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RESEARCH TOPICS
 Automatic Essay Assessment
 Concretizing Technologies in Special Education
 Development Project for Technology Education
 Information and Communication Technology for Development
 Kids' Club
 Mobile Learning
 Seniors' Club
 Software Visualization & Jeliot
 Technologies for Children with Individual Needs
 Text and Program Analysis
 Virtual Studies of Computer Science

WHO & WHAT
 News @ EdTech
 People @ EdTech
 Mémoire d'un Étudiant Français
 Publications @ EdTech
 IMPDET

FUNDERS
 University of Joensuu
 Department of Computer Science and Statistics @ University of Joensuu
 Academy of Finland
 European Commission
 European Social Fund
 TEKES - National Technology Agency of Finland
 SIGCSE - ACM Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education

INDUSTRIAL PARTNERS
 Assa Abloy
 Connexor
 Discendum
 Heureka
 Karjalainen
 Lingsoft
 Microsoft
 Nokia
 Sordino Information Systems

CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS & SUMMER SCHOOLS

Past
 IEEE 4th International Workshop on Technology for Education in Developing Countries, July 10 -12, 2006, Iringa, Tanzania
 Malta International Summer School on Educational Technology in Cultural Context, June 20 - 25, 2005
 Taiwan International Summer School on Educational Technology in Cultural Context, Taiwan, June 28 - July 3, 2005
 International Conference on Educational Technology in Cultural Context, Taiwan, July 7, 2005
 Mekrijärvi International Summer School on Educational Technology in Cultural Context, Finland, September 25 - 29, 2005
 See more...

CONCRETIZING TECHNOLOGIES IN SPECIAL EDUCATION

Concretizing technologies, such as programmable LEGOs, have been successfully used with nine groups of children in the Kids' Club project at the Department of Computer Science in the University of Joensuu. According to our experiences, not only technology skills, but also social skills are learned - even as a secondary effect - when work takes place collaboratively between school children, university students, and researchers in a technology-oriented environment. The ideas and activities of Kids' Club have been applied at schools that serve students with disabilities, such as the Pihlajapiha Special School, as well as schools that serve the general education population. According to the teacher's, assistants' and students' experiences working with concretizing technologies in a technology-rich environment seems to be a promising opportunity for developing social skills. Students' excitement to act in the environment and learn by solving primarily technical problems shows that visual and concretizing tools also offer an attractive environment for learning social skills.

Marjo Virnes, firstname.lastname@cs.joensuu.fi

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