Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Using Google Applications to Facilitate an Effective
Students’ Collaboration in the Teaching of Informatics to
Students of Secondary Education
Eleni Rossiou and Erasmia Papadopoulou
Department of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki,
Greece
rossiou@uom.gr,
p_eri_@hotmail.com
Abstract: This paper describes the results of an empirical research on the impact of eLearning in the students’
activities in respect of their educational record, their active attendance and their collaboration in the class at the
teaching of the Informatics course, in the Experimental School of Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece. The
investigation of blended learning effectiveness, using online collaborative tools (as Google Applications: email,
groups, calendar, forum, chat, shared documents), concludes that blended learning as an
additional/complementary tool of teaching and learning is effective as much in students’ performance as in their
positive attitude to the use of new technologies in the educational process of the Informatics course. More
specifically the students’ attitudes before, during and after the use of technology as a supporting tool of
educational process is investigated. Additionally the research paper examines the way that students’ active
attendance in the educational process - with the exploitation of eLearning and techniques of collaborative
learning from distance- is encouraged,. The current research does not aim to compare the effectiveness of
exploitation of eLearning with the one without it, but it approaches students’ motivation and it gives an example of
good practical exploitation of ICT. An educational framework of blended learning implementation which uses
collaborative online tools (less important point the tool itself) to support a “web-based” class complementary to
face-to-face class facilitates an effective students’ collaboration and improves the efficiency of learning regarding
both students’ grades and their positive attitudes in using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in
the educational process.
Keywords: blended learning, collaborative learning, teaching Informatics, secondary education
1. Introduction
Digital natives behave differently since they are familiar with blogs, webcameras, mp3, movies,
avatars, project, digital photos, open systems, exploration etc. (Prensky 2004). But although students
of today are aware of digital applications and use them in their daily life, their usage seem often to be
on a non-educational purposes. However, there is a continual increase of knowledge and the
requirements of saving time impose a non-stop search and preference in flexible forms of education,
work and study (Papadakis et al. 2006). The educational institutes should adapt new strategies for
new models of education that promote life learning and embed the technology in educational process
(Hicks et al. 2001). ELearning, the exploitation of new technology and the Internet, has changed the
quality of education and facilitated the access to resources of information, services and need for cooperation
from distance. Hybrid, combinational and blended learning are terms that are used to
express the instructional model of teaching which combines eLearning with face-to-face (f2f) learning
in the classroom (Schank 2001). The web-based education is a new challenge and an opportunity for
teachers and students as well (Passerini & Granger 2000). Distance education and eLearning are not
impeded by the limitations of traditional education (limited time of teaching and learning, unavailability
of instructors for additional support for students). Furthermore, there exists powerful indicators that
collaborative methods of learning encourage the building of knowledge and deeper comprehension,
encourage the active learning and in-depth understanding of information since investment of
important intellectual effort is required by the students (Dillenbourg 1999).
The educational institutes of Secondary Education use ICT for their administrative works and sharing
resources. Higher Education constitutes the right place for implementation and exploitation of new
technologies and pedagogical methods that use them. Secondary Education is a prevented place on
that usage due to the technological infrastructure of schools and the limited teachers’ skills in the use
of such examples as blended learning and the computer-supported collaborative learning. But. there
is much research and a large number of programs that use blended learning and emphasize the
effective use of ICT, in learning and the support that is obtained by students aiming at developing
their performance (Hatziplis 2005).
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