Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Eleni Rossiou and Erasmia Papadopoulou
hand, educational activities that demand students’ active participation, are recognized as factors that
lead to improvements in the effectiveness of teaching (Hedesting & Κeptelinin 2002, Laurillard 1993,
Hearnshaw 1999, Raptis & Rapti 2001).
Figure 10: Students’ opinions about the ease of access and configuration of settings in technological
environment
Students familiarized themselves very quickly with the new way of communication via the web-based
group environment and it is remarkable that their participation was more active than in the traditional
classroom. Since students do actively participate in the web based group, they show their positive
attitude in the use of new technologies by using Google applications in the context of parallel activities
in the class and outside of it. Furthermore, their opinions about the extra skills and capacities that
their teachers should have in order to implement blended learning activities are encouraged. These
skills are related to organizational management, encouragement and students’ motivation,
friendliness, but also the creation of a safe learning environment where students can freely express
their questions and queries and trace their a priori knowledge. By giving students the opportunity to
easily express their questions and discover their fullest potential by gaining new skills, in an
environment where they feel comfortable since they can easily access, the teacher can encourage
their active attendance in the educational process.
After the written test of the second semester, and comparing the students’ performance in this with
their performance in the written test of the first semester, there are strong indications that there was
positive impact in the comprehension and usage of different concepts of Informatics. But these
indicators are not evidence yet, but successive repetition of blended learning process with new
activities is required in order to confirm or reject its effectiveness in the learning level. However, the
main hypothesis of this research can be confirmed.
The results indicate that students improved their level of knowledge of the concepts of Informatics and
this encourages the usage of collaborative tools as an educational intervention of blended learning in
teaching Informatics in the Secondary Education. The level of students’ satisfaction from their
experience in participating in the web based activities was very high. Their positive attitude in the use
of blended learning seems to be a very promising educational activity in obtaining an improvement in
their future studies. It is optimistic to see that students tendencies may turn to collaborate and
willingly involved in web-based additional educational activities and use their digital familiarization in
academic level and not only for chatting, Facebook, blogging, downloading of movies and mp3,
avatars etc
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