Jožica Tratar, Osnovna šola Šalovci, Breda Kerčmar, Osnovna šola Šalovci, Slavica Balek Haddaoui, Osnovna šola Šalovci, Sandra Vereš, Osnovna šola Šalovci

This paper presents the use of e-portfolio with pupils in the process of learning within a cross-curriculum connection of Geography, Slovene, Physics, Citizenship and patriotic education and ethics, on a chosen topic. By using ICT technology, pupils plan their learning process in a personal electronic learning environment. Pupils create their learning plan in the Mahara learning environment following the steps of formative assessment. They fill in tab page Moje učenje (My learning) where they identify their prior knowledge, set learning goals and incorporate them into a cross-curriculum, find strategies to achieve the goals, collect evidence, evaluate their work, give feedback to peers. Searching the web, they find appropriate data and design a travel brochure using text editing knowledge.

The advantages of learning by using Mahara and ICT technology are assistance in planning and monitoring pupil’s own learning path and progress. Findings and  artefacts are collected and uploaded in a personal learning environment and shared with other peers and teachers, making it possible for learners and teachers to access, use and evaluate the collected material. Such learning can take place during the lessons, after them, at school or at home.

Katarina Bizjak Slanič, Osnovna šola Janka Glazerja Ruše

Portfolio is a tool, which has the potential to enhance teaching and learning in a positive way. E-portfolio, an electronic collection, usually assembled and managed by a user on the internet, has in comparison to paper portfolio advantages and disadvantages.

Mahara is a new internet environment for e-portfolio, supported by National Education Institute of the Republic of Slovenia in the project EUfolio. One of the goals of the project is to plan and implement e-portfolio in the function of assessment and support of learning in the classroom.

In the first part of the paper we complementary use the qualitative and quantitative research methods to determine the effectiveness of teaching with EUfolio. User experience is presented from three perspectives. From the perspective of teachers, pupils and other school staff of Janka Glazerja Ruše primary school included in the EUfolio project. Today the technology in schools is no longer a question therefore we only ask ourselves which technology we are going to use. In the second part of the paper we investigate the efficiency of Mahara in comparison to other tools we use (Moodle, Microsoft Office etc.).

The results indicate that the user experience of various stakeholders of the project is different. Students do not differentiate between the different tools as much as the teachers. Among all the components there is an indication that the skill of teachers to use the tools seems to be the most important for positive user experience.

Magda Doberšek, Osnovna šola Dobje, Nataša Robič, Osnovna šola Dobje, Tina Zendzianowsky Čavš, Osnovna šola Dobje

One of our school’s priorities is encouraging the development of pupils’ creativity in all fields of work. Creativity is also the skill that we chose when we joined the project EUfolio. This skill is systematically developed in English, Slovene and folk dance lessons with a help of a web space called Mahara. Teachers thought at first that the image of this  tool isn’t attractive enough for the primary school students. But we were wrong. They are much faster on managing Mahara than we. Pupils accepted the web space Mahara with enthusiasm, because the part, where they can create their own profile, is similar to that on Facebook.

They wrote about themselves in English and, after checking the text by one of their school friends, they made a movie by using Movie Maker programme. In the world of Slovenian poetry, the students presented their creativity through creative writing or recreating. Folk dance served them as the basis to create their own choreographies and we also have videos of their work.

According to the success criteria pupils have followed their own development through e-Portfolio. They have become more responsible for their learning, and most importantly, they were very proud of their creations.

Boštjan Papež, Osnovna šola Bršljin

Collaborative and group learning is usually described as the work on the common product. In the primary school it is usually poster, joint presentations, joint problem solving or making learning material. In its physical form products of such work are stored in one location. Thus, they are not always available for students. Therefore, the usability of such products for learning, after they are made, is limited. For the task of making them, students have to be in the same room and have access to the same material, which is often limited. Therefore, it may take a long time to make them.By using tablet computers and some applications, we can get around these shortcomings. By using cloud services, material for the students can be prepared in advance: you can include links to online resources, images, audio and video material, using the camera on the tablet; you can add chapters or articles from books and magazines. Students are thus more guided in their research and material is equally accessible to all. For collaborative work we can use tablet applications or web-based tools that allow you to edit the same document in real time. Students can edit the product regardless of their location and time. The teacher has unlimited access to the work of students: he can monitor, direct and encourage it.

Anita Smole, Sonja Strgar, Osnovna šola Vide Pregarc

The aim of this article was to set up a virtual classroom for storing different documents created and often used during teacher’s work. For this purpose we created an e-portfolio Mahara which can be accessed via www.sio.si. E-portfolio contains several menus: performance evaluation (collection of evaluation sheets to evaluate public employee’s performance in observed period), annual interview preparation (files linked to annual interview with school’s management), and teacher’s work (past, current, and planned). The virtual classroom is shared by two teachers. Each of them accesses the virtual classroom with an individual user account and has administrator rights assigned by an individual group. Such cooperation enables us to share files, evaluate and plan teacher’s work, exchange ideas, and consequently build a social network. We plan to increase the extent of e-portfolio by adding new menus, while the teacher’s work field will be divided into several sub-menus since a comprehensive collection of documents has already been created within this field. By doing that we’ll improve the transparency and usability of this virtual classroom.

Tomaž Kušar, Osnovna šola Mokronog

The first sentence of each software-manual usually starts by printing a »Hello, world«. If we continue with the programming step by step, as dictated by the manual, we get acquainted with the basics. Applications, through which we learn the basics of programming, may on one hand, be of interest to someone, but also extremely boring for another. But programming can become interesting for everyone.

Students who are talented in technical field are not neccessarily impressed by programming. Usually they like using modern high-tech electronic devices such as their mobile phones or tablet computers. Moreover, they also like to research all the applications and learn about all the benefits that such devices offer.

This paper presents a simple example project from electronics through which a beginner can finally learn the basics of programming while at the same time create an interesting and useful device or application using a microcontroller and a phone. In continuation some forms of learning of programming in simple and freely-available software environments are presented. We conclude with pupils’ response on this way of teaching programming.

Bernarda Hvala, Vrtec Ledina Ljubljana, Dejan Čegovnik, MOJ TV d.o.o

The article will show you how camera as a learning tool is used in kindergarten. The purpose of using video camera was to record the activities of children and how they are reacting and responding. The recordings gave us a chance of multiple reaction monitoring of individual children. In this way we got better insight of each individual in a group and learn about their strong and weak areas. Several times we showed the footages we took to the children and at the same time we filmed their reactions. Children were very interested in footages and while they were watching the tape they commented on it and communicated with each other. Children tried to identified who was on the tape, what he was doing, who was missing that day, etc. By analizing reactions of the children on tape we noticed that they were more intensely involved than in normal activities and they were using vocabulary that we never noticed before.Using the camera to work with the youngest showed us that it is very helpful for the evaluation of activities, for joint reflection with children and also when we are working with parents. The benefits of team work were also shown. Coauthor was of great support because with his advices and support we made better videos. In the future we would like to give children of age 1–3 a chance to handle with a camera so they could record activities in a group. If they will be able to cope with such challanges you will find out at Sirikt 2015.

Lea Senica, Osnovna šola Dobje

Mahara is software that enables us to create an e-portfolio, blog, curriculum vitae, and represents a social network. It provides users with tools to create a development environment for personal and professional education. It is a domain of older pupils, but with the proper management of pupils already possible in fifth grade. In activities that I represent, I joined three projects of the National Institute of Education: the pilot project the EUfolio (Mahara), the project Induction of e-content development services by using tablet computers and Reading literacy project. The reason for choosing these activities was pupils’ weak reading technique. I wanted to improve it with the help of two tools: Mahara as a web application, which was used for planning the activities, observing their progress and critical friendship; and tablet computers, that were used for recording their reading and for planning the activities in Mahara, wherever and whenever. Since the activities were well planned and Mahara supported formative assessment, the results were positive. Pupils’ notes were more moderate (these are fifth graders) as they would be in the case of older students, but nevertheless they have learned to work with Mahara, write down goals that they want to achieve, think about their progress and critically comment with classmates. They have acquired competences that will serve them in their personal and professional education.

Brigita Klemen, Pedagoška fakulteta Ljubljana, magistrska študentka, Alenka Žerovnik, Pedagoška fakulteta Ljubljana, asistentka

Modern pedagogical approaches enable the use of various forms of learning and teaching. Teachers want to link learning to real life with problems and assignments formed in a way that students get the necessary knowledge and skills for life. In trying to do that teachers often face difficulties finding and using suitable tools.Our goal is to connect two different groups of students and increase knowledge transfer between them. One part of the teaching process takes place in the classroom and the other outside, in nature. The intention of the classroom activities is interation of the students from different groups. Activities take place in the form of different social games, adapted to the age and needs of the children. When the social interaction between students strengthens the teacher introduces field learning with the help of tablet computers. They serve as an effective tool, enabling students to follow an interactive map of the route and look for specific signs in the nature. When they reach marked points they answer pre-prepared questions. Because the questions are answered via Internet the teacher can follow their responses in real time and provide immediate feedback. Learning is therefore more effective and students are motivated for further research due to constant incentive and tips. Besides covering the required learning material from different parts of the curriculum, we also strengthen social interaction between the two groups.

mag. Janja Jakončič, Gimnazija Poljane, Ljubljana, Tanja Ahčin, Gimnazija Franceta Prešerna, Kranj

In our article we present a case of using an ICT tool for evaluating student knowledge as an aid in preparing the students for the final exam. Part of the preparation for the final exam is answering publicly accessible exams from the previous years, with which we can test the students’ readiness for the final exam. Students are not yet sufficiently aware of the importance of pre-exam testing and feedback. Therefore teaching the students the ability of self-evaluation is a tough job, requiring expert knowledge and time from the teacher. Achieving students’ autonomy in answering tests, ensuring suitable and individually adapted content, encouraging the use of ICT in learning and looking for possibilities of use of new teaching and learning methods are all very important tasks. With that in mind we checked if we can make the process of pre-exam evaluation easier with the use of a suitable ICT tool, especially in regard to individual’s result analysis, identifying subjects with worst results, use of these data in class, encouraging cooperation between students and teacher and healthy competitiveness among students. We have categorized the tasks from old exams, integrated them in the chosen information system, connected the students and automated part of the teacher’s work. We found that we can improve the preparation for final exam, encourage remote learning, implement flipped learning, as well as use gamification for higher student motivation.