Andrea Kárpáti

Web 2 technologies for net native language learners: A “social call”

In order to make optimal educational use of social spaces offered by thousands of international communities in the second generation web applications termed Web 2 or Social Web, ICT competences as well as social skills are needed for both teachers and learners. The paper outlines differences in competence structures of Net Natives (who came of age in the 21st century) and the Net Generation of the 1980s and 1990s who evolve in response to changes between Web 1 and Web 2 technologies. Virtual educational environments in the age of the Social Web represent a perfect embodiment of the Constructionist paradigm: they offer shared discussion and work spaces instead of presentation tools, coaching utilities instead of help desks, and digital learning resource repositories instead of ready-made learning materials. LRE, the European Learning Resource Exchange, and several collaborative web based services and applications will be presented, to illustrate the interrelated change in educational software design and use. New teaching and learning aids require and at the same time inspire new educational theories. The trialogical learning paradigm that invites all educational stakeholders to work on shared objects of inquiry and development and thus develop epistemic agency will be offered as a foundation for a ‘social CALL’.

Visual Culture Learning Communities: How and What Students Come to Know in Informal Art Groups

This article is the report of a large-scale, international research project involving focus group interviews of adolescent and young adult members of a variety of self-initiated visual culture groups in five urban areas (Amsterdam, Budapest, Chicago, Helsinki, and Hong Kong). Each group was established by young people around their interests in the production and use of a form of visual culture. The research questions for this study focused on: a) conditions of visual culture communities, b) group practices in visual culture communities, c) individuals in a visual culture community, and d) peer teaching and learning processes. The results of this study indicate that visual culture groups act as powerful student communities for auto-didactic and peer initiated learning. Although the education that occurs in these groups may be considered informal, students maintain them to increase their art knowledge and skills, as well as for entertainment and social networking. Several answers to each research question are reported and applications for formal art education are recommended.

EXPERT AGREEMENT IN JUDGING ART PROJECTS - A MYTH OR REALITY?'

In art education, it is customary to accept the expertise of the art teacher as an impartial and objective evaluator of student achievement. But is he or she really impartial and reliable judge of quality? Is the jury method generally used for the assessment of works of art (Schonau, 1994) a valid method for authentic assessment? If so, are all genres and topics of child art equally suitable for assessment? In order to modernize final examinations in the visual arts, basic issues like these had to be addressed as the impressive amount of literature on child art never seems to question the validity of assumptions made by a single evaluator or a body of jurors. Research on child art usually focuses on the description of models for development as evaluated by experts whose training entitles them for judgment (Gardner, 1993; Kindler, 1997). We know of no previous research project that would have questioned the objectivity and reliability of the judgment of these experts. Our experiences as members of art juries disproves the claim of “expert agreement” reached through negotiations. Usually, it is the rhetoric of one of the jurors based on blurred definitions of “beauty” and “creativity”, and not the objective application of previously agreed upon criteria that decides about the merit of a work. This procedure, however, cannot be utilized for examination purposes. But can it be improved? Is there a more reliable way of conducting a jury of works of art?

Mentored Innovation in Teacher Training Using Two Virtual Collaborative Learning Environments

A classic and a new CSCLE were tested in a mentored innovation setting. Mentoring procedure and learner satisfaction, as well as ICT competence and educational strategies, were tested to identify the role of the VLE and the mentor in the success of the training process. Both VLEs were found satisfactory by users. However, the level of acquisition of ICT-supported educational methods as revealed in lesson plans and self-developed digital teaching resources produced by learners individually and in pairs or groups were different in quality. Mentoring was identified as a key factor of success in the in-service training process.

Third‐generation pioneers—ICT culture in Hungarian education at the end of the second millennium

The paper analyses the third phase of Hungarian computerisation and discusses Hungarian results of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development study, ‘ICT and the Quality of Learning’. The computerisation of Hungarian schools, a major national investment, started in the 1990s. In its first phase, all Hungarian secondary schools were connected to the Internet and equipped with a computer laboratory mainly used for teaching information technology, a compulsory school discipline. In the second phase (1998–2001), teacher training and securing Internet connectivity and basic infrastructure for primary schools was the focus. In the third phase, (2001–2006), discipline‐based use of ICT culture to promote contemporary educational paradigms is promoted through a large‐scale development of high‐quality, Hungarian‐language digital teaching materials.

Detection and Development of Visual Talent

Art education in Hungary-and in Eastern and Central Europe in generalhas been, until the eighties, based on the assumption that the development of visual talent requires exercises in different modes of the two-dimensional representation of space. Talent in drawing in perspective was considered the synonym for visual talent. An emerging new artistic language of the seventies and eighties, however, seemed not only to negate but also to ridicule this assumption and led to the creation of highly appreciated work that clearly did not require an immersion in linear perspective. The Lets Design Objects! contest for children and youth aged six to sixteen that has been organized in our country for more than a decade brought to light hundreds of highly innovative young people who were precocious in design but many of whom were unable to give an appropriate graphic representation of the objects they invented, modeled, and produced in real space. In 1994, the theme of the contest was to design and build in model form a house that the child would like to live in as an adult or that would be a shelter for a figure from a favorite novel. More than two thousand entries were submitted and, after comparing the floor plans and frontal views of the houses with the models, we could see huge differences in quality. Most children who excelled in construction manifested a mediocre or poor drawing level.1 Different components of visual talent seemed to be unrelated to one another. This finding is supported by results from earlier national surveys. In 1981 and 1984, two national assessments of skills in visual perception and creation were performed in Hungary. In both cases, the correlation between the developmental level of drawing skill (as manifested in technical and

TEENAGER ART: CREATING THE SELF

In Hungary, where fine arts and high culture in general were in the focus of educational efforts of art teachers for more than 150 years, educational reforms begun as a result of political changes in 1989 represent an overwhelming challenge. Art teachers of teenagers ready to modify their curricula need insights into the emerging teenage subcultures their students are part of in order to understand their visual world and incorporate in art education. The authors of this paper have collected case studies of symbolization processes of young people between 14-18 years of age and undertook two large questionnaire surveys on the visual environment of adolescents. This paper contrast international youth styles as recorded by T. Polemus in Great Britain and P.-A. Maset et al. in Germany with Eastern European trends , summarise results of the Hungarian surveys and outlines teaching efforts that acommodate the visual language of youth subcultures in order to help adoloescents further on the road of the creation of self.

Pedagogising Knowledge in Multigrade Roma Schools: Potentials and Tensions of Innovation

Low school achievement and frequent dropout of Hungarian Roma students from primary education is mostly an effect of inadequate curriculum content and teaching methodology. Between 2004 and 2011, the UNESCO affiliated Research Centre for Multimedia in Education at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE University) in Budapest, Hungary coordinated a series of learning experiments partnered with teaching staff and parents to develop developmental programmes using Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to enhance learning motivation and performance through the integration of the mundane knowledge of students and the recontextualised expert knowledge inherent in the national curriculum. Experiments involved primary schools in small villages with Roma student majority. Verbal and visual communication skills were developed through pair and group work during interdisciplinary activities based on music, arts and crafts traditionally present in Roma communities. Our results prove that lack of motivation and perspective, as well as factors resulting in low learning attainment, may be overcome through culturally grounded ICT-supported teaching and learning. Through staff development and curriculum enrichment, the projects also contributed to integration: they supported the continuation of studies of students in secondary level institutions of their choice, a prerequisite for better chances on the labour market or in higher education.

Developing Epistemic Agencies of Teacher Trainees – Using the Mentored Innovation Model

Developing the epistemic agency of teachers and trainees to become reflective practitioners is a focus of modernizing teacher education in Hungary. This initiative aims at encouraging future educators to collaborate in professional teams in order to identify new professional challenges and realize innovative teaching programmes. Inviting them into international educational research projects – such as KP Lab – as active agents could contribute to establishing research-based teacher training and teachers’ professional development in Hungary (Csapo, 2007).

Art and Technology in Hungarian Education: Conflicts and Compromises

The authors describe Hungarian educational projects and programs aimed at building intellectual and emotional bridges between the realms of science and the humanities. After a brief overview of the history of Hungarian pedagogical models, the authors focus on topics such as innovations in technological education, a design competition for children and young adults, interdisciplinary curricula for primary schools, a national project to modernize instruction in aesthetics and environmental education projects sponsored by the Hungarian Ministry of Architecture and Urban Planning.