This qualitative case study explores a 6-year-old boy's dialogic appropriation of programmable robots. The study was conducted in two robotics education programs for children aged four to seven. Drawing on Bakhtin's (1981) notion of appropriation, we found that the focal child actively engaged with the programmable robots by (1) transforming the…

The ability to code computer programs is considered an important part of literacy in today's society. This paper reports from a case study in two sixth-grade classes where Scratch coding was part of six mathematics lessons. The aim of the study was to investigate how Scratch coding affected students' interest development in coding and in…

Although past research has sought to identify the factors of student engagement in traditional online courses, two questions remained largely unanswered with regard to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): do the factors that could influence student engagement in traditional online courses also apply to online courses that are massive and open?…

Activity theory (AT) is a powerful tool for investigating "artefacts in use", ie, the ways technologies interrelate with their local context. AT reveals the interfaces between e-learning at the macro- (strategy, policy, "campus-wide" solutions) and the micro-organisational levels (everyday working practice, iterative change, individual…

Reports findings of a case study that explored the possible benefits that dyslexic children might have when engaging in the creation of their own multimedia project. Concludes that the open-ended character of a multimedia authoring package can encourage creative thinking and interest for content and style of presentation. (Author/LRW)