Using Workflow for Projects in Higher Education

The WWW is increasingly used as a medium to support education and training. A course at the University of Twente in which groups of students collaborate in the design and production of multimedia instructional materials has now been supported by a website since 1995. Workflow was integrated with other components in the website to investigate whether workflow can help instructors and students to have a better overview of group progress. Our evaluation shows that the introduction of workflow does provide added value. Another outcome of the experiment is that the transfer of a business application (workflow) into the educational domain has highlighted some differences and similarities between educational and business processes. This article explores some of these issues as highlighted by the application of workflow in education.     

Integrierte Entwicklung von Automotive-Software mit AutoFocus

Zur Beherrschung der komplexen vernetzten und verteilten Funktionen von Automotive-Software ist eine Beschreibung des zu erstellenden Systems auf verschiedenen Abstraktionsebenen und schrittweise überg?nge zwischen diesen Ebenen notwendig. Neben der Definition geeigneter Ebenen werden zur Unterstützung echtzeitkritischer Systemanteile ein einheitliches Berechnungsmodell, ebenenspezifische Beschreibungstechniken, sowie methodische Regeln für diese Abstraktionsebenen eingeführt und in den Werkzeugprototypen AutoFocus integriert.     

Teacher learning in the context of educational innovation: Learning activities and learning outcomes of experienced teachers

This longitudinal study was aimed at increasing our understanding of how teachers learn. It was conducted within a national innovation programme in secondary education. During one year 94 teachers reported six learning experiences using digital logs. The learning experiences were content-analysed in terms of learning activities and learning outcomes. The former comprised six main categories, namely experimenting, considering own practice, getting ideas from others, experiencing friction, struggling not to revert to old ways, and avoiding learning—the first two categories being reported most frequently. Reported learning outcomes referred to changes in knowledge and beliefs, emotions, practices, and intentions for practice, with changes in knowledge and beliefs being reported most frequently and changes in teaching practices being reported rarely. Learning activities were associated significantly with all measures of learning outcomes. Type of learning environment was significantly associated with learning activities and learning outcomes. Results are discussed with respect to ways of fostering teacher learning.