Stavros N. Demetriadis

• Professor
• Professor at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Learning analytics (LA) is an educational innovation that enhances teaching practices and facilitates student learning. However, the degree of LA adoption across schools remains limited, and teachers who adopt LA do not engage with it consistently. Based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) as a framework, we conducted...

In recent years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have gained widespread popularity as a means to provide flexible and accessible education to a diverse range of learners. However, MOOCs face a significant challenge in the form of the laborious and time-consuming task of grading, particularly for coding assignments. Prior research has shown the...

Learning analytics (LA) involves collecting, processing, and visualizing big data to help teachers optimize learning conditions. Despite its contributions, LA has not yet been able to meet teachers’ needs because it does not provide sufficient actionable insights that emphasize more on analytics and less on learning. Our work uses specific analytic...

The primary objective of this study is to examine the factors that contribute to the early prediction of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) dropouts in order to identify and support at-risk students. We utilize MOOC data of specific duration, with a guided study pace. The dataset exhibits class imbalance, and we apply oversampling techniques to en...

Despite their potential to deliver a high-quality learning experience, massive open online courses (MOOCs) pose several issues, such as high dropout rates, difficulties in collaboration between students, low teaching involvement, and limited teacher–student interaction. Most of these issues can be attributed to the large number, diversity, and vari...

Learning analytics (LA) collects, analyzes, and reports large amounts of data about learners in order to improve learning in intelligent tutoring systems. Because LA ethics is an interdisciplinary field that addresses moral, legal, and social issues, institutions are responsible for implementing frameworks that address these concerns. Many ethical...

Design is a highly creative and challenging task and research has already explored possible ways for using conversational agents (CAs) to support humans participating in co-design sessions. However, research reports that a) humans in these sessions expect more essential support from CAs, and b) it is important to develop CAs that continually learn...

The popularity of Distance Learning during the Covid-19 lockdowns, apart from adhering to the doctrine of utilitarianism as a serviceable amenity for societies deprived of their natural outlets for mental effort, has also served as a forerunner for services and activities that could reshape the formal manner for conveying professional training. In...

Despite being investigated for over 50 years, the task of automated essay scoring continues to draw a lot of attention in the natural language processing community, in part because of its commercial and educational values, as well as due to the associated research challenges. Although the importance of automating the holistic scoring of an essay is...

This study investigates the impact of students’ response modality on the development of Computational Thinking skills in educational robotics activities. Students of an elementary school were divided into three study groups ('Control', 'Selecting' and 'Writing') that implemented activities based on the same teacher guidance while prompted to provid...

While massive open online courses (MOOCs) can be effective in scaling education, orchestrating collaborative learning activities for large audiences remains a non-trivial task that introduces a series of practical challenges, such as the lack of adequate human support. Even when collaboration takes place, there is uncertainty whether meaningful int...

Learning analytics (LA) is collecting, processing, and visualization of big data to optimize learning. This article aims to interpret the impact of analyzing learning data for tertiary education. The article describes a semester-long mixed methods study for 63 students enrolled in a Greek technical university laboratory, retrieving data from the le...

Η παρούσα μελέτη διερευνά την ανάπτυξη των δεξιοτήτων της Επιχειρηματολογίας και της Υπολογιστικής Σκέψης των μαθητών, στο πλαίσιο υλοποίησης ομαδοσυνεργατικών δραστηριοτήτων Εκπαιδευτικής Ρομποτικής. Ο σχεδιασμός περιελάμβανε τρεις ομάδες: α) ομάδα ελέγχου, χωρίς προσανατολισμένη καθοδήγηση στην ανάπτυξη δεξιοτήτων, β) πρώτη πειραματική ομάδα με κ...

The use of case-based learning environments (CBLEs) is expected to benefit students by guiding them to study contextually rich real world situations. However, efficient design approaches are needed to support students' processing of the complex material embedded in a CBLE. In this work we argue that, in designing technology-enhanced CBLEs, scripts...

Learning analytics (LA) collects, analyses, and reports big data about learners to optimise learning. LA ethics is an interdisciplinary field of study that addresses moral, legal, and social issues; therefore, institutions are responsible for implementing frameworks that integrate these topics. Many of the ethical issues raised apply equally to edu...

This volume includes contributions based on selected full papers presented at the 11th Pan-Hellenic and International Conference “ICT in Education”, held in Greece in 2018. The volume includes papers covering technical, pedagogical, organizational, instructional, as well as policy aspects of ICT in Education and e-Learning. Special emphasis is give...

In most Universities today, the sheer size of students in a single class and the limited time for on-campus lessons or activities limit the learning experience for both students and professors. Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs), which are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) used locally to support certain groups of learners, can be a practical s...

This paper presents the design of a learning analytics dashboard, utilizing learning traces that emerge from conversational MOOC activities. These chat-based activities encourage students to collaborate in dyads, with the support of a conversational agent, in order to answer open-ended questions, set by the course instructor. Taking into account th...

This work presents a novel approach for employing conversational agent technology in the context of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), aiming to support learners that work in groups to sustain productive forms of peer dialogue. An exploratory study is presented featuring 56 undergraduate computer science students, who interacted with a conversati...

Chatbot technology can greatly contribute towards the creation of personalized and engaging learning activities. Still, more experimentation is needed on how to integrate and use such agents in real world educational settings and, especially, in large-scale learning environments such as MOOCs. This paper presents the prototype design of a teacher-c...

Although conversational agent technology has matured over time, there is still a need for research on how agents can appropriately add value to real-world technological learning environments. This paper presents an ongoing research effort towards the design of low-cost, reusable conversational agents that deliver unsolicited interventions during on...

Information architecture forms the foundation of users' navigation experience. Open card sorting is a widely-used method to create information architectures based on users' groupings of the content. However, little is known about the method's cross-study reliability: Does it produce consistent content groupings for similar profile participants invo...

This study applies a mixed methods approach to analyze usability, collaboration, and playfulness aspects in introductory programming activities with tangible and graphical user interfaces of two groups of students (24 primary-scholars, 8–9yo; and 14 high-scholars, 12–13yo). The students had prior experience with the two interfaces, having used them...

Contribution: Prior studies on tangible versus graphical user interfaces have reported controversial findings concerning children's preferences. This paper shows that their preference profiles in the domain of introductory programming are associated with gender and age for both interfaces.

Το ερευνητικό ενδιαφέρον για τις δεξιότητες Υπολογιστικής σκέψης (ΥΣ) και την Εκπαιδευτική Ρομποτική εντείνεται την τελευταία δεκαετία. Η παρούσα εργασία διερευνά το ρόλο της τροπικότητας των απαντήσεων στην ανάπτυξη δεξιοτήτων ΥΣ σε δραστηριότητες εκπαιδευτικής ρομποτικής. Στην έρευνα συμμετείχαν 59 μαθητές ΣΤ΄Δημοτικού, οι οποίοι κατανεμήθηκαν σε...

Educational robotics (ER) is an innovative learning tool that offers students opportunities to develop higher-order thinking skills. This study investigates the development of students’ metacognitive (MC) and problem-solving (PS) skills in the context of ER activities, implementing different modes of guidance in two student groups (11–12 years old,...

Higher Education M assive Open Online Courses (M OOCs) introduce a way of transcending formal higher education by realizing technology-enhanced formats of learning and instruction and by granting access to an audience way beyond students enrolled in any one Higher Education Institution. However, although MOOCs have been reported as an efficient and...

This study analyses the impact of self and peer feedback in technology-enhanced peer review settings. The impact of receiving peer comments (“receiver” perspective) is compared to that of reaching own insights by reviewing others’ work (“giver” perspective). In this study, 38 sophomore students were randomly assigned in two conditions and engaged i...

This paper presents a comprehensive literature review on tangible programming languages which are designed to program real robots and robotic mechanisms. Tangible programming interfaces appear to be more accessible to novice programmers and possibly reduce the age threshold for participation, making this way robot programming an educational toy eve...

This paper introduces a proposed didactical model for organizing educational robotics activities, addressed to primary and secondary school, and called “CPG+” after Collaboration, Problem, Game - competition, while “+” stands for supplementary teachers’ supportive interventions such as promoting students’ problem solving and computational thinking...

Research in computer-supported collaborative learning has indicated that conversational agents can be pedagogically beneficial when used to scaffold students' online discussions. In this study, we investigate the impact of an agile conversational agent that triggers student dialogue by making interventions based on the academically productive talk...

Purpose - This chapter examines the existing work on tangible user interfaces (TUIs) and focuses on tangible programming with the scope to enlighten the opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship in this particular domain. Methodology/approach - In the first section, we start by presenting in short the history of TUIs and then focus on tangi...

Conversational agents that draw on the framework of academically productive talk (APT) have been lately shown to be effective in helping learners sustain productive forms of peer dialogue in diverse learning settings. Yet, literature suggests that more research is required on how learners respond to and benefit from such flexible agents in order to...

Η εργασία αυτή παρουσιάζει ένα εκπαιδευτικό μοντέλο για την οργάνωση δραστηριοτήτων Εκπαιδευτικής Ρομποτικής. Το προτεινόμενο μοντέλο ονομάζεται "ΣΠΠΑ+" από τις λέξεις Συνεργασία, Πρόβλημα, Παιχνίδι, και Άμιλλα/Ανταγωνισμός, ενώ το σύμβολο "+" αναφέρεται στην ανάπτυξη δεξιοτήτων, όπως επίλυσης προβλήματος, μεταγνώσης, υπολογιστικής σκέψης, συνεργασ...

Η παρούσα εργασία διερευνά την επίδραση της σύνθεσης των ομάδων με βάση το φύλο των μαθητών, στην ανάπτυξη δεξιοτήτων υπολογιστικής σκέψης στο πλαίσιο υλοποίησης δραστηριοτήτων Εκπαιδευτικής Ρομποτικής. Η έρευνα αυτή, εφαρμόστηκε σε μαθητές Γ’ τάξης Γυμνασίου και για την υλοποίηση της, οι μαθητές διαχωρίστηκαν με βάση το φύλο τους σε αμιγείς ομάδες...

In the context of the ASPAD project we explored the potential of robot programming tasks to benefit patients with MCI (mild cognitive impairment), when implemented as a form of cognitive training with the use of a user-friendly tangible interface. In this paper, we present relevant research evidence indicating that: (a) there is a significant negat...

This work examines the efficiency of an agent intervention mode, aiming to stimulate productive conversational interactions and encourage students to explicate their historical reasoning about important domain concepts. The findings of a pilot study, conducted in the context of primary school class in Modern History, (a) suggest a favorable student...

Research on the impact of peer rating (PR) has provided encouraging results, as a method to foster collaborative learning and improve its outcomes. The scope of this paper is to discuss peer rating towards two specific directions that usually are neglected in the CSCL field, namely: (a) coaching of objective anonymous peer rating through a rubric,...

Smart learning environments (SLEs) are typically described as environments that offer rich learning interactions by making use of digital, context-aware, and adaptive technologies. This work introduces the concept of “smart challenging learning environments” (SCLEs), referring to SLEs that employ computational models of a “learner challenging” stra...

This paper investigates the possible benefits as well as the overall impact on the behaviour of students within a learning environment, which is based on double-blinding reviewing of freely selected peer works. Fifty-six sophomore students majoring in Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering volun‐ teered to participate in the study. The expe...

This article presents evaluation data regarding the MAPIS3 architecture which is proposed as a solution for the data-transfer among various tools to promote flexible collaborative learning designs. We describe the problem that this architecture deals with as "tool orchestration" in collaborative learning settings. This term refers to a situation wh...

This work investigates the development of students’ computational thinking (CT) skills in the context of educational robotics (ER) learning activity. The study employs an appropriate CT model for operationalising and exploring students’ CT skills development in two different age groups (15 and 18 years old) and across gender. 164 students of differ...

Στην παρούσα εργασία παρουσιάζεται μία σειρά συνεργατικών δραστηριοτήτων για το μάθημα της Πληροφορικής στην Α’ Δημοτικού, με τη βοήθεια του λογισμικού ScratchJr, κάνοντας χρήση κινητών συσκευών τύπου tablet. Οι δραστηριότητες εφαρμόστηκαν σε πραγματικές συνθήκες τάξης και όσον αφορά στο κομμάτι της συνεργασίας μεταξύ των μαθητών υλοποιήθηκαν δύο δ...

In this study the authors start by highlighting the lack of a "tool orchestration" framework in e-collaboration environments either for work or learning purposes. To address this issue, they propose the MAPIS3 software architecture to efficiently manage the key problem in tool orchestration, which is the efficient data transfer among various tools...

Research on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) and conversational pedagogical agents has strongly emphasized the value of providing dynamic dialogue support for learners working together to accomplish a certain task. Recently, on the basis of the classroom discourse framework of Academically Productive Talk (APT), a flexible form of c...

The paper explores the potential of usage and ranking information in increasing student engagement in a double-blinded peer review setting, where students are allowed to select freely which/how many peer works to review. The study employed 56 volunteering sophomore students majoring in Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering. We performed a...

In this article we present a 3-layer architecture (MAPIS3) that facilitates the flexible implementation of technology-enhanced collaboration scripts. The proposed architecture introduces a mediator component (MC) as a key element for orchestrating and controlling data flow among tools. These tools can also include external services necessary for sc...

Over the past decades, intelligent conversational agents have been repeatedly used as pedagogical tools for fostering students' motivation and engagement in individual learning settings. However, in recent years, the uses of conversational agents have also been explored in collaborative contexts under the scope of Academically Productive Talk (APT)...

QuizIt is a new prototype real-time response system for Android mobile devices that enhance active learning methods and assess students' understanding. This paper presents a) the main elements of the system and b) the results from a pilot study concerning students' opinions on using the system. QuizIt system consists of three parts: a lecturer mobi...

This chapter presents the conceptual framework, the research rationale and preliminary outcomes of an innovative research agenda that explores the use of tangible interface and robot programming tasks as a method for providing cognitive training to patients with memory dysfunctions. The main argument of this approach is that when programming tasks...

Στο παρόν εργαστήριο παρουσιάζεται μία σειρά συνεργατικών δραστηριοτήτων για το μάθημα της Πληροφορικής στην Α’ Δημοτικού, με τη βοήθεια του λογισμικού ScratchJr, κάνοντας χρήση κινητών συσκευών τύπου tablet. Οι δραστηριότητες στοχεύουν στην εξοικείωση των μαθητών με εισαγωγικές έννοιες του προγραμματισμού, μέσα από το παιχνίδι με κάρτες παζλ και τ...

Druin & Hendler, 2000), ενώ δίνει τη δυνατότητα στους μαθητές να κατασκευάσουν, να σχεδιάσουν αλλά και να εφαρμόσουν τις ιδέες τους στην πράξη. Βασίζεται στη μαθησιακή θεωρία του κατασκευαστικού εποικοδομισμού (constructionism). O κατασκευαστικός εποικοδομισμός, εισήχθη από τους Papert και Harel (1991), επεκτείνοντας τη θεωρία του εποικοδομισμού (c...

Η υπολογιστική σκέψη (ΥΣ) είναι μια δεξιότητα κριτικής σκέψης και προσελκύει ολοένα και περισσότερο το ενδιαφέρον ερευνητών και εκπαιδευτικών. Ένα εργαλείο για την ανάπτυξη ΥΣ είναι η εκπαιδευτική ρομποτική (ΕΡ), η οποία είναι μια διασκεδαστική και ενδιαφέρουσα εκπαιδευτική δραστηριότητα που ενθαρρύνει τους μαθητές να συνεργαστούν, να εμβαθύνουν σε...

This paper presents the design and a pilot study of a real-time response system for Android mobile devices, created to enhance active learning methods and assess students' understanding. The prototype system named Quiz It, consists of a lecturer mobile application, a student mobile application and a supportive lecturer administration web environmen...

Recent research has provided evidence that conversational agents can effectively be used to trigger and scaffold peer discource in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) settings. In this study, we use a prototype conversational agent system named Mentor Chat to explore the impact of two different intervention modes on inducing beneficial...

This study presents a technological solution for the visualization of peer interaction data in mobile widget format. Peer interaction is the key learning mechanism in collaborative learning situations and providing peers with feedback on their interaction is expected to help improve the outcomes of the activity at all levels. The showcased mobile a...

Η υπολογιστική σκέψη (Υ Σ) είναι μια δεξιότητα κριτικής σκέψης και προσελκύει ολοένα και περισσότερο το ενδιαφέρον ερευνητών και εκπαιδευτικών. Ένα εργαλείο για την ανάπτυξη Υ Σ είναι η εκπαιδευτική ρομποτική (Ε Ρ), η οποία είναι μια διασκεδαστική και ενδιαφέρουσα εκπαιδευτική δραστηριότητα που ενθαρρύνει τους μαθητές να συνεργαστούν, να εμβαθύνουν...

The term Computational thinking has received intense attention over the past several years as a fundamental skill, which promotes new ways of thinking to the students across all disciplines of science. The present study describes the implementation and evaluation of developing computational thinking skills in Educational Robotics activities for sec...

Conversational pedagogical agents guide and scaffold student dialogue using natural language both in individual and collaborative learning settings. Although conversational agents have been developed to meet a wide variety of educational needs, there are still open research questions concerning the effective design of the agents. This chapter prese...

This paper presents a cross-age study exploring children's performance on robot introductory programming activities with one tangible and one isomorphic graphical system. Both subsystems are parts of an innovative system, namely the PROTEAS kit. The tangible subsystem consists of cube-shaped blocks that represent simple and more advanced programmin...

This study explores children’s opinions and preferences regarding two isomorphic user interfaces that can be used for introductory programming activities, a tangible and a graphical one. The first system (tangible) comprises 46 cube-shaped blocks that represent simple programming structures and can be interconnected to form the programming code. Th...

Conversational agents constitute a specific type of ITSs that has been reportedly proven successful in helping students in one-to-one settings, while recently their impact has also been explored in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). In this work, we present MentorChat, a dialogue-based system that employs a configurable and domain-in...

This paper presents the architecture and functionality of an extended and more flexible version of the WebCollage tool. WebCollage was initially developed as a teacher-supportive web-based editor to facilitate the design of structured collaborative activities, following the tenets of scripting theory. However, earlier versions of WebCollage did not...

This work summarizes key findings of current research in the CSCL domain as a contribution to the construction of a consistent theoretical framework that encapsulates the multifaceted aspects of scripted collaboration (proposed as a “script theory of guidance”). Based on field research evidence, four principles are suggested and discussed, namely “...

MentorChat is a CSCL system that utilizes a conversational pedagogical agent to engage students in fruitful collaboration. This conversational agent attempts to promote students' productive dialogue by providing unsolicited prompts aimed to elicit explicit reasoning. Using MentorChat a teacher is able to design and deploy the phases and the tasks o...

This paper presents the rationale behind the utilization of a Moodle Learning Management System for the facilitation of a blended learning approach in the Informatics department. The authors present and analyze the steps followed in order to replace the prior decentralized organizational structure of the courses, which consisted of a multitude of d...

This paper investigates the impact of the proposed ‘Make It Explicit!’ technique on students' learning when participating in scripted collaborative activities. The method posits that when asking students to proactively articulate their own positions explicitly, then improved peer interaction is triggered in a subsequent collaborative session. Forty...

Η εκπαιδευτική ρομποτική (ΕΡ) είναι ένα διδακτικό εργαλείο που συγκεντρώνει μεγάλο ενδιαφέρον. Υπάρχει πληθώρα ερευνών που αφορούν δραστηριότητες ΕΡ και εστιάζουν στην επίλυση προβλήματος, αντίθετα, οι έρευνες που αφορούν τη μεταγνώση είναι ακόμα σε αρχικό στάδιο. Στο άρθρο αυτό παρουσιάζεται μία έρευνα που υλοποιήθηκε με μαθητές δημοτικού και είχε...

This study focuses on how to adaptively support small groups of students during a scripted collaborative activity. Forty (40) students collaborated remotely in dyads (in lab conditions) on a task structured by a collaboration script in the domain of multimedia learning. Half of the dyads (treatment group) were supported by a domain-specific adaptiv...

This work presents research evidence on the impact of a collaboration script to leverage the use of an Algorithm Visualization AV system as a tool for experimentation and reflection in the context of online collaboration. The objective of the authors' effort is to improve the learning conditions when AV systems are used as online learning tools, av...

Computer Supported Collaborative Learning CSCL is concerned with how people learn when working and interacting in groups with the assistance of ICTs. The field involves collaboration, computer mediation, online-distance education which raises interesting theoretical considerations regarding the actual studying of learning within CSCL settings. Bein...

This paper presents the rationale behind the utilization of a Moodle Learning Management System for the facilitation of a blended learning approach in the Informatics department. The authors present and analyze the steps followed in order to replace the prior decentralized organizational structure of the courses, which consisted of a multitude of d...

Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is a research field which emerged during the past 20 years. The research addressed questions in CSCL including – among others - how groups and individuals learn through peer interaction using specific tools, how small groups interact and develop shared meanings over time, how teachers orchestrate col...

Η εκπαιδευτική ρομποτική (ΕΡ) είναι ένα διδακτικό εργαλείο που συγκεντρώνει μεγάλο ενδιαφέρον. Υπάρχει πληθώρα ερευνών εστιασμένων στην ΕΡ στον τομέα της επίλυσης προβλήματος. Αντίθετα, η έρευνα όσο αφορά την ΕΡ στον τομέα της μεταγνώσης είναι ακόμα σε αρχικό στάδιο. Στο άρθρο αυτό παρουσιάζεται μία έρευνα που υλοποιήθηκε σε μαθητές πρώτης Λυκείου...

Research on computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has strongly emphasized the value of providing student support with micro-scripts, which should withdraw (fade-out) allowing students to practice the acquired skills. However, research on fading shows conflicting results and some researchers suggest that the impact of fading is enhanced w...

In this article we present a 3-layer architecture (MAPIS3) that facilitates the integration of adaptive characteristics in an IMS-LD based computer-supported collaborative learning scenario (CSCL script), by making use of external and independent software components. The proposed architecture introduces a mediator component (MC) as a key element wh...

Research in the field of Second Language Acquisition has repeatedly highlighted the importance of conversational interactions between students working together in small groups. Particularly, peer dialogue can play a vital role in intellectual development and language acquisition. Thus, we argue that the use of a conversational agent, designed to ad...

This paper presents design guidelines for implementing a free-selection peer review protocol. "Free-selection" (FS) refers to the ability of students freely access all available peer work and choose which of them to read and review. A series of two studies on the free-selection protocol has provided evidence on the efficiency of the method. In the...

This study presents how the degree of script coercion can affect the learning outcome in a setting for computer-supported collaborative learning. In the study, 42 junior students majoring in Informatics were randomly assigned into two study conditions: High Coercion (n=22), and Low Coercion (n=20). Initially, students worked individually, studying...

In this paper, we describe a dialogue-based system that utilizes a teacher-configurable conversational agent to trigger students' discourse in collaborative activities. This prototype web-based system, named MentorChat, aims to induce learning-generating cognitive activity by prompting online learners' discussions. We evaluated the effect of the co...

Although educational robotics (ER) is considered an innovative and engaging technology for teaching and learning, certain studies emphasize the lack of a coherent and well elaborated pedagogical framework for its implementation. This work contributes toward the development of such a framework by presenting evidence from three case studies implement...

The use of micro-scripts that support students develop argumentation skills has been proved to be effective in the domain of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). Researchers suggest that micro-scripts should also withdraw (fade out) allowing students to practice their skills; however, studies that explore the impact of fading are scarc...

This paper investigates children preferences regarding tangible and graphical tools for introductory programming. The study makes use of the PROTEAS (PROgramming TangiblE Activity System) kit, an ensemble including one graphical and two tangible programming tools. The kit was designed to operate as a user friendly introductory programming tool even...

he coordinates several online courses in the areas of software engineering and information systems. His research focuses on the fields of e-learning and computer-supported collaborative learning, software engineering, and distributed and grid technologies, where he has published over 120 peer-reviewed research contributions to books journals and co...