Front Page
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
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IMPDET
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 Assa Abloy Connexor Discendum Heureka Karjalainen Lingsoft Microsoft Nokia Sordino Information Systems
CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS & SUMMER SCHOOLS
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