supervised techniques is the high cost of collecting and labelling the classroom audio data. One solution for such data-starved scenarios is to use semi-supervised learning (SSL) which requires significantly lesser data and labels. This paper explores an audio-adaptation of the state-of-the-art SSL FixMatch algorithm to automate classroom observation. An adaptation of the FixMatch algorithm was proposed to automate the coding for the Stallings class observation system. The proposed system was trained on classroom audio data collected in the wild. The supervised approach had an F1-score of 0.83 on 100% labeled data. The proposed FixMatch adaptation achieved an impressive F1-score of 0.81 on 20% labeled data, 0.79 on 15% labeled data, 0.76 on 10% labeled data, and 0.72 using only 5% of labeled data. This suggests that algorithms like FixMatch that use consistency regularization and pseudo-labeling have a great potential for being used to automate classroom observation using a small labelled set of audio snippets.

This paper proposes the design of an ontology of multiple programming languages and give three examples to show the methodology. Our ontology aims to summarize the core of computational thinking logic by elaborating the concepts of three object-oriented programming languages in the industry: Python, Java, and C#. Therefore, the construction of the ontology lies not only on these three programming languages but also on their common concepts. This kind of ontology design facilitates the ontology extension and merging when concepts of other programming languages are added in the future. This ontology could be used to not only provide a guideline for any research work focusing on computational thinking education but also describe the common concept of visual programming tools and existing programming languages. Based on this ontology, an adaptive tutoring system intended to provide learners with personalized programming exercises, is under development.

This study investigated the effect of different assessment types on overall success in an online geoscience course covering energy's impact on the environment. Two groups took either the slower 1-credit or the faster 3-credit version of the course, which utilized the same content. Self-assessment questions developed using H5P, quizzes, summative assessment labs, and a capstone project were used to assess students. Independent samples t-test, multiple regression analysis, and repeated measures ANOVA were conducted for data analyses. Quiz success significantly differed between groups. Quiz, capstone, and lab assignment successes were significant positive predictors of overall success. The total frequency of answering H5P questions was a significant positive predictor of quiz and lab assignment successes. Frequencies for answering H5P questions and time spent on H5P questions in each module showed significant differences.

Education is shifting towards a more technology focused mode of delivery, or at least combining technology use with standard methods. A potential effect of this could be the introduction and use of games in classrooms. This study looks at the possibility of adapting various domains of knowledge into digital games referred to as serious games. The implementation of serious games within teaching may help keep certain students engaged with the content being presented and create further interest in the topic. However, before reaching this stage the means to transform these knowledge domains into serious games must be studied. This is done by focusing on three fields: gamification, ludology, and pedagogy. Through the use of a literature analysis, both a literature review and a focus on previous implementations, several key principles for the design of a serious game were identified, namely reflection, feedback, a story-based environment, and thorough structuring of content. These principles stem from the design choices of the previous implementations and pedagogical theories -- Merrill's First Principles and the ARCS model. The aim of the study is to investigate the possibility of using digital games as a means to encourage learning in teaching environments.

Game-based learning (GBL) environments are shown to support open-ended inquiry, collaborative learning, shared knowledge creation and decision-making processes. The study at hand focuses on examining students' descriptions of problematic situations and collaborative learning in a virtual simulation game. We were interested in what kinds of challenges the students encounter in virtual teamwork in GBL. Data of the study stems from gaming sessions in which teams of 5-7 students worked in a virtual learning environment and steered their simulation companies' supply chain in real-time. Students' reflection assignments were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Our results show that during the sessions students encountered communication challenges, collaboration challenges, organizing challenges and skills and competence issues. As all these are typical for modern dispersed collaborative work, we can state that the game-based course of this study provided the students with opportunities to rehearse and solve these challenges in a virtual working context. Our results emphasize the importance of providing students an opportunity to exercise collaboration and problem-solving skills in authentic, safe and inspiring settings, and that simulation games represent a feasible context for this.

It is important to make car-drivers improve their way of looking for recognizing key objects or areas precisely. This study designs a system following such a motivation that distinguishes several areas in a display with weights of importance. A present proposing function for successful area detection offers drivers an opportunity to compare their gaze with experts. Concrete method for this implementation includes U-Net that is one of major techniques of machine learning combined with grid segmentation.

Online synchronous classes and seminars are increasing in universities along with the outbreak of COVID-19. Since the online classes are not in-person condition, it is difficult for a teacher to monitor the learners. In the field of distance education, the need to support learner's concentration has been identified. More effective methods adapted to online classes in universities should be discussed. In this paper, we focus on the teacher's and learners' attention to the material in online real-time classes. We then propose a system that provides feedback on the differences in learners' gaze in order to improve the followability of learners. The proposed system assumes an online environment using Microsoft Teams PowerPointLive and acquires the "gazing point" at every slide-material and "page change history" of the teacher and learners. The results of using the proposed system suggest that it can improve the learner's followability to the teacher.

Drawing on research syntheses from the meta project Digi-EBF as well as the German Education Server, this contribution discusses how web products and services offered by the Information Center for Education at DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education address and support educational communities. In the area of research syntheses, important factors for success are a methodologically systematic and transparent procedure and an easy open access as well as a monitoring of formats by science communication. The German Education Server meets its transfer task by orientation towards dimensions of information quality, adhering to user's needs and evaluating its effectivity via different assessment and measurement methods.

Educational chatbots promise many benefits for teaching and learning. Although chatbot use cases in this research field are rapidly growing, most studies focus on individual users rather than on collaborative group settings. To address this issue, this paper investigates how chatbot-mediated learning can be designed to foster middle school students in team-based assignments. Using an educational design research approach, quality indicators of educational chatbots were derived from the literature, which served as a guideline for the development of the chatbot Tubo (meaning tutoring bot). Tubo is part of a web-based team learning environment in which students can chat with each other and collaboratively work on their group assignments. As a team member and tutor of each group, Tubo guides the students through the learning journey by different scaffolding elements and helps with content-related questions the students have. As part of a first design cycle, the chatbot application was tested with a school class of a technical vocational school in Switzerland. The received feedback suggests that the approach of team-based learning with chatbots has a lot of potential from the students' and teachers' point of view. However, the role distribution of the individual group members may have to be further specified to address the different needs of autonomous as well as more control-oriented students.

Flipped Learning is an active teaching methodology that consists of reversing learning times and spaces. It entails that the teacher prepares and provides in advance the content to be studied so that, during the lecture, there is more time to do exercises and practice the concepts learned during self-study. In this process, the feedback that the teacher provides to students on their level of understanding, as well as the learning outcomes and observations that students, in turn, provide to the teacher, play a key role to adapt the learning path to the learners' actual needs. The paper aims to present a first case study of the application of Flipped Learning in the corporate setting. The case study involved a small company that is one of the partners in the national project L.I.F.T. to measure the effectiveness of the approach and learner satisfaction.

This research study explores nuances to instructional delivery models beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. A case study that examines the redesign and reimagining of a graduate course to fit the diverse needs and preferences of students. This research was intended to provide insight into the possibilities of redesigning and reimagining graduate level courses for a master of education in educational leadership program at a state university in Louisiana. The research team engaged this case study in order to address the needs of current and prospective students regarding face to face, hybrid models, and online options for course delivery. This case study documents efforts to redesign and reimagine courses using instructional delivery models that meet the diverse needs and preferences of students and potential graduate candidates. While this case study has implications for instructional delivery at every level of education it is a work in progress. It begins to shed light on how graduate programs and course delivery will continue to evolve beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and well into the future.

Due to the advances of artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing, new kinds of Internet-based writing tools have emerged. Among other things, these AI-powered writing tools can be used by students for text translation, to improve spelling or for rewriting and summarizing texts. On the one hand, they can provide detailed recommendations for the adaptation of text elements within seconds. On the other hand, they also produce inconsistencies and errors, that students might not be aware of. How to deal with these tools in an educational context is a difficult question. Since writing tools are usually used unsupervised and without further instructions, students may need guidance from the teacher in interacting with those tools, to prevent the risk of misapplication. To better understand this underlying issue, the paper at hand uses survey data of 365 freshmen students to describe and analyze student perceptions of AI-powered writing tools. Regarding AI-powered writing tools, different student types were identified by using the k-means clustering method. The results suggest that students have different attitudes towards AI-powered writing tools. Some students may use them in an unreflective, non-sceptical way, which can lead to (un)voluntary plagiarism. Other students may not use writing tools at all, partly because they are sceptic, but also because they may lack meaningful learning strategies in general (course repeaters). Depending on the different student types, individualized teaching strategies might be helpful to promote or urge caution in the use of these tools.

Social robots have the potential to play a vital role in education. Student technology acceptance may be considered as a driver for their successful integration in educational processes. Based on the ICAP (Interactive, Constructive, Active, Passive) framework and research on social robot roles, we have developed eight vignettes describing scenarios for the use of social robots in higher education, e.g., teaching assistant. Students in an introductory university course completed the vignettes; they answered questions based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), as well as on their ethical approval. Drawing from a sample of N = 361 students, we carried out confirmatory factor analysis. In line with the conceptual basis, eight scenarios can be described. Overall, students do not accept social robots as presenters; however, the assessment of other roles, such as teaching assistant, is positive. By means of a latent profile analysis, we were able to identify four profiles that may be meaningful from a conceptual point of view. One profile is particularly noteworthy. It comprises students who accept social robots not as a means of instruction, e.g., as a tutor, but as a tool, e.g., to promote computational thinking.

The use of social robots in education is a growing area of research and the potential future applications are various. However, the conversational models behind current social robots and chatbot systems often rely on rule-based and retrieval-based methods. This limits the social robot to predefined responses and topics, thus hindering it from fluent communication and interaction. Generative language models such as GPT-3 could be beneficial in this context, e.g. for an improved conversation and open-ended question answering. This article presents an approach to utilizing generative language models to enhance interactive learning with educational social robots. The proposed model combines the technological possibilities of generative language models with the educational tasks of a social robot in the role of a tutor and learning partner. The implementation of the model in practice is illustrated by means of a use case consisting of different learning scenarios. The social robot generates explanations, questions, corrections, and answers based on the pre-trained GPT-3 model. By exploring the potential of generative language models for interactive learning with social robots on different levels of abstraction, the paper also aims to contribute to an understanding of the future relevance and possibilities that generative language models bring into education and educational technologies in general.

Among the various kinds of learning analytics emerging especially in the latest decade, clicking patterns cover a prominent role, fostered by their success in analyzing several types of data concerning activity on the web. They can be defined as sets of clicks performed by users, in which every set is treated as the basic unit. Few research has been performed on clicking patterns in educational contexts. In this paper, we perform analysis regarding clicks to an online course in Mathematics, aimed at allowing students to follow courses at a distance, both before and after enrolling at University. We used clustering techniques on students learning behavior, which have been defined for this research as visualizations of activities and resources of the course, to detect differences on students' grade according to their online learning behavior. Our results show that students tend to proceed on the course in both activities and resources. There is no correlation between participation and course grades, even if the most active students show higher scores. Moreover, patterns differ significantly according to the degree program of each student, showing the importance of tailored path.

Due to COVID-19 pandemic, educational departments such schools, colleges, and universities have been experiencing significant disruptions. All teaching and learning activities of face-to-face learning have switched to online learning. This study provides a systemic review of the literature with the aim to investigate the effectiveness, challenges, learning tools, and suggestions in EFL online learning based on an analysis of 40 published article journal from 2019 to 2022. This study has not yet been reviewed in the literature as part of a systematic review of studies. This study is based on Kitchenman's (2009) systemic literature review (SLR) approach, which allows it to gather data from a variety of sources. The dataset has been collected from SCOPUS databases. These data were analysed using Creswell's (2012) content analysis. The research findings revealed that all e-learning tools (e.g., "Voki," "LMS 'TES Blended Space'," "Pigai," "Zoom meeting" etc) used by universities teachers were very effective and beneficials for learners. However, some challenges were also identified during learning activities such as students lack of learning climate, poor internet connections, financial problems, technical problems, students' demotivation etc. Thus, the research findings suggested three aspects should be considered, namely a) having extensive and high-quality online resource access, b) using online resources on a regular basis, and (c) not only students but also teachers are being trained to use ICTs-in. In addition, teachers need to keep working on reinforcing the connection between digital technology and education meanwhile students need to made aware that it is acceptable to use digital media even it the most formal of educational settings. To summarize, this study suggests that once the COVID-19 pandemic is ended, the use of technology integration on online learning in EFL classrooms can be extended for equitable quality education for students.

The slow adoption of e-learning in Higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been attributed to many Information Technology (IT) success factors or factors related to the management of IT. While many researchers were able to identify legitimate factors that have an impact on the adoption of e-learning, the impact of the cultural factors has not been thoroughly studied. The HEIs in the UAE have implemented e-learning solutions developed in Western countries. When these e-learning solutions are used without any cultural pedagogical consideration, they are creating inequitable learning conditions for UAE students. This case study aimed to investigate the role of the western-oriented culture e-learning pedagogy on the adoption of e-learning among UAE female students. Data was collected qualitatively from interviews with colleagues who are using western-oriented cultural pedagogies in their e-learning classes. A pattern matching technique was used to analyse the collected data. The cultural constructs of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) were used as a lens to guide this study. The findings revealed the impact of the western-oriented pedagogy of Blackboard Learn (BBLearn) on the slow adoption of e-learning in the researchers' department. This study confirmed the importance of the local UAE culture on the adoption of e-learning and calls for further studies in that domain.

A learner model reflects learning patterns and characteristics of a learner. A learner model with learning history and its effectiveness plays a significant role in supporting a learner's understanding of their strengths and weaknesses of their way of learning in order to make proper adjustments for improvement. Nowadays, learners have been engaging in online learning frequently and intensely, leaving behind tremendous learning history data that contain informative insights about the learners' learning patterns. This paper proposed a method for developing learner models by applying the Markov chain to learning history data. Our method transforms individual learners' resource use data in a learning course into a large amount of resource use sequences, then develops a Markov learner model, and generates the resource use steady state for each learner. The resource use density, the resource steady state, and the assessment scores of individual learners tell their learning patterns and the effectiveness of the learning patterns. From the Markov learner model, we generate a learner profile for describing learning patterns and an index for measuring the strength of learning habits of the learner. We verified our method by applying it to each course in the OULAD dataset to predict the learning performance using the index. The preliminary results gain up to 97% accuracy on the pass/fail prediction problem.

At present, issues of the education system and quality improvement are topical in the whole world. Today, universities need to be prepared to offer young people education that makes them competitive in these new working conditions. When considering development of the education, they shall understand necessity of changing both content and form of the studies. As today's youth grow in an era of digital technologies and is dwelling in a virtual environment, they increasingly are demanding flexible study format that complies with their usual habitat. Therefore, the main task of universities and other higher educational establishments at this time of change is to develop intellectual skills, exploratory research attitudes and build ICT skills in a new specialist. Mathematical study programs and didactics need to be improved on the basis of ICT (paying more attention to the application of mathematics, including using ICT), creating modern technology-based learning materials and ensuring the Internet access. In order to increase students' responsibility for the learning process and to promote the ability to independently acquire knowledge, skills and abilities, it is necessary to create the preconditions for self-directed learning in higher education institutions, that is, students themselves participating in setting the purpose of studies, planning the acquisition of the subject, presentations, and evaluating their work together by agreeing on final assessment with the assessment of peers and teachers. As known, e-studies and self-assessment tests are the basis of self-directed learning. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to determine the use of various e-study materials in the learning of a mathematics course, as well as the importance of tests in the self-assessment of mathematical knowledge and skills. The findings of this study include the analysis of the usage of e-study materials and tests for assessing students' mathematical knowledge and skills, as well as determination of the importance of self-assessment tests in the learning of a mathematics course, based on the students' opinion.

As we talked with school teachers about the use of physical computing systems in class, one major drawback of these systems became obvious: almost nobody--next to enthusiastic autodidacts--has been able to tell us on an abstract basis for which educational purposes a certain physical computing system can be used, i.e. in a goal-oriented way. This insight lead to the approach to structure the field of physical computing systems with the overall goal to make it easier for teachers to improve their lectures due integrating physical computing systems into computer science education. The aim of this paper is to structure the field, to find categories and to show how existing devices can be integrated into the founded structure.

In this paper, we present didactical, technical, and interaction design aspects of a learning environment for training academic text reading skills in higher education that is currently being developed. The concept is built on experience gained from a gamified learning environment for academic abilities in the domain of German orthography standards. It uses spaced repetition for skill training instead of just memorizing facts and maintains user models that allow for adaptive task selection using expert-designed skill lists and task-skill allocations. Gamification components such as levels and ranks have been incorporated to boost motivation. Only 19% of users (n=121) ceased using the application when they reached the minimum obligatory goal in homework assignments, indicating that the motivational effects work for the target group. The foundation for transferring these experiences to a new domain is laid by analyzing academic reading skills and competencies to be trained. In the design phase, task categories, interface mockups, and gamification mechanisms for the envisioned web application have been sketched, and it will now be implemented as an open-source application.

Some results of the basic school (14 years old) students' information and communication competence (ICC) in the digital environment study are discussed. About 30,000 students (14 years old) took part in the study. Information and Communication Literacy is considered as the ability to use digital technologies to search, manage, integrate, evaluate and create information. It is one of the key competencies that all of basic school graduates should obtain. As the availability of digital technologies grows, the gap in the ability of students to use them productively becomes more and more noticeable. The study identifies the actual students' information and communication competencies deficits at the stage of middle school completion. Performance-based online Information and Communication Literacy test (ICL-test) was the main research tool of the study. An attempt was made to determine to what extent the level of students' ICC is related to the work of the school, and to what extent it depends on the extracurricular environment. The results of the study indicate a strong connection between the ICC of ninth graders and their out-of-school environment and a weak connection with the work of the school. The reasons for the insufficient level of the ICC in a significant part of the graduates of the basic school are discussed and recommendations for its increase are proposed. It was found that ICL-test is a reliable online instrument to measure students' information and communication competence.

This paper deals with a solution allowing digital universities to extend the functionalities of their distance learning platform to offer a secure solution for the dematerialization of assessments. Currently we are witnessing the rise of digital universities, this is the case in Africa, particularly in Senegal. We are witnessing strong growth in the number of students, in a context of extension and diversification of training offers. This is the case of the Virtual University of Senegal (UVS), the number of students has increased from 2,000 students in 2013, the year of its creation, to 50,000 in 2021. It offers 13 licenses and 30 courses of training. With these large numbers, the organization of assessments in these universities becomes more and more tedious. Taking the example of the UVS with 50,000 students and 30 training courses, we will have to deploy millions of exams copies due to one copy per candidate. These universities have digital campuses (connected campuses) or Open Digital Spaces (ENO) which make it possible to organize face-to-face evaluations on the table. This organization has several disadvantages, on the one hand, the management of the proofs and the correction of the copies require the mobilization of human and financial resources; on the other hand, the risks of errors, reports and authenticity of the notes. In this article, we propose a secure system for managing online assessments in digital universities based on LMS Moodle, SEB and remote monitoring with the JITSI video conferencing system. The solution will allow universities to optimize human and financial resources and make assessment results more reliable.