Online physically active academic lessons in COVID-19 times: A pilot study.

Schools play an important role in promoting physical activity among students. This paper studies the perception of educators, students, and parents about the use of online physically active academic lessons during COVID-19 in the north of Chile. Starting the first week of November 2020, and for a period of five weeks, 323 students, alongside 11 educators, practiced a geometry-based dance routine online. The qualitative analysis results reveal a positive perception of the experience and an increase in physical activity without reducing the amount of time spent on academic activities. There were also improvements in learning, social relationships, and enjoyment.

Promoting critical thinking in an online, project-based course.

Education institutions are expected to contribute to the development of students' critical thinking skills. Due to COVID-19, there has been a surge in interest in online teaching. The aim of this study is therefore to design a strategy to promote critical thinking in an online setting for first year undergraduates. An intervention was carried out with 834 students at an engineering school; it comprised five activities designed to develop critical thinking. Both the control and experimental groups worked with a project-based learning strategy, while the experimental group was provided with scaffolding for a socially shared regulation process. All students answered an identical pre- and post-test so as to analyze the impact on critical thinking. Both strategies performed significantly better on the post-test, suggesting that online project-based learning improves critical thinking. However, following a socially shared regulation scaffolding led to a significantly greater improvement. In this sense, the socially shared regulation scaffolding provided to the experimental group proved to be key, while feedback was also an important element in the development of critical thinking. This study shows that online project-based learning fosters the development of critical thinking, while providing a socially shared regulation scaffolding also has a significant impact.

Taking critical thinking, creativity and grit online.

Technology has the potential to facilitate the development of higher-order thinking skills in learning. There has been a rush towards online learning by education systems during COVID-19; this can therefore be seen as an opportunity to develop students' higher-order thinking skills. In this short report we show how critical thinking and creativity can be developed in an online context, as well as highlighting the importance of grit. We also suggest the importance of heuristic evaluation in the design of online systems to support twenty-first century learning.

Cultural illiteracy and the Internet.

The Internet has created different expectations regarding its possibilities as a tool for including groups that have heretofore been excluded from the modern world. But mere access to information does not necessarily imply correct and effective use of it. Despite the great increase in Internet access in previously excluded areas, expectations of inclusion have not been fulfilled. Research suggests that the effectiveness of Internet use varies among cultures, but all such studies analyze countries as a whole with no further breakdown. Yet it is known that within a given country there co-exist subcultures that differ both in language and social context. This paper presents a study that shows the correlation between different social subcultures and their Internet knowledge.