Introduction to Educational Informatics (6 ECTS) - J175613

Johdatus didaktiseen tietojenkäsittelytieteeseen (6 op) - J175613

Last update: 16 March 2010

Notes

Basic info about the course

The course is compulsory for the students at the Educational Technology and IT Teacher master degree study lines. The course is also highly recommended to all those who write their Master Thesis under the supervision of Professor Sutinen or other senior researchers at the Edtech group, adding some practical benefits to the preparation of the thesis. This course replaces “Education Technology of the Computer Science" (Tietoteknikan Opetusteknologia) - 173304. The course will be given in English, if at least one international student will participate to the course.

The course is kept by Professor Erkki Sutinen and Senior Assistant Jarkko Suhonen.

The session in Spring 2010 is organisedJanuary 26, 2010, 14:00-16:00, in Room 2D309 (Edtech-lab). Practical arrangements as well as course's further schedule will be discussed during the seminar.

Short introduction to the course

In Finnish

Mitä on didaktinen tietojenkäsittelytiede? Monitieteellisyyden haasteet. Alan ajankohtaiset näkökulmat. Opintojen ja pro gradu -tutkielman eteneminen; esim. pro gradu -tutkielmien yhteinen ohjaus (mitä gradu pitää sisällään? mikä on hyvä tutkielma? jne). Pro gradu -tutkielman etenemisen esittely vähintään kolme kertaa: (1) tutkimusongelma, tutkimusmetodit ja jäsennys, (2) kirjallisuuskatsaus ja tausta, (3) kokonainen luku. Suoritusmuoto: kuukausittain kokoontuva runkoseminaari johon osallistutaan koko maisteriohjelman ajan (mukana linjan alumneja ja vierailevia tutkijoita).

In English

What is didactic computer science? What are the challenges of multidisciplinarity? What are the current topics of the domain? In this course the preceding questions will be answered and master’s thesis instruction will be given on 1) identifying research questions, 2) writing literature reviews and background, and 3) presenting results and discussion sections. The course will be conducted via monthly seminars throughout the period of students’ master studies.

How to complete the course

The students need to complete the following tasks (0 - 8) in order to pass the course. For the tasks 1 - 4 and 6 - 8, you are required to prepare a presentation of 20 minutes (10-15 mins for presentation + 5-10 minutes for discussion). Prepare also the slides for the presentation, and send them in advance to Jarkko (jarkko.suhonen(at)uef.fi).

In the task 5 (opponentship), you are required to be an opponent for other students' presentations for the tasks 1 - 4 (related to the thesis work). In order to complete this task succesfully, you need to get familiar with the material you will be sent before the seminar, and prepare questions about the topic and presentation. Note, that you should work as an opponent four times in order to complete this task.

The schedule and task lists for the forthcoming seminar meetings can be found at course wiki. Also, a list of completed tasks can be found there. New tasks can be allocated to future seminar meetings at the end of each session or by email to Jarkko well before (at least one week) the next seminar meeting.

The required components of the course include

0. Active participation

• you should participate at least to 15 course meetings
• at least five (5) meetings will be held each semester, so it is possible to study the course in three semesters.

1. Plan for the Master Thesis

• table of content
• motivation and links to previous research work
• research question(s) and objecttives
• planned method(s) and research design
• preliminary discussion abou the relevance of the study and expected results

2. Literature review

• information about the terminology, concepts and existing studies related to the topic of the thesis
• an overview of the present situation of the reserach field
• identify possible dependencies and conflicts between existing literature
• identify the state-of-art work in the field, "champions" or/and gaps in existing knowledge in order to justify the research work
• minimum scope of a literature review: cover 8-10 relevant scientific publications (peer-reviewed journals and conferences).
• starting point for searching materials: academic search engines, digital libraries available via library services of the university, biographic databases, citation indexes, journal collections in libraries, thesis and dissertations, etc.

3. Methodolgoy

• the research design plan for the master thesis study (e.g. participants, reserarch protocol, data collection methods, thoretical framework)
• discussion about the methodological approach of the study: technical/creative research, evaluative, qualitative, quantiative, design research, action research
• how the used research methods will answer the research questions of the study?
• preliminary discussion about expected results

4. Ready thesis

• brief presentation of the topic
• discussion about the main results and conclusions of the study, e.g. main results
• any unexpected results?
• critical reflection, e.g. what I would have done differently?

5. Opponentship (four times)

• quality is more important than quantity
• analyze the message, not details
• language
• plagiarized?
• list of references
• style of presentations
• argumentation

6 - 8. Tools, article presentations and visits

• one piece of educational technology tool
• one issue of recent educational technology journal
• visits to schools, companies or other relevant organisations

Seminar Timetable (Spring 2010)

Seminar materials

Wiki
Access from the university network: http://cs.joensuu.fi/pages/intra/coursewiki
Access from outside of the universtiy network (authentication by your cs/cc account): http://joecat.joensuu.fi:8080/login?url=http://cs.joensuu.fi/pages/intra/coursewiki

Readings

• Meisalo, Sutinen, Tarhio (2004) Modern Learning Environments
• Jonassen (2004) Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technologies
• Adelsberg, Collins, Pawlovski (2002) Handbook on Information Technologies for Education and Training

List of Journals for EdTech interests

The following linked page provides links to journals that are relevant for students and researchers in the field of Educational Technology for Computer Science. The journals are either available online or through the library e-services (as for example the Ex Libris).

• Journals for EdTech people

Available topics for Master Thesis

See the most up-to-date list of EdTech reserach group's thesis topics here.