The Affective Views of Primary School Children.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION Observations in the classes confirm that the use of computers with the tools in an open setting had a mediating role for students’ construction of knowledge. The use of an open learning environment and possibilities for students to make their choices seemed to stimulate this. The students discussed what they see on the screen and asked questions to their peers. Their understanding developed as they worked, and observation of some cases revealed that what they learned on one task, they recognized they could use on a similar task later. An aim in the project was to develop the students’ competence to make reasonable choices of tools. From the analysis of answers to the questionnaire I found that about 18 % gave good reasons for their choices with reference to features of the tools. For about 46 – 60 % of the students’ answers was less informative, telling they used the tool because it was “the best choice for this task”, “it is easy with a spreadsheet”, and similar. For some answers, perhaps a geometrical figure or a table of numbers triggered the answer. These answers can be judged as superficial but the choice of a relevant tool itself has to be counted, and in this setting we can only expect short answers. In most cases their choices are relevant and give a good starting point for the task. I think the depth of choices will increase with more knowledge of the tools. Another question is whether the students can solve the task with the tools they chose, e.g., if they can make a spreadsheet model when they have chosen this, and tell it is the best choice for this. In order to answer this in full, more analysis of observations is needed. But from the example of Tim and Hans given in this paper, and other cases in the data, indicate that the answers given are closely related to the experiences students had in their work on similar tools and are reasonable.

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