Valentina Grion

Editorial: Student voice. Listening to students to improve education through digital technologies

Over the past 20 years, the student voice pedagogical movement has been gaining momentum worldwide (Czerniawski & Kidd, 2011). Inspired by the need to enhance student engagement and participation in education (Cook-Sather, 2002), the movement seeks to bolster the position and role of students inside school and other academic contexts. In this light, students’ views on teaching and learning represent valuable input, informing the actions of teachers and policymakers alike (Fielding, 2001). The movement’s initial efforts were mostly focused on capturing the perspectives of school children and young students and on fostering their co-participation in teaching and learning practices (Flutter & Rudduck, 2004). More recently, major changes in higher education have resulted in the legitimisation of student voice at university level too (Cook-Sather, Bovil, & Felten, 2014). The student voice is now seen as a central component in the transformation of higher education and its alignment with students’ experience and expectations. It also contributes towards students’ experience and expectations as learners, and career aspirations as future contributors to the economy and society.

Voices and silences in a social network mediated Student Voice experience

Based on the theoretical framework of Student Voice, this paper presents a research study designed to verify whether a social networking site such as Facebook represents a feasible way for secondary school students to express their voice on school so as to enhance the quality of school education. With this purpose in mind, a private group was set up on Facebook and some questions were posted to activate participation. Moreover, two surveys were administered to gauge students’ confidence with Facebook and explore the reasons behind their overall reticence to participate in the proposed activity. The low levels of response provide the authors with elements for reflecting upon the Student Voice approach and how it might be implemented successfully at school level. They also lead to some considerations about the use of social networking sites in the school context.

EDITORIAL. TECHNOLOGY AS A SUPPORT TO TRADITIONAL ASSESSMENT PRACTICES

Assessment in education is under pressure to change. Some drivers for change result from new ways of thinking about assessment and its educational purposes. Other drivers are external and are the result of wider changes in society. Technology falls into this second category. This special issue is concerned with change at the intersection of assessment and technology in education.

Social networks as teaching tools: perceptions and teacher and student attitudes

The increasingly widespread use of social network sites (SNS), particularly among young people, is a global phenomenon attracting increasing research attention. The use of SNS in school contexts has sparked an interesting debate between the supporters and sceptics. This research study is intended to provide a platform for the main protagonists of school life: students and teachers. The goal was to gain insight into the visions and representations about didactic social networking practice as expressed by the 500 participating students and 353 secondary teachers. An online questionnaire was developed in distinct versions for the two groups and a mixed method approach was used for data analysis. The results provide a first attempt at representing the use and educational potentialities of SNS in Italian secondary school. They also provide a basis for some considerations about assigning a greater weight to young people’s role and prospects in the educational contest, both in research and for educational reform.

An Exploratory Study on Perceptions and Use of Technology by Novice and Future Teachers: More Information and Less On-Line Collaboration?

The article discusses the factors that affect the choice of teachers to integrate technology in their teaching and presents the results of a questionnaire administered to 805 teachers attending professional development training courses TFA and PAS in the Veneto Region Northern Italy. The research is aimed at collecting data for the development of a teachers training program that is effective in motivating them to a broader and more effective use of technology. The study reveals how teachers still have little consideration for the potential of interactive and collaborative technology, preferring to use technology for searching information and materials rather than for discussion and participation in on-line communities with their peers, in order to improve their teaching and towards a collaborative construction and sharing of knowledge. The study also confirms the findings in the literature on the subject relative to a number of factors internal and external that are perceived as obstacles to the decision to integrate technology in education and proposes specific training activities that are useful in order to remove them.