David B. Zandvliet

The physical placement of classroom technology and its influences on educational practices

The purpose of this study was to gain deeper insights into how technology restructures the classroom as a spatial setting and how the positioning of these technologies can be associated with educational practices. The research includes a photographic and schematic representation of 115 classrooms in 12 primary schools in Belgium, resulting in a typology based on structural features of the classrooms. Based on the typology derived and the specific positioning of technology, nine teachers were purposefully selected and interviewed regarding their perceptions concerning the link between the use of technology and the classroom layout. The results indicate that (1) the positioning of technology can be related to specific types of technology use; (2) the classroom layout is in transition from one central display to multiple screens; and (3) because of physical access to technology, the educational practice of individual classes is spatially dispersed over different locations within the school.

Responding to Place

Why do we learn about environmental issues? It is in part because of a growing concern about the state of the environment, yet we are often confused by the complexities of the economic, ethical, political, and social issues related to it. Daily, references are made in the popular media to issues, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, pollution, and continued job losses in our communities.

ICT Learning Environments and Science Education: Perception to Practice

This chapter documents a decade of international research on learning environments in science classrooms using information technologies. Through the use of a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, both physical and psychosocial classroom environments in computerised settings have been evaluated, and also associations among physical and social aspects in the learning environment have been investigated. The research reviewed suggests how different cultural interpretations of technology implementation can influence the learning environment in different countries. Relationships among learning environment constructs and students’ achievement and attitudes also are reviewed.

Place-Based Learning Environments

With climate change, loss of biodiversity and overfishing catching the headlines almost daily in social media, the general public has directed its attention to early childhood and K-12 education to lead the paradigm shift needed to right the wrongs, while also preparing future generations with the skills needed, such as critical thinking and problem solving, to resolve the impeding environmental and social issues that they will confront.

The Theory and Practice of Interpersonal Relationships in Education

In 2010 the first International Conference on Interpersonal Relationships (ICIRE) was held in Boulder, Colorado. The best contributions of this conference were afterwards brought together in the book Contemporary research on interpersonal relationships in education, edited by Theo Wubbels and colleagues and published by Sense as part of the Advances in Learning Environments Research book series.

The Ecology of School

This book describes and documents one school’s experiences in achieving their environmental literacy goals through the development of a place-based learning environment. Through this iniative, a longitudinal, descriptive case study began at the Bowen Island Community School to both support and advocate for ecological literacy, while helping the school realize its broad environmental learning goals. Conceptualised as an intensive case study of a learning environment (with an environmental education focus), the program was part of a larger ecological literacy project conducted in association with preservice and graduate education programs at a nearby university and research centre. Following both (empirical) learning environments and participatory (ethnographic) research methods, the project is described from a variety of perspectives: students, teachers, teacher educators, researchers and administrators. The volume describes a variety of forms of place-based education that teachers devised and implemented at the school while giving evidence of the development of a supportive and positive place-based learning environment. The programs and initiatives described in this volume provide the reader with insights for the development of place-based programming more generally . The final chapter outlines participatory methods and action research efforts used to evaluate the success of the project and recounts the development and validation of a learning environment instrument to assist with this process. The new instrument coupled with qualitative descriptions of the learning environment experienced by many at the school give unique insights into the various ways the study of learning environments (as a methodology) may be explored.

Indonesian Adventures: Developing an Ecology of Place on Sulawesi Utara

In this chapter, we develop an island metaphor to communicate our emerging framework for EE in Indonesia. The concept of an island is a powerful metaphor in everyday speech as well as in the disciplines, and we use it here as an attempt to clarify our meaning of community. Beyond the metaphor, islands have also played a major role in the realm of knowledge construction (e.g., descriptions of isolated gene pools were seen as instrumental in the development of Darwinism, and these processes were described as taking place within the “Malay” archipelago by Wallace). Social anthropology also uses islands implicitly in the description of isolation and boundedness in cultural systems. In the case of Sulawesi Utara, this insularity is a strong descriptive metaphor but also describes an ecological reality for this region. Environmental learning then can draw on the functions, intersections, and relations of place-based education. Our discussion is informed by a place-based island metaphor for ecological education that emerged from the development work for a field school conducted in Indonesia. Place-based education (in our view) discards a one-sided view of education by taking as its first assumption that education is both “about” and “for” defined communities. This perspective then informed a study of place-based education on Sulawesi Utara and the design of the field school for teachers that we conduct there.

Lost in the ‘Technosphere’

When I first began my university teaching career, I worked in the field of technology education – despite previously working as an ecologist with deep roots in biology. Still, at the time there were many opportunities to work in the field and I was particularly proficient in this role.

A Living Home

This last vignette which I have entitled ‘a Living Home’ is a bit of daydreaming perhaps – but it also constitutes a vision and plan for my next home if one is to materialize in the future. For this home, I will try to incorporate all that I have learned from my past experiences of home building (and inhabitation) in its varying degrees.

The Ecology of Home

The concept of home discussed in this book has gone beyond the original metaphor described in chapter one. In previous chapters, I attempted to consider not only the deeper, forgotten meanings on the interconnectedness of the disciplines which influence us ‘where we live’, but I provided the reader with real life examples from my own life (vignettes) to illustrate these ideas in a clearer way.