Fostering group-work activities using CSCL at elementary school in Romanian-Finnish school

• Main Author: Balla, B. (Bobi)
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Oulu 2018
• Subjects: Education
• Online Access: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:oulu-201805312039; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:fi:oulu-201805312039

Nowadays, when humans grow in a digitalized society, it can be seen how the technology being used in different ways. We can spot that technology heavily used in daily life, which means that has expanded and used anywhere. The current generation of people seem to be a great generation of using the most common devices: computers, mobile phones, so present/current generation is quite familiar with the technological devices. It seems that people use their devices mostly within the scope of social media, but it seems only few people use the devices with the scope of learning. The previous studies demonstrated that the use of educational technology in classrooms has caused positive student attitudes, more student engagement and an increase in student achievement. Among this fact, the educational technology has allowed more opportunities for elementary students to work cooperatively in groups. The main impacts of teamwork helped students to gain self-esteem, encouragement, to become effective learners (active learners, the learners learn each other) and communication skills. The present study aimed to analyze the group-work experiences of learning using the educational technology as support in collaborative learning background. The participants were elementary school students from Romanian-Finnish school located in Bucharest. The total number of subjects that were integrated in the present study was 90 elementary school students from K-5 to K-7. Educational technology, collaborative learning and group-work were used to analyze how the elementary school students behave in different settings. The data was gathered with semi-structured interviews to analyze the qualitative content analysis and quantitative data was used to analyze the answers given by participants. The results of the present study give further evidence that collaborative learning helped the elementary school students to achieve higher performances in learning. In this matter, in-group learning activities there were challenges when the task was difficult and the limited time. Despite the fact of encountering challenges in group work activities, the elementary school students developed new academic skills: critical thinking, problem-solving and driven approach in using technological devices. From psychological point of view, including collaborative learning, the students gained the self-esteem, less anxiousness.