This study explores the use of virtual worlds, specifically Minecraft, on sustainability education and cognitive skills. Using the Teaching to Inspire model as a lens, we examine how students design sustainable virtual buildings and cityscapes aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the social-ecological systems (SES) framework. Our…

This paper narrates a case study on design thinking based education work in an industrial design honours program. Student projects were developed in a multi-disciplinary setting across a Computing and Engineering faculty that allowed promoting technologically and user driven innovation strategies. A renewed culture and environment for Industrial…

Management educators employ a variety of learning and teaching tools in order to engage students, with online business simulations being one of these tools. While many business simulations are available to management educators, they do not always fit the needs of the educator or have evidence to support their efficacy for achieving student…

Making the students understand the theoretical concepts of digital logic design concepts is one of the major issues faced by the academics, therefore the teachers have tried different techniques to link the theoretical information to the practical knowledge. Use of software simulations is a technique for learning and practice that can be applied…

When integrated within a holistic literacy program, phonics applications can be used in classrooms to facilitate students' self-directed learning of letter-sound knowledge; but are they designed to allow for such a purpose? With most phonics software applications making heavy use of image cues, this project has more specifically investigated…

Computer science has been a discipline for some years, and its position in the school curriculum has been contested differently in several countries. This paper looks at its role in three countries to illustrate these differences. A reconsideration of computer science as a separate subject both in primary and secondary education is suggested. At…

This paper presents a new photovoltaic (PV) power systems laboratory module that was developed to experimentally reinforce students' understanding of design principles, operation, and control of photovoltaic power conversion systems. The laboratory module is project-based and is designed to support a renewable energy course. By using MATLAB…

It is important, but very challenging, to design degree programs, so that the sequence of learning activities, topics, and assessments over three to five years give an effective progression in learning of generic skills, discipline-specific learning goals and accreditation competencies. Our CUSP (Course and Unit of Study Portal) system tackles…

This paper concerns sustainable approaches to design for learning, emphasising the need for designs to be able to thrive outside of the protective niches of project-based innovation. It builds on the "in medias res" framework and more specifically on a forward-oriented approach to design for learning: one that takes a pro-active design…

This paper presents the findings of the first phase of a three-year study investigating the efficacy of the digitisation of creative practical work as digital portfolios for the purposes of high-stakes summative assessment. At the same time the paired comparisons method of scoring was tried as an alternative to analytical rubric-based marking…

The Australian Government's widening participation agenda--also referred to as the social inclusion agenda--considers equity through the triple focus of access, participation and outcomes. These foci are catalysts for re-examining teaching and learning approaches in formal education. This article considers this national refocus and the…

Project-based learning (PBL) is a well-known student-centred methodology for engineering design education. The methodology claims to offer a number of educational benefits. This paper evaluates the student perceptions of the initial and second offering of a first-year design unit at Griffith University in Australia. It builds on an earlier…

With the world moving rapidly into digital media and information, the ways in which learning activities in mathematics can be created and delivered are changing. However, to get the best results from the integration of ICTs in education, any application's design and development needs to be based on pedagogically appropriate principles, in terms of…

This study explored the potential of digital games as learning environments to develop mindsets capable of dealing with complexity in the domain of sustainability. Building sustainable futures requires the ability to deal with the complex dynamics that characterize the world in which we live. As central elements in this system, we must develop the…

In various research areas, the availability of open datasets is considered as key for research and application purposes. These datasets are used as benchmarks to develop new algorithms and to compare them to other algorithms in given settings. Finding such available datasets for experimentation can be a challenging task in technology enhanced…