Ana García-Valcárcel

Educational innovation

Educational innovation involves focusing classroom dynamics towards new trends. For this purpose it is necessary to make effective changes in teaching practices and to adapt them to the specific contexts of their creation. The inclusion of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has led to most of the advances in the field of education over the last three decades. This is due to the fact that the role of ICT is not only reduced to the provision of new teaching tools, but has also led to the continuous introduction of new approaches to essential elements of education: (1) teaching programs; (2) learning; (3) teaching; and (4) work relationships among teachers, students and other actors. The works that make up this track deal with certain of these aspects through the contribution of results obtained from research proving that innovation processes developed from emerging technologies are changing school dynamics, which could ultimately involve major changes in educational processes, schools, classrooms and teacher training.

How elementary school students evaluate the learning strategy of collaborative projects using ICT

The use of collaborative learning projects using ICT in classrooms is now a reality in a number of schools. With these procedures, teachers assume that students will development not only cognitive skills, but also social and emotional ones, as has been pointed out in several prior research studies [11, 18] but, in any case, there is a need for a systematic and rigorous evaluation of the results obtained when these processes are used. This study uses a rating scale constructed and validated by the researchers to present data that provide information about the opinions of students who participated in learning processes involving a collaborative learning project with ICT. The results point to a positive assessment of the learning processes in which the organization of the work is especially valued, so that it becomes almost a key variable that explains the success of these processes.The use of collaborative learning projects using ICT in classrooms is now a reality in a number of schools. With these procedures, teachers assume that students will development not only cognitive skills, but also social and emotional ones, as has been pointed out in several prior research studies [11, 18] but, in any case, there is a need for a systematic and rigorous evaluation of the results obtained when these processes are used. This study uses a rating scale constructed and validated by the researchers to present data that provide information about the opinions of students who participated in learning processes involving a collaborative learning project with ICT. The results point to a positive assessment of the learning processes in which the organization of the work is especially valued, so that it becomes almost a key variable that explains the success of these processes.