Journal by Jarkko Suhonen
IEEE Access, 2023
Machine learning (ML) literacy has recently been identified as one of critical skills students ne... more Machine learning (ML) literacy has recently been identified as one of critical skills students need to succeed as future creators and innovators. While the significance of introducing ML basics at kindergarten to twelfth grade (K-12) levels is increasingly acknowledged, there is limited research that focuses specifically on collaborative design of ML applications with middle school students. We posit that engaging young children to co-invent and make concrete prototypes improves their ideas, encourages them to become active participants, and allows them to establish the implications of the technology in their everyday lives. In order to lay the foundation for middle school ML education, we collaboratively designed and prototyped ML applications with 43 eighth grade students (ages 11 to 14) in a Nigerian school. The ideas generated by the students indicate that they began to identify the applicability of ML to their daily lives and as a solution to a plethora of societal challenges. This study provides learners’ input and preliminary insights into approaches that could be adopted to promote ML within the compulsory level of education in an African setting. The research contributes to the limited body of knowledge available on effectively teaching ML to young learners using design-oriented pedagogy, especially in the context of an emerging country.
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Computer Science Education, 2023
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Education and Information Technologies, 2022
The increasing attention to Machine Learning (ML) in K-12 levels and studies exploring a differen... more The increasing attention to Machine Learning (ML) in K-12 levels and studies exploring a different aspect of research on K-12 ML has necessitated the need to synthesize this existing research. This study systematically reviewed how research on ML teaching and learning in K-12 has fared, including the current area of focus, and the gaps that need to be addressed in the literature in future studies. We reviewed 43 conference and journal articles to analyze specific focus areas of ML learning and teaching in K-12 from four perspectives as derived from the data: curriculum development, technology development, pedagogical development, and teacher training/professional development. The findings of our study reveal that (a) additional ML resources are needed for kindergarten to middle school and informal settings, (b) further studies need to be conducted on how ML can be integrated into subject domains other than computing, (c) most of the studies focus on pedagogical development with a dearth of teacher professional development programs, and (d) more evidence of societal and ethical implications of ML should be considered in future research. While this study recognizes the present gaps and direction for future research, these findings provide insight for educators, practitioners, instructional designers, and researchers into K-12 ML research trends to advance the quality of the emerging field.
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Educational Technology Research and Development, 2022
Computational thinking (CT) has become an essential skill nowadays. For young students, CT compet... more Computational thinking (CT) has become an essential skill nowadays. For young students, CT competency is required to prepare them for future jobs. This competency can facilitate students' understanding of programming knowledge which has been a challenge for many novices pursuing a computer science degree. This study focuses on designing and implementing a virtual reality (VR) game-based application (iThinkSmart) to support CT knowledge. The study followed the design science research methodology to design, implement, and evaluate the first prototype of the VR application. An initial evaluation of the prototype was conducted with 47 computer science students from a Nigerian university who voluntarily participated in an experimental process. To determine what works and what needs to be improved in the iThinkSmart VR game-based application, two groups were randomly formed, consisting of the experimental (n = 21) and the control (n = 26) groups respectively. Our findings suggest that VR increases motivation and therefore increase students' CT skills, which contribute to knowledge regarding the affordances of VR in education and particularly provide evidence on the use of visualization of CT concepts to facilitate programming education. Furthermore, the study revealed that immersion, interaction, and engagement in a VR educational application can promote students' CT competency in higher education institutions (HEI). In addition, it was shown that students who played the iThinkSmart VR game-based application gained higher cognitive benefits, increased interest and attitude to learning CT concepts. Although further investigation is required in order to gain more insights into students learning process, this study made significant contributions in positioning CT in the HEI context and provides empirical evidence regarding the use of educational VR mini games to support students learning achievements.
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Educational Technology Research & Development, 2022
A critical aspect of designing and running online study programs is the identification of factors... more A critical aspect of designing and running online study programs is the identification of factors and elements that could potentially threaten the continuation of studies. In this study, we first identified a set of critical events that occurred in the running of a Finnish online doctoral study program over 16 years. Next, we analyzed the events using a four-pillar sustainability model, which consisted of the economic, social, environmental, and ethical pillars. We detected several contextually relevant and dynamic pivotal factors related to each of the pillars, which had effects on the sustainability of the program at the time of the critical events. The analysis revealed that positive pivotal factors in one sustainability pillar can be used to compensate for negative pivotal factors in the other pillars. Two aspects that were crucial for the sustainability of the online doctoral study program were the resilience and shared commitment of the community involved in its activities, which helped in overcoming any challenges encountered. Based on this study, we recommended that future research should design novel solutions that help online study programs to proactively identify potential critical events and related pivotal factors. Furthermore, studies should find creative approaches for constructively coping with critical events that have been identified.
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The International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2022
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Journal of Information Systems Education, 2021
The academic world has experienced rapid growth in the adoption of social media that can construc... more The academic world has experienced rapid growth in the adoption of social media that can constructively complement traditional education and even replace it in distance/online learning. Social media is used in many institutions for educational purposes in numerous innovative ways, even to the extent of being utilized in traditional face-to-face classrooms. A wealth of academic research has been published related to social media in education. The purpose of this special issue is to highlight research studies of social media in computing education, with the aim to discuss research findings, share good practices and practical experiences, and address the challenges of using social media in computing education. The special issue focuses on how social media in computing education is being used to transform teaching and learning practices in various educational contexts and settings. Additionally, the special issue covers a wide range of aspects related to the use of social media in computing education, such as the adoption of social media in instructional activities, the applicability of different social media tools in computing education, pedagogical frameworks, theoretical approaches, managerial perspectives, and possible ethical issues. An overview of the special issue papers is presented, exemplifying the importance of social media from a computing education perspective in a diverse educational context.
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Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice, 2020
Aim/Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop an efficient methodology that can assist the ... more Aim/Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop an efficient methodology that can assist the evaluators in assessing a variable number of individuals that are working in groups and guarantee that the assessment is dependent on the group members’ performance and contribution to the work developed. Background Collaborative work has been gaining more popularity in academic settings. However, group assessment needs to be performed according to each individual’s performance. The problem rests on the need to distinguish each member of the group in order to provide fair and unbiased assessments. Methodology Design Science Research methodology supported the design of a framework able to provide the evaluator with the means to distinguish individuals in a workgroup and deliver fair results. Hevner’s DSR guidelines were fulfilled in order to describe WebAVALIA. To evaluate the framework, a quantitative study was performed and the first results are presented. Contribution This paper provid...
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Smart learning environments, 2021
This study examines the research landscape of smart learning environments by conducting a compreh... more This study examines the research landscape of smart learning environments by conducting a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the field over the years. The study focused on the research trends, scholar's productivity, and thematic focus of scientific publications in the field of smart learning environments. A total of 1081 data consisting of peer-reviewed articles were retrieved from the Scopus database.
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Education and Information Technologies
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Microfinance institutions (MFIs) play a considerable role in providing capital to micro businesse... more Microfinance institutions (MFIs) play a considerable role in providing capital to micro businesses (MBs) through microcredit services. However, the interplay between MFIs and MB owners has been hindered by several factors, such as challenges with information sharing. The current study aims at identifying the specific challenges of microcredit services in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and also at determining the enabling factors, preferred features, and general requirements for a mobile technology solution to support the interplay between MFIs and MBs. The participants in the study were 91 MB owners and 22 MFI officers, and the data for the study were collected via a questionnaire. The study confirmed that the interaction, communication, and relationship between MB owners and MFIs is affected by various challenges. It was confirmed that digital technology can be used to address the identified challenges, and that a tailor-made mobile technology solution would be appropriate for supporting...
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IEEE Revista Iberoamericana de Technologias del Aprendizaje, 2021
There has been an increased use of workgroups during Problem-Based Learning (PBL) activities, whi... more There has been an increased use of workgroups during Problem-Based Learning (PBL) activities, which have implied the emergence of self and peer evaluation practices in education. In turn, these practices have highlighted the importance of e-assessment tools where the collection of feedback is regarded. The consideration of the students’ self and peer assessment about a project has influence on their individual mark. Literature states that e-assessment tools need to consider restrictions in the students’ distribution of scores during the self and peer assessment. An emerging technology that has recently started to be applied in the development of software tools is Machine Learning. This technology allows the possibility to implement algorithms that can process the students’ feedback about their marks, increasing the efficiency on the methodology implemented. This paper presents a framework that collects feedback of a survey and translates those results in parameter values that will dynamically change the distribution function of the final individuals’ mark. The advantages and restrictions of different solutions for the framework, based on the literature, are also discussed. Finally, there is the presentation of WEBAVALIA, a free software tool where the framework will be implemented, improving its usability, user experience, flexibility, and efficiency.
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International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education, 2021
In recent years, universities and other academic institutions have been performing collaborative ... more In recent years, universities and other academic institutions have been performing collaborative learning to improve the students' skills, competencies, and learning outcomes. The problem-based learning approach is a learning method where students can work in groups to develop these skills. However, when working in groups, the students are not always being assessed accordingly to their contributions to the work development. Therefore, self and peer assessment are becoming a common practice in academic institutions. With the technology evolution and the emerging of assessment software tools, the evaluators' work is becoming easier. This paper presents seven different tools, as well as their features and functionalities. To evaluate and compare these tools, some parameters are presented and described, based on usability and user experience definitions. It concludes that there is a demand to develop a freeware tool, with parameters not presented in the existing evaluation tools to assist the lecturer in the assessment.
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Education Sciences, 2021
This study investigated the role of virtual reality (VR) in computer science (CS) education over ... more This study investigated the role of virtual reality (VR) in computer science (CS) education over the last 10 years by conducting a bibliometric and content analysis of articles related to the use of VR in CS education. A total of 971 articles published in peer-reviewed journals and conferences were collected from Web of Science and Scopus databases to conduct the bibliometric analysis. Furthermore, content analysis was conducted on 39 articles that met the inclusion criteria. This study demonstrates that VR research for CS education was faring well around 2011 but witnessed low production output between the years 2013 and 2016. However, scholars have increased their contribution in this field recently, starting from the year 2017. This study also revealed prolific scholars contributing to the field. It provides insightful information regarding research hotspots in VR that have emerged recently, which can be further explored to enhance CS education. In addition, the quantitative method remains the most preferred research method, while the questionnaire was the most used data collection technique. Moreover, descriptive analysis was primarily used in studies on VR in CS education. The study concludes that even though scholars are leveraging VR to advance CS education, more effort needs to be made by stakeholders across countries and institutions. In addition, a more rigorous methodological approach needs to be employed in future studies to provide more evidence-based research output. Our future study would investigate the pedagogy, content, and context of studies on VR in CS education
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African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 2020
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International Journal of Learning Technology, 2019
Smart learning environment (SLE) has been researched to enhance
teaching and learning by providi... more Smart learning environment (SLE) has been researched to enhance
teaching and learning by providing personalised learning, quick feedback,
motivation and learning support. This study discusses the features of SLE that
are relevant to programming education and the general design features for
developing SLEs. In addition, the study provides insights into the level of
awareness and use of the SLE for programming education in the Nigerian
higher education institutions (HEIs). In this study, mixed research method was
employed to conduct a survey among the teachers and students of computer
science at HEI in Nigeria. Data were collected through questionnaire and
interview instruments. The study showed that the students and teachers have no
experience of SLEs but indicate strong willingness to embrace the use of the
SLE for programming education. Besides, tentative features of SLE such as
learning guides, personalised learning, quick feedback mechanisms, and
automatic task scheduling were identified and presented
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International Journal of Learning Technology, 2019
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Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice, 2020
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In human culture, storytelling is a long-established tradition. The reasons people tell stories a... more In human culture, storytelling is a long-established tradition. The reasons people tell stories are manifold: to entertain, to transfer knowledge between generations, to maintain cultural heritage, or to warn others of dangers. With the emergence of the digitisation of media, many new possibilities to tell stories in serious and non-entertainment contexts emerged. A very simple example is the idea of serious gaming, as in, digital games without the primary purpose of entertainment. In this paper, we introduce the term serious storytelling as a new potential media genre – defining serious storytelling as storytelling with a purpose beyond entertainment. We also put forward a review of existing potential application areas, and develop a framework for serious storytelling. We foresee several application areas for this fundamental concept, including wellbeing and health, medicine, psychology, education, ethical problem solving, e-leadership and management, qualitative journalism, serious digital games, simulations and virtual training, user experience studies, and online communication.
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TechTrends, 2014
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Journal by Jarkko Suhonen
teaching and learning by providing personalised learning, quick feedback,
motivation and learning support. This study discusses the features of SLE that
are relevant to programming education and the general design features for
developing SLEs. In addition, the study provides insights into the level of
awareness and use of the SLE for programming education in the Nigerian
higher education institutions (HEIs). In this study, mixed research method was
employed to conduct a survey among the teachers and students of computer
science at HEI in Nigeria. Data were collected through questionnaire and
interview instruments. The study showed that the students and teachers have no
experience of SLEs but indicate strong willingness to embrace the use of the
SLE for programming education. Besides, tentative features of SLE such as
learning guides, personalised learning, quick feedback mechanisms, and
automatic task scheduling were identified and presented
teaching and learning by providing personalised learning, quick feedback,
motivation and learning support. This study discusses the features of SLE that
are relevant to programming education and the general design features for
developing SLEs. In addition, the study provides insights into the level of
awareness and use of the SLE for programming education in the Nigerian
higher education institutions (HEIs). In this study, mixed research method was
employed to conduct a survey among the teachers and students of computer
science at HEI in Nigeria. Data were collected through questionnaire and
interview instruments. The study showed that the students and teachers have no
experience of SLEs but indicate strong willingness to embrace the use of the
SLE for programming education. Besides, tentative features of SLE such as
learning guides, personalised learning, quick feedback mechanisms, and
automatic task scheduling were identified and presented