JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL INNOVATIONS
Year:2008 | Volume:7 | Issue:27|Papers Count:14

The main purpose of this paper was to study how students use ICT when doing their homeworks according to the handbooks of England primary schools' science teachers. By ICT, the researchers mean different kinds of electronic instruments such as digital camera, video, sound recorder, computer and internet. The population included the handbooks of England primary schools' science teachers from grade one to six which were published by Ginn publisher. The unit of analysis was students' homework. Findings of this study indicated that for doing more than one third of homeworks, ICT was needed. The Least utilization of ICT belonged to grade two students and the most use of ICT belonged to fifth and sixth grade students (42%). The kind of advised technology was different for each grade. In grade one, students had to use radio, digital camera and video for doing their homework, but in fifth and sixth grades, they had to use internet and multimedia for doing their tasks. At lower grades, ICT was used for attracting the students' attention and increasing their computer literacy. However, at higher grades, ICT was used to rehearse the students' research interest and knowledge construction.

Adolescents, who are considered the main users of the internet, are not trained on the facilities and correct use of it. On the other hand, they are not skillful in selecting, processing, and analyzing the received information and data. However, the main problem is unfamiliarity of parents and teachers with new communication and information technologies. Therefore, awareness of this weakness can lead us to carefully plan for internet literacy education of parents and teachers. Internet literacy has three layers: first, personal planning on how to use the Internet; second, recognizing characteristics of a message; and third' analysis of the message. The present study has assessed the internet literacy only at its first layer among three main groups; that is, students, their teachers and parents. The participants included 359 Tehran third grade high school students (girls and boys) who were internet users, their teachers (112) and parents (718). They were selected from north, south, east, west, and center of Tehran and a questionnaire was distributed among them to assess their internet literacy. The results showed that only 10.44% of internet user students' parents and 32.31% of their teachers could connect to the internet. Therefore: 1. There was significant differences among students, their teachers and parents in terms of their ability to use internet2. Students used internet more frequently than their teachers and parents3. There were significant differences among students, their teachers and parents in terms of the priority of used internet programs4. There was a not significant difference among students, their teachers and parents in terms of personal planning to use the internet5. 6.58% of students consulted qualified people on how to use the internet.In sum, the three groups (students, their teachers and parents)' differences on the internet literacy levels shows that neither parents, nor teachers are able to train students on how to use the internet and generally are not considered as a reference source for them. Therefore, parents and especially teachers should increase their internet as well as media literacy and their related abilities.

Societies' change from traditional to knowledge-based ones and the need to use the new communicative conditions leads in universal movement in the developed and developing countries to change the educational structure. The country's authorities understood the change in global circumstances well and this is realized in the ministry of education's approved documents. The authorities are completely aware that in knowledge -based society, it is worth to produce science and knowledge. Smart schools can be considered as an educational setting which makes the fulfillment of knowledge-based society possible. In this paper, using the survey research method, the smart schools' development challenges in Iran would be investigated and some strategies would be offered to meet these challenges.

The study on math education indicates that math education hardly creates the problem solving ability among the students. This led the math education experts to try to find out the etiology of this phenomenon. Following some studies in this regard, they found out that the success on math problem solving ability requires not only the acquisition of the principles of math concepts, but also, the self-regulatory strategies. In this study, we tried to investigate the immediate and sustainable effectiveness of self-regulation strategies instruction on self regulatory skills of learners and their performance on math problem solving. The sample contained 181 third grade guidance school students (all girls) who were selected by multiple cluster sampling from Tehran educational districts 1, 6 & 19. Then, they were randomly assigned as experimental and control groups. Before instruction, the two groups received two pre-tests, one was self-regulated learning questionnaire and the other was math problem solving test. Then, the experimental group received instruction on self-regulatory strategies for 8 weeks and the control group received instruction in the traditional method. Finally, after one month instruction, the two groups (experimental and control groups) received two post-tests, one was self-regulated learning questionnaire and the other was math problem solving test. The results showed no significant differences between the two groups in pretests. However, in the post tests, there were significant differences between the experimental and control groups on the self-regulatory strategies and math problem solving ability to the benefit of experimental group. So, we could say that self-regulation strategies could be learned and if correctly instructed, it would have a long-lasting effect.

This research studies the stages of aesthetic development among students in Tehran. Total sample size was 156 students including 5 age groups (7-9, 9-11, 11- 13, 13-15, 15-17 years old). Two primary goals were considered: (1) determining the stages of aesthetic development of students in Tehran, and (2) determining the ability of these students to differentiate the aesthetic from the nonaesthetic hand paintings. To determine the stages of aesthetic development, 8 paintings, including 2 samples from each of the 4 different famous styles were selected. Each student was asked to watch all the 8 paintings, one by one, and write whatever they could perceive about the paintings. After careful statistical analysis of the data, different aesthetic development stages were recognized. To investigate the second goal of this research, 20 painting subjects were chosen. Four different designs were developed for each of the 20 paintings subjects, that is, 80 designs in total. Each student was asked to put the four paintings in each of the 20 categories in descending order (i.e, the most beautiful to the ugliest). The scoring criterion was so that one total score was assigned to each student for his/her aesthetic ability. The results showed three essential stages in aesthetic development which were called: Objectivism (7-9, 9-11, 11-13 age groups), Storytelling-Affectivism (13-15 age group), Evaluation-Symbolism (15-17 age group). Other results showed that with increasing the age, the ability to identify aesthetic paintings from nonaesthetic ones increases. Comparing the findings of this research with findings of researches in other countries (for example, Housen, 1992 and Parsons, 1987) indicated similarities and differences on the aesthetic development stages in different countries.

In this research, we tried to investigate the national identity symbols in the secondary school textbooks. The national identity symbols investigated in this study included the flag, the national anthem, formal calendar, national parties, Iranian art, historical places, defending the country, elites and the national celebrities.The results showed that national identity education in the above mentioned textbooks was incomplete and there was not a balanced attention to national identity symbols among the lessons, pages and pictures of these textbooks. Because education system, other than the family has an important role in developing the students' characters and textbooks constitute the base of school works, so it is necessary to pay more attention to national identity symbols in these textbooks to gradually develop the students' national identity.

Socrates is known as the first teacher. His method, named as Socratic method is used in many contexts, from elementary school, high school, university philosophy classes to law schools. The diversity of Socratic method usage signifies the importance of this method.There are several criticisms on the Socrates. These criticisms should be taken into account if we are to fully understand and be able to appraise critically his point of views. Moreover, such criticisms are key elements to decide on the ways of using Socratic method in the present education system. In this paper, first, Socratic method would be examined and two elements of it, i.e., interrogation and to bring interlocutors to aporia, would be explained. Then, two distinct aspects of Socrates dialogues would be discussed as Socratic paradoxes. It would be shown that although nowadays, Socrates and his method are considered in many cases, however, in each case, attention was paid to only one of these aspects. Finally, in this paper, regarding the attention to just one aspect of this method, we would consider its application to civic education from a new perspective.