Several countries are beginning to introduce computer science education at an elementary school level in response to the increasing demand of technologically skilled workers. In the transitionary period of establishing the curriculum and expectations, there is an opportunity to revolutionize certain aspects of the teaching and learning process within the classroom. In many ways, we can use technology to enhance this experience. For teachers, it can automate repetitive tasks, as well as provide immediate feedback on class progress. For students, it can offer engaging interfaces, helpful hints and innovative ways to collaborate with one another. To put this challenge and opportunity into context, we review what is known about learning theories, and survey existing applications. A large majority of these applications support behaviourist learning styles, what most would call "traditional" teaching methods. Much like pen and paper drill exercises, they reinforce information previously presented to the user for passive consumption. This is in spite of the fact that academic researchers strongly favour constructivist and especially social constructivist methods. In fact, this perpetuates a known gap between theory and practice in education, and may be contributing to the lack of adoption within the classroom. MacVenture is an iOS application designed to facilitate social constructivist teaching styles by allowing students to create gamebooks for themselves and for their peers by incorporating material from across the curriculum. This work outlines the structure and design of MacVenture, presents examples to illustrate the range of uses it supports, and discusses proposed future developments to enable new methods for collaboration among peers, and new motivational and analytical tools for teachers. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Several countries are beginning to introduce computer science education at an elementary school level in response to the increasing demand of technologically skilled workers. In the transitionary period of establishing the curriculum and expectations, there is an opportunity to revolutionize certain aspects of the teaching and learning process within the classroom. In many ways, we can use technology to enhance this experience. For teachers, it can automate repetitive tasks, as well as provide immediate feedback on class progress. For students, it can offer engaging interfaces, helpful hints and innovative ways to collaborate with one another. To put this challenge and opportunity into context, we review what is known about learning theories, and survey existing applications. A large majority of these applications support behaviourist learning styles, what most would call "traditional" teaching methods. Much like pen and paper drill exercises, they reinforce information previously presented to the user for passive consumption. This is in spite of the fact that academic researchers strongly favour constructivist and especially social constructivist methods. In fact, this perpetuates a known gap between theory and practice in education, and may be contributing to the lack of adoption within the classroom. MacVenture is an iOS application designed to facilitate social constructivist teaching styles by allowing students to create gamebooks for themselves and for their peers by incorporating material from across the curriculum. This work outlines the structure and design of MacVenture, presents examples to illustrate the range of uses it supports, and discusses proposed future developments to enable new methods for collaboration among peers, and new motivational and analytical tools for teachers.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching a picture communication system to students with moderate to severe disabilities using the PECS Phase III application. A multiple probe across participants design was used to conduct the study and evaluate the effectiveness of the training on the PECS Phase III application. The results of the study demonstrated that teaching a picture communication system on an augmentative and alternative communication device is effective in the school setting with young adults with moderate and severe disabilities.

This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of video self-modelling (VSM) and the iPad application (Fast Fact Math, FFM) interventions on a group of Year 5 students to increase their knowledge of basic number facts. This study also aimed to measure the intervention group’s self-efficacy levels (Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scales, PALS) before and following the interventions. Participants were drawn from a decile 9 primary school in a suburban area (teaches Year 1 to Year 6). The Test (pre-, mid-, and post-test phases) were administered by a class teacher to all Year 5 students. Following consultation with the teacher, eight students whose scores fell below the 25th percentile were invited to participate in the study. The intervention group took a specific level test to ascertain their basic number facts performance on all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). The videos and the FFM app were personalised to each intervention group’s members in an effort to elicit from the errors that they made on specific level test. At the completion of each intervention sessions, session probes were conducted. Meanwhile, the researcher gave a self-efficacy test (PALS) to the participants before and following intervention phases. Results showed that, although more than half of the intervention group increased their basic number fact performance level following the interventions, their overall self-efficacy rating on PALS did not change. Results also showed that VSM is a time-efficient and rapid learning method to use with the intervention group as opposed to the iPad app, which took two times longer to complete a session. Further areas of study are suggested.