educational environments

Among others, the journal focuses on articles in the following fields of research: Research on learning and instruction in formal and informal contexts, multidisciplinary research on learning and learning environments, new theoretical and methodological approaches in learning sciences, insights into learning research from disciplines other than educational sciences or psychology (e.g., cognitive neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, sociology).

The journal particularly welcomes both short and long, brief, albeit rigorous, articles reporting on emerging theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches. Innovative/risk-taking research in the learning and educational sciences is encouraged. An outlet is provided for publishing in-depth studies, including articles involving a thoroughly elaborated theoretical framework, extensive qualitative data, or complex analytical techniques. As a consequence, also dynamic data material is welcomed in the journal, such as video's, photo's, and other dynamic data.

Furthermore, multidisciplinary research that draws from cognitive, philosophical, sociological, psychological and pedagogical theoretical paradigms is highly-valued. Indicatively, the following research is encouraged to submit its work to Frontline Learning Research:

Studies focusing on issues and ideas encountered in relatively new fields, lacking a long line of research. This lack of well-developed theoretical framings and of articulated theoretical constructs and ideas, provides an avenue for initiating useful and productive scientific discussion on a range of issues. These include internal inconsistencies, phenomena which appear inconsistent with the predictions derived from the corresponding theoretical framework and available empirical evidence, indicating flaws in underlying assumptions or premises.
Studies seeking to make connections between previously unconnected established lines of research so as to integrate different theoretical frameworks
Studies using an innovative research methodology that offers a different perspective on how to conceptualise and pursue certain research questions.

This book by Nancy LAW, Allan YUEN, Man Wai LEE and Yeung LEE aims to understand the nature of the evolving changes and the impact these have made on teachers and students over this 12-year period (1998-2010), and to explore how far such changes have in fact brought about educational transformations. One of the distinctive features of this book is that it depicts the Hong Kong education changes from an international comparative perspective. This book is grounded on rigorous and systematic analysis of local and international studies in the past decade. Taking a comparative perspective, findings of various studies or projects related to ICT in education are presented to illustrate and illuminate the changing face of education in Hong Kong. By linking empirical research findings on practice with system and school level policies, this work aims also to reflect on the lessons that we can learn from Hong Kong’s first decade of ICT implementation in school education. This book has grown out of a substantial secondary analysis of the data collected from two research projects, the international comparative study SITES 2006 (http://sites.cite.hku.hk/sites2006) and the Phase II Evaluation of the Second IT in Education Strategy in Hong Kong (http://il.cite.hku.hk/). The former study seeks to understand the status of pedagogy and ICT implementation at classroom, school and system levels while the latter aims to investigate the impact of ICT implementation on student practices and student learning outcomes, in particular whether students are well prepared for the 21st century.

In developing this project, we are innovating methodologically by introducing two new non-linear thinking processes, as fundamental heuristic devices in assisting the user to generate new types of candidate solutions. These innovations are based on most recent results of cognitive science research, which have marked a breakthrough in our understanding of the roots of reasoning and its relation to emotion and representation: Diagrammatic Reasoning and Emotional Reasoning.

We shall also implement these non-linear thinking methodologies in game environments, especially for school age users, in order to enhance the motivational component and to enrich the manner and opportunities of engagement with these activities. In so doing, we shall be guided by an acclaimed educational theory on how to use digital gaming and social networking technology to promote creative thinking in children and the young.

The C2Learn environment will be an open-world "sandbox'' (non-linear) virtual space enabling learners to freely explore ideas, concepts, and the 'shared' knowledge available on the semantic web and the virtual communities in which they participate. In this open-world sandbox, creativity is contextually defined as open-ended, and has no pre-sets or barriers. So too will be the virtual game environment housing nonrestrictive opportunities for learners to engage in creative problem-finding and creative problem solving. These new computational tools - rather than setting a series of preset problems and challenges based on players' previous actions in the virtual game environment - will afford and generate potential playful experiences surrounding creative problem solving and non-linear thinking tasks.