News

The Media, Cognition, and Learning (MCL) Research Group successfully carried out the workshop entitled “Internet of Things – Atmospheric Air” during the 4th National Conference “Chemistry in Education” which took place on Saturday, March 16th, 2019, at the University of Cyprus, Nicosia.

The workshop was attended by secondary school chemistry teachers, who had the opportunity to learn about the learning module “Applications of the Internet of Things in Education: The Relationship of pollutants with the quality of the air”. The driving question of this learning module has students engaging in IOT-related, inquiry learning activities using mobile devices. The workshop leaders shared their experiences from the pilot implementations of the module with 35 high school students. The learning module was collaboratively developed by members of the MCL group and the IoT Lab both at the Department of Communication and Internet Studies.  The learning module represents an innovative effort to introduce IOT technologies into science teaching, and chemistry education in particular.

If you are interested in implementing the learning module “Internet of Things – Atmospheric Air” in your class, you can have access the learning materials by contact us!

The Media, Cognition, and Learning (MCL) Research Group had  a strong presence during the EARLI SIG 20-26 Conference at Jerusalem, held between 9-12 of October 2018.  In particular, the conference was attended by Associate Professor Eleni A. Kyza (Coordinator of the MCL research group, Secretary/Treasurer of the EARLI organization), Dr. Yiannis Georgiou (Ph.D. graduate of MCL and JURE coordinator of the EARLI SIG 20), as well as by Mr. Markos Souropetsis and Ms. Andria Agesilaou (doctoral students in MCL).

The coordinator of the MCL research group, Dr. Eleni Kyza, who was invited as a keynote speaker,  delivered an inspiring talk entitled “Transforming learning and teaching through inquiry for responsible citizenship”. Her keynote presentation triggered an interesting conversation between the conference participants about citizenship education, the role of learning technologies and designed learning environments, and the contribution of inquiry-based pedagogy to cultivating informed, responsible citizens.

Dr. Yiannis Georgiou gave a paper presentation on how inquiry-based Augmented Reality (AR) field investigations can be enhanced with physical objects, and thus contribute to students’ increased immersion and subsequent learning. This work was a follow-up study, based on his doctoral dissertation findings on immersion in relation students’ learning in AR location-based settings. Finally,  Mr. Markos Souropetsis delivered a poster presentation sharing some preliminary findings from his ongoing Ph.D. research. In particular, Markos’ Ph.D. research is focused on the investigation of upper elementary school students’ co-construction of knowledge in non-formal learning contexts, during the collaborative use of an AR learning environment at a cultural heritage site.

For more information about the MCL presentations and research work contact us!

The MCL Research group participated in the 2018 CUT Summer Club with fun educational activities for 5th-9th graders.

The younger participants (5th & 6th grade)  had the opportunity to: (a) practice their coding skills and develop interactive stories with the Scratch program, (b) participate in the evaluation of a mobile AR learning environment (“CompARe”) which supports a collaborative inquiry learning scenario about a unique 6th century wall mosaic, (c) engage in creative writing activities and challenges.

The activities designed by the MCL group during the summer club, aimed to unleash students’ creativity, develop their collaboration skills, and cultivate a team-working spirit, while also being lots and lots of fun.

Another major goal of the MCL activities, in collaboration with the Internet of Things lab at the Department of Communication and Internet Studies, was to familiarize students with the most trending educational technologies, like augmented reality and the Internet of Things (IoT).  Older students (7th-9th grade) were introduced to the applications of IoT and participated in co-design sessions contributing to the development of an IoT-based mobile application about air quality.

The Media, Cognition and Learning (MCL) research group organized a five-day summer club for primary and secondary school  students from 17-21 July 2017. The overarching goal of the summer club was to provide students the chance to interact with innovative learning technologies.  A total of 30 5th-8th graders participated in the summer club, and were involved in various fun and learning activities, some of which are described below.

Meeting with the Rector of the University: During the first day, the participating students were welcomed by the Rector of the Cyprus University of Technology, Professor Andreas Anayiotos. As part of their visit, the Rector explained to the students how the Cyprus University of Technology operates, and discussed how studying at the undergraduate, postgraduate or doctoral level of CUT works. During  the second part of their visit the students had the opportunity to ask several questions in relation to university studies or to duties and responsibilities of the Rector.

Learning with activity trackers: An activity tracker was provided to each participating student during a sequence of learning activities, to interact with and explore its capabilities. As part of these learning activities students also had the opportunity to perform several tasks using the activity trackers and engage with real-time data. Finally, students explored how can such technologies can help us learn more about the human body and proposed ideas about how they can be used in formal education.

Solving mysteries using Augmented Reality (AR) technologies: Students working in pairs used augmented reality  apps  to solve two problem-based cases for biology learning. During their investigation, students were asked  to collect and synthesize virtual and real data and provide an evidence-based explanation of the problems.

Exploring Augmented Reality (AR) apps: Students explored some of the endless possibilities of Augmented Reality in various thematic areas and interacted with AR apps about the planetary system, famous monuments of the world, space ships and 3D drawing figures. During these activities they had the opportunity to experience the affordances of the AR technologies as an emerging technological field.

Becoming radio producers: A unique opportunity was given to the participating students, since they had the opportunity to visit the CUT radio broadcasting university station (95,2 FM). During their visit, and with the help of a CUT radio producer, students produced various radio spots which were performed live from the studio to the CUT radio audience.

Designing digital projects: Students developed their own digital projects using the Scratch Jr application, a mobile application for enabling young children to easily learn programming and create various digital projects such as digital games or interactive stories and animations.

A closing party to thank all students for their participation, was organized during the last day of the summer school. The party included pizza, jokes, riddles and songs!