A systematic review of social classroom climate in online and technology-enhanced learning environments in primary and secondary school.

Although the significance of a positive social classroom climate in face-to-face learning has been established, its role within online and technology-enhanced learning environments is unclear. The central aim of this systematic review was to synthesize the findings of empirical studies which have examined any aspect of the social classroom climate in online and technology-enhanced learning environments in primary and secondary schools. Appropriate search terms were entered into ACM Digital Library, Web of Science, Scopus, and ERIC in November 2021. Articles were included if they were relevant for the aim, reported primary data, sampled primary/secondary school students and/or teachers, and were published in journals, conference proceedings, or book chapters in English. Furthermore, articles were excluded if they focused on the development/testing of measurement tools. The thematic narrative synthesis includes 29 articles, comprising of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method studies. A quality assessment checklist was completed for all. The findings encompass examinations of the social classroom climate in online learning before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, in blended learning environments and a comparison between them. Furthermore, associations between the online social classroom climate and academic variables is explored, as is the fostering thereof through synchronous/asynchronous discussion groups and social media. We discuss the theoretical framing of the studies, the impact of a positive classroom climate in online and technology-enhanced learning environments on students, as well as practical approaches and new opportunities in leveraging technologies. Based on the findings and the studies' limitations we outline implications and future research, such as the need to consider students' voices and diversity, technology perspectives, a transdiciplinary approach and the reconceptualization of boundaries.

Co-Learning Computational and Design Thinking Using Educational Robotics: A Case of Primary School Learners in Namibia.

In a two-day educational robotics workshop in a Namibian primary boarding school, learners with no programming skills managed to apply both computational and design thinking skills with the aid of educational robotics. Educational robotics has proved to be an area which enhances learning both computational thinking and design thinking. An educational robotics (ER) workshop focusing on Arduino robotics technologies was conducted with primary school learners at Nakayale Private Academy. Observation methods through watching, listening and video recordings were used to observe and analyze how the learners were interacting throughout the workshop. Based on the results, it was concluded that this approach could be applied in classrooms to enable the primary school learners apply computational and design thinking in preparation of becoming the producers and not only the consumers of the 4IR technologies.

Critical events and pivotal factors as tools for analyzing the sustainability of online study programs.

A critical aspect of designing and running online study programs is the identification of factors and elements that could potentially threaten the continuation of studies. In this study, we first identified a set of critical events that occurred in the running of a Finnish online doctoral study program over 16 years. Next, we analyzed the events using a four-pillar sustainability model, which consisted of the economic, social, environmental, and ethical pillars. We detected several contextually relevant and dynamic pivotal factors related to each of the pillars, which had effects on the sustainability of the program at the time of the critical events. The analysis revealed that positive pivotal factors in one sustainability pillar can be used to compensate for negative pivotal factors in the other pillars. Two aspects that were crucial for the sustainability of the online doctoral study program were the resilience and shared commitment of the community involved in its activities, which helped in overcoming any challenges encountered. Based on this study, we recommended that future research should design novel solutions that help online study programs to proactively identify potential critical events and related pivotal factors. Furthermore, studies should find creative approaches for constructively coping with critical events that have been identified.

Learning History with Location-Based Applications: An Architecture for Points of Interest in Multiple Layers.

Location-based applications (LBAs) capture the user's physical location via satellite navigation sensors and integrate it as part of the digital application. Because of this connection, the real-world environment needs to be accounted for in LBA design. In this work, we focused on creating a database of geographically distributed points of interest (PoIs) that is optimal for learning local history. First, we conducted a requirements elicitation study at three outdoor archaeological sites and identified issues in existing solutions. Second, we designed a multi-layered prototype solution. Third, we evaluated the solution with nine experts who had prior experience with LBAs or similar systems. We incorporated their feedback to our design to iteratively improve it. As a whole, our work contributes to the LBA design literature by proposing a solution that is optimized for the learning of local history.

Misinformation sharing and social media fatigue during COVID-19: An affordance and cognitive load perspective.

Social media plays a significant role during pandemics such as COVID-19, as it enables people to share news as well as personal experiences and viewpoints with one another in real-time, globally. Building off the affordance lens and cognitive load theory, we investigate how motivational factors and personal attributes influence social media fatigue and the sharing of unverified information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, we develop a model which we analyse using the structural equation modelling and neural network techniques with data collected from young adults in Bangladesh (N = 433). The results show that people, who are driven by self-promotion and entertainment, and those suffering from deficient self-regulation, are more likely to share unverified information. Exploration and religiosity correlated negatively with the sharing of unverified information. However, exploration also increased social media fatigue. Our findings indicate that the different use purposes of social media introduce problematic consequences, in particular, increased misinformation sharing.