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Technology for promoting scientific practice and personal meaning in life-relevant learning

Published: 12 June 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Children often report that school science is boring and abstract. For this reason, we have developed Life-relevant Learning (LRL) environments to help learners understand the relevance that scientific thinking, processes, and experimentation can have in their everyday lives. In this paper, we detail findings that aim to increase our understanding of the ways in which technology can support learners' scientific practice and their personal meaning in LRL through the integration of two mobile apps into an LRL environment. Our analysis of the artifacts created in these systems show that technology must strike a balance between structured scaffolds and flexible personal design to support learners' scientifically meaningful experiences. Our data suggests that integration of media forms and mobile technology can provide creative ways for learners to express their scientific thinking, make artifacts of their personally meaningful experiences, and individualize artifacts in scientifically meaningful ways.

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      cover image ACM Other conferences
      IDC '12: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
      June 2012
      399 pages
      ISBN:9781450310079
      DOI:10.1145/2307096
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      Published: 12 June 2012

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      Author Tags

      1. children and technology
      2. life-relevant learning
      3. mobile computing
      4. scientific inquiry

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