Chee-Kit Looi

• Nanyang Technological University

The importance of computational thinking (CT) as a 21st-century skill for future generations has been a key consideration in the reforms of many national and regional educational systems. Much attention has been paid to integrating CT into the traditional subject classrooms. This paper describes a scoping review of learning tools for integrating CT...

As earlier studies highlighted the importance of teachers' preparedness to develop computational thinking (CT) for students in school education, this study aims to explore the teaching areas involved in the mathematics teachers' preparedness to integrate CT in classrooms, as well as to investigate the considerations for effective training or profes...

In recent years, computational thinking (CT) skills have been globally recognized as a 21st-century skill that must be developed for future generations. However, the lack of validated CT assessments would be a major impediment in the efforts to incorporate CT into the school curriculum. This study is intended to validate the Computational Thinking...

Abstract Numerous studies have shown that learning is enhanced when students show interest in the subject matter. However, educators continue to grapple with the challenges, or simply do not recognize their potential roles, in the development of students’ academic interest and interest in learning in general. This conceptual paper is written under...

The chapters in this book presents the ICT in Education policies and implementation in eleven countries through the lens of six main themes, namely, ICT policy, ICT infrastructure, educational resources, ICT integration into practices, students’ ICT competence, and teachers’ professional development. This final chapter discusses some of the salient...

This study was performed to explore the views of preservice teachers of computational thinking (CT) through a pilot survey. A total of 329 preservice teachers from the National Institute of Education Singapore took part in this pilot survey. These preservice teachers were trained to teach STEM and non-STEM subjects. The overall findings showed that...

Interest-driven creator (IDC) theory is a design theory that intends to inform the design of future education in Asia. It consists of three anchored concepts, namely, interest, creation, and habit. This paper presents the third anchored concept habit as well as the habit loop. IDC theory assumes that learners, when driven by interest, can be engage...

The constructivist paradigm opens abundant opportunities for effective knowledge construction in which student build knowledge and continually evaluated and improved their knowledge. The teaching mode under constructivist pedagogy redefines the role of students and the teachers and their interrelationships by creating a nurturing environment. By ad...

The interest-driven creator (IDC) theory is being developed as a group endeavor by Asian researchers to articulate a holistic learning design theory for future education in Asia. The theory hypothesizes that students, driven by interest, can be engaged in the creation of knowledge (generating ideas and artifacts). By repeating this creation process...

Many education systems have recognized the importance of computational thinking and coding skills and are implementing curricular changes to introduce coding into formal school education. A necessary and critical success factor involves the preparation of and support for teachers to teach coding. Thus, understanding the perceptions of teachers towa...

This chapter provides a current review of augmented reality in education. The scope of the review covers digital and non-digital technologies, such as mobile devices as well as paper-based systems. We hope the review can illuminate further discussion by addressing two key questions: (1) what are the learning theories that can be used to inform the...

“Heuristic approach” is a teachers’ professional development (TPD) method supported by principled practical knowledge (PPK) which focuses on principled practical guidance that develops teachers’ capacity in innovative learning designs. This study reports the key features of the design and implementation of a TPD programme aimed at facilitating teac...

Many countries that recognise the importance of Computational Thinking (CT) skills are implementing curriculum changes to integrate the development of these skills and to introduce programming into formal school education. In countries such as the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Finland, Korea and Japan, initiatives and policies are made to introduce th...

In this chapter, we seek conceptual clarity on the notion of seamless learning towards understanding its unique contributions towards learning. We will compare the salient characteristics of seamless learning with the definitions and framing of other relevant learning notions or approaches. We postulate that putting together related notions, theori...

With the recognition of the value of learning in informal spaces, it has been proposed that learning in the informal spaces should be an integral part of the formal schooling. The ubiquitous use of mobile technology creates various opportunities for connecting learning in the formal and informal contexts. In seamless learning, different efforts hav...

Unplugged activities have been one approach to introduce computational thinking (CT) to students before any form of coding is involved. This paper reports on a study that examines the evaluation of the types of CT skills inculcated through an unplugged activity. Students in a grade 9 class were engaged in an unplugged activity on sorting before bei...

Asian education is known for its examination-driven orientation, with the downsides of distorting the processes of learning and teaching, diminishing students’ interest in learning, and failing to nurture twenty-first century competencies among students. As a group of Asian researchers, we have been developing Interest-Driven Creator (IDC) Theory,...

The current paper proposes a grey-based approach to conduct cross comparison analysis of multiple Computational Thinking (CT) activities, which could be used to better inform decision makers and policy makers in education about the exact CT activities which they might like to consider selecting for the learners; regardless of whether these CT activ...

Background and purpose: To date, there has been little research on the Teacher Professional Development (TPD) for delivering a mobile technology-supported science curriculum. To address this, a TPD model for a science curriculum supported by mobile technology was developed and evaluated in this paper. The study reported focuses on the establishment...

Appropriate design of collaborative learning activities for students using mobile devices can be supported by different forms of scaffolding provided by peers, by the teacher or by the technology. Building on prior studies in mCSCL (mobile computer-supported collaborative learning), we developed Chinese-PP, a novel in-class mobile synchronous colla...

This paper explores the crossover between formal learning and learning in informal spaces supported by mobile technology, and proposes design principles for educators to carry out a science curriculum, namely Boundary Activity-based Science Curriculum (BAbSC). The conceptualization of the boundary object, and the principles of boundary activity as...

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fifth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of...

When inquiry-based learning is designed for a collaborative context, the interactions that arise in the learning environment can become fairly complex. While the learning effectiveness of such learning environments has been reported in the literature, there have been fewer studies on the students’ learning processes. To address this, the article pr...

The research on mobile learning in science lacks in-depth investigation of the learning process. In this paper, we describe the implementation of a mobile technology-supported science curriculum developed by design-based approach. The long-term data collection and trace of learning process enable the exploration of students’ participation and ident...

Teaching professionals are crucial for the successful realization of e-Learning in school education. Major Asian cities/regions such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Beijing continuously invest in teacher development on e-Learning to empower frontline teachers and school leaders to advance school education in the digital era. This article aims...

Bridging formal and informal learning to enable students’ engaged learning is a core tenet of seamless learning. Addressing the limitations of the current studies on the innovative design and implementation of seamless learning scenarios, this chapter presents one well-designed and implemented curricular initiative at the primary school level, name...

While learning in informal contexts has been discussed for decades, there has been limited attention paid to the influence of informal learning on students’ learning in the formal spaces. Studies of students’ thinking and doing in the informal context that relate to their learning in the formal context have not often been conducted. Toward the aim...

This paper describes two mobile learning journeys in the zoo using either smartphones or tablets, and a mobile learning application SamEx, all designed and implemented as part of a research study in a Singapore primary school. Out-of-school semi-formal learning activities such as zoo trips present standard curricular topics where students go out of...

The term 'orchestrating learning' is being used increasingly often, referring to the coordination activities performed while applying learning technologies to authentic settings. However, there is little consensus about how this notion should be conceptualised, and what aspects it entails. In this paper, a conceptual framework for orchestration-rel...

With advancements made in mobile technology, increasing emphasis has been paid to how to leverage the affordances of mobile technology to improve science learning and instruction. This paper reports on a science curriculum supported by an inquiry-based framework and mobile technologies. It was developed by teachers and researchers in a multiyear pr...

This study presents and examines SamEx, a mobile learning system used by 305 students in formal and informal learning in a primary school in Singapore. Students use SamEx in situ to capture media such as pictures, video clips and audio recordings, comment on them, and share them with their peers. In this paper we report on the experiences of studen...

The articles in this special section focus on the topic of seamless, pervasive, and contextual learning systems.

The research literature reports on designs of ubiquitous and seamless learning environments enabled by the integration of mobile technology into learning. However, the lack of good pedagogical designs that provide for sustainability and the inadequate investigation of learning outcomes remain major gaps in the current studies on mobile learning. Th...

While the affordances of face-to-face and online environments have been studied somewhat extensively, there is relatively less research on how technology-mediated learning takes place across multiple media in the networked classroom environment where face-to-face and online interactions are intertwined, especially in the context of language learnin...

Scaling up curricular innovations is inherently complex. The scaling complexity comes from not only the influences arising from policy imperatives, government, or other top-level support but also the uptake of the practitioners. In the literature, factors that affect the degree of uptake and scale-up of innovations have been frequently discussed. H...

This chapter articulates a research approach that incorporates critical elements of design-based research (DBR) and design-based implementation research (DBIR) to implement and scale up technology-supported educational innovations. Following this research approach, Group Scribbles (GS)-supported collaborative learning has been implemented and susta...

In recent years, because of increasing expectations for the public investment in education research to benefit education policy and practice, there have been fresh impetuses for researchers to better understand issues key to the sustaining and scaling of educational innovations. Various research and implementation trajectories have resulted in stra...

Stemming from the wide-ranging discussions in this book of issues, strategies, approaches, and trajectories for achieving scalability and sustainability, this closing chapter presents a synthesis of various crosscutting themes that have emerged or serve as rise-above for a higher and deeper level of understanding of the happenings and trends in edu...

Though discussion of the teacher factor in ICT-enabled science learning abounds in the literature, the investigation of Teacher Enactments (TEs) of ICT-facilitated lessons through exploring teaching practices is still under-explored and under-recognized. Current studies are still lacking in evidence-based findings of TEs based on the investigation...

The conceptualization and implementation of the third Masterplan of ICT in Education (MP3) in Singapore provides a microcosm of the challenges and strategies for mainstreaming and scaling good practices in technology-enabled learning. A key component of MP3 is research-based educational innovations. In this paper, two succinct examples of such inno...

Teachers play an important role in the process of diffusion of an innovation. In our endeavour to achieve the diffusion of a curricular innovation from one seeding school to five other schools, we have investigated the learning of a group of teachers through an across-schools collaborative seeding journey. A preflective learning model for teachers...

One of the curriculum goals of e-learning in school education is to develop learners for 21st century skills through their daily learning activities. This paper aims to discuss the research issues and policy implications critical for achieving such a curriculum goal. A review of literature in the related fields indicates that K-12 schools should ta...

WiMVT (Web-based inquirer with Modeling and Visualization Technology) is designed as a learning system combining guided inquiry, modeling and visualization with the social interaction. In the paper, we first present the design rationale of the system, briefly describe the main functions, then discuss the features supporting model progression in sci...

This chapter describes the setting and context of a group of primary grade 5 (about age 11) students doing a collaborative learning activity in a science class. Data from this setting are analyzed in subsequent chapters in this book section. Students, in groups of four, used a networked technology called Group Scribbles (GS) to jointly complete a l...

This chapter adopts an interaction analysis method using the notion of uptake to investigate the development of progressive inquiry learning in a classroom setting using Group Scribbles (GS). In progressive inquiry learning, students work together on elaborating a shared object such as a research problem, products in a shared digital space like GS,...

Designing for orchestration needs an emphasis on the criticality of the teacher's agency, skills and understanding of pedagogies and technologies in orchestrating the classroom beyond the provision of material scripts and technological supports. Drawing on data from the collaborative classrooms that use a collaborative technology called GroupScribb...

This report presents three cases of ICT-enabled innovation for learning from Europe (eTwinning, 1:1 Learning in Europe and Hellerup School in Denmark) and four cases from Asia (e-Learning Pilot Scheme in Hong Kong SAR, Knowledge Construction with Technology (CoREF) in Japan, Third Masterplan for ICT in Education (mp3) in Singapore and Digital Textb...

The paper traces a research process in the design and development of a science learning environment called WiMVT (web-based inquirer with modeling and visualization technology). The WiMVT system is designed to help secondary school students build a sophisticated understanding of scientific conceptions, and the science inquiry process, as well as de...

In this chapter we present and discuss the results and reflections based on our recent developments and experiences in Europe and in Asia regarding how novel educational design patterns, mobile technologies and software tools can be combined to enhance learning. We propose and recommend possible directions for the design of future educational activ...

This paper describes the design of a technology platform for supporting content-independent collaborative mobile learning in the classroom. The technical architecture provides mechanisms for assigning different content or materials to students and then guiding them to form groups with other students in which the combination and integration of their...

Recent research has emphasized the importance of reflection for students in an intelligent learning environment. But, researchers have not reached a consensus on the most effective ways to design scaffolding to prompt reflection, nor have they accepted a common mechanism that can explain the effects of scaffolding on reflection. Two types of agent...

The design and implementation of innovative pedagogical practices is an echo to the social needs for educational change in the twenty-first century. It has emerged to meet the request for unlocking the inventiveness of the learner’s potential, and the need to take into account new possibilities for learning in a highly technology-mediated world. Wi...

In this paper, we present a mobile technology-assisted seamless learning process design where students were facilitated to develop their personalized and diversified understanding in a primary school’s science topic of the life cycles of various living things. A goal-based approach to experiential learning model was adopted as the pedagogical desig...

Cognizant of the research gap in the theorization of mobile learning, this paper conceptually explores how the theories and methodology of self-regulated learning (SRL), an active area in contemporary educational psychology, are inherently suited to address the issues originating from the defining characteristics of mobile learning: enabling studen...

This paper proposes the identification and use of principle-based pedagogical patterns to help teachers to translatedesign principles into actionable teaching activities, and to scaffold student learning with sufficient flexibility and creativity. A set of pedagogical patterns for networked Second language (L2) learning, categorized and undergirded...

This paper describes a technological framework for supporting mobile collaborative learning. The developers can reuse the framework's infrastructure to build content-specific mobile collaborative learning applications best suited for their content area of in-class or out-of-class learning. This paper reports on the experience in designing and using...

This paper shares the theoretical and methodological frameworks that are deployed in a 3-year study to examine how Singapore primary school students leverage on mobile technology for seamless learning. This notion of seamless learning refers to the integrated and synergistic effects of learning in both formal and informal settings, which is distrib...

With the realization that more research is needed to explore external factors (e.g., pedagogy, parental involvement in the context of K-12 learning) and internal factors (e.g., prior knowledge, motivation) underlying student-centered mobile learning, the present study conceptually and empirically explores how the theories and methodologies of self-...

Rapid Collaborative Knowledge Improvement (RCKI) is a pedagogical approach for designing computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) activities in the classroom. We have conducted design-based research on RCKI using the software called GroupScribbles (GS) in a few Singapore schools for over four years. For professional development of the teach...

This paper reports an attempt to rise above the past five years' expositions and studies on 1:1 mobile seamless learning by putting forward the notions of self-directed seamless learning and facilitated seamless learning to distinguish between self- and externally-initiated seamless learning activities. In order to nurture genuine self-directed and...

While addition and subtraction is a key mathematical skill for young children, a typical activity for them in classrooms involves doing repetitive arithmetic calculation exercises. In this study, we explore a collaborative way for students to learn these skills in a technology-enabled way with wireless computers. Two classes, comprising a total of...