This article provides an overview of the diverse ways in which computational thinking has been operationalised in the literature. Computational thinking has attracted much interest and debatably ranks in importance with the time-honoured literacy skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. However, learning interventions in this subject have…

As schools and districts across the United States adopt computer science standards and curriculum for K-12 computer science education, they look to integrate the foundational concepts of computational thinking (CT) into existing core subjects of elementary-age students. Research has shown the effectiveness of teaching CT elements (abstraction,…

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become a popular tool for worldwide learners. However, a lack of emotional interaction and support is an important reason for learners to abandon their learning and eventually results in poor learning performance. This study applied an integrative framework of achievement emotions to uncover their holistic…

The measurement of knowledge contribution in collaborative knowledge building is an important research topic in computer-supported collaborative learning. The information measures of knowledge contribution based on information theory are proposed in this study, which includes two measures: amount of information and information gain. Discourse data…

This study reviews the international literature on using Facebook for academic purposes to examine whether and how this popular social networking site contributes to teaching and learning in formal education. A review of 57 empirical studies on this topic suggest that (a) the majority of studies report positive effects or feedback of using…

Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) has been introduced as a conceptual framework for the knowledge domains teachers need to master to teach successfully using technology, and has drawn much attention across the educational field. Yet, the framework has been criticized for not being practically useful, due to inaccurate and…

This study evaluated a bilingual text-mining system, which incorporated a bilingual taxonomy of key words and provided hierarchical visualization, for understanding learner-generated text in the learning management systems through automatic identification and counting of matching key words. A class of 27 in-service teachers studied a course…

This study incorporated the problem-based learning (PBL) approach into a web-based English reading course. The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of PBL on the participants' English reading comprehension (RC) and to explore the participants' perceptions of PBL. The present study conducted a comparison of two teaching methods. Two…

Cognitive styles play an important role in influencing the learning process, but to date no relevant study has been conducted using lag sequential analysis to assess knowledge construction learning patterns based on different cognitive styles in computer-supported collaborative learning activities in online collaborative discussions. This study…

This article explicates the conception and evaluation of an information and communications technologies (ICT) professional development process for developing teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge for 21st century learning. The process emphasizes teachers' prolonged engagement with peers and researchers in design teams. Supported by…

In this study, we enhanced a problem-based learning (PBL) environment with affordable, everyday technologies that can be found in most university classrooms (e.g., projectors, tablets, students' own smartphones, traditional paper-pencil, and Facebook). The study was conducted over a 3-year period, with 60 postgraduate learners in a human-computer…

Scaffolding refers to a guidance that helps students during their learning sessions whereby it makes learning easier for them. This study aims to develop a framework of metacognitive scaffolding (MS) to guide students in learning Authoring System through Facebook. Thirty-seven master degree students who were enrolled in Authoring System course…

The scope of this article is to understand to what extent Computer Science teachers can find support for their Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) in teaching material. We report the results of a study in which PCK is used as framework to develop a research instrument to examine three high school computer science textbooks, with special focus on…

Both asynchronous and synchronous discussions have advantages and limitations for online learning. This study conducts an empirical analysis of these discussion activities while applying the proposed Seamless Online Learning Integrated Discussion (SOLID) system, which can instantly integrate Facebook's asynchronous discussion function with the MSN…

Researchers claim that pedagogical agents engender opportunities for social learning in digital environments. Prior literature, however, has not thoroughly examined the discourse between agents and learners. To address this gap, we analyzed a data corpus of interactions between agents and learners using open coding methods. Analysis revealed that:…