The main goals of this study were to look after the technological knowledge construction process by high-school high-achievers, and their ability to design and implement solutions for technological problems. More specifically, we examine the contribution of Project-based-learning (PBL), as pedagogical means for supporting the students' knowledge acquisition and problem-solving process. The findings show a significant increase in formal knowledge as measured by standardized matriculation exams; an expansion in the scope of technological knowledge acquired and implemented, and in the scope of knowledge resources utilized for the projects; a high level of overall performance as regards to the set of design skills studied; a positive change in attitude towards technology and technological studies; the emergence of consistent design styles by individuals and groups along their work in the projects.Keywords Project-based learning AE Design learning AE Design styles AE Technological knowledge AE High-achieversThe number of high-school students who choose to learn technological education is decreasing consistently in many countries, including Israel. Moreover, most of the students in technology education tracks belong to the mid and low achievers amongst the high-school population. Both aspects-the decrease in number of students and the reticence of high achievers to learn technology-stand in contradiction with the demand imposed by the massive integration of current technologies in all areas of life (e.g., economy, security, health treatments and services, leisure culture, quality of life in general), for more technologically literate and knowledgeable citizens in one hand, and more professionally-trained human resources in the other. The actual challenge is therefore twofold: to ensure the acquisition of an appropriate technological knowledge base by the population at large, and at the same time to attract high-achievers to high-quality technological studies.The study presented in this paper focuses on the second challenge, namely, the planning and implementation of technological studies for high-school high-achievers who learn in comprehensive schools (not in specialized technology-education programs). The main goals of the study were to examine the technological knowledge construction process by these students, and their ability to design and implement solutions for technological problems. More specifically, we examine the contribution of Project-based-learning (PBL), as pedagogical means for supporting the students' knowledge acquisition and problem-solving process.

This study examined the unique contribution of computer-based instruction when compared with more conventional modes of instruction (i.e. teacher instruction with textbooks) to early reading skills acquisition, as well as the effects of specific features of computer technology on early reading skills performance. Forty-six pre-school children (aged 5-6), at high risk for learning disabilities, participated in the study. They were assigned to one of three study groups that received different treatments. Three dependent variables were defined, i.e. children's phonological awareness, word recognition and letter recognition skills measured prior and after the treatment. Results clearly indicated that children at high risk who received the reading intervention program with computer materials significantly improved their phonological awareness, word recognition, and letter naming skills relative to their peers who received a reading intervention program with only printed materials and those who received no formal reading intervention program. The results are discussed in detail, with reference to the features of the computerbased materials that contributed to the acquisition of critical early reading skills.

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Exploration of unknown spaces is essential for the development of efficient orientation and mobility skills. Most of the information required for the exploration is gathered through the visual channel. People who are blind lack this crucial information, facing in consequence difficulties in mapping as well as navigating spaces. This study is based on the assumption that the supply of appropriate spatial information through compensatory sensorial channels may contribute to the spatial performance of people who are blind. The main goals of this study were (a) the development of a haptic virtual environment enabling people who are blind to explore unknown spaces and (b) the study of the exploration process of these spaces by people who are blind. Participants were 31 people who are blind: 21 in the experimental group exploring a new space using a multi-sensory virtual environment, and 10 in the control group directly exploring the real new space. The results of the study showed that the participants in the experimental group mastered the navigation of the unknown virtual space in a short time. Significant differences were found concerning the use of exploration strategies, methods, and processes by participants working with the multi-sensory virtual environment, in comparison with those working in the real space.

This study investigates young children's perspectives in explaining a selfregulating mobile robot, as they learn to program its behaviors from rules. We explore their descriptions of a robot in action to determine the nature of their explanatory frameworks: psychological or technological. We have also studied the role of an adult's intervention in their reasoning. The study was conducted individually with six kindergarten children along five sessions that included tasks, ordered by increasing difficulty. We developed and used a robotic control interface. We have found that the children employed two modes of explanation: ''engineering'' mode focused on the technological building blocks which make up the robot's operation; ''bridging'' mode tended to combine and align two explanatory frameworks -technological and psychological. However, this was not consistent across tasks. In the easiest tasks, involving one condition-action rule, most of the children used a technological perspective. When the task became more difficult, most children shifted to a psychological perspective. Further experience in programming was associated with a shift to technological or combined explanatory frameworks. The results are discussed with respect to developmental literature on children's explanatory frameworks, and with regard to educational implications of incorporating such learning environments in early childhood classes.Controlled self-regulated systems pervade our daily environment, embodying central concepts related to systems, adaptation and emergence. Robotic systems, which have been part of educational settings for over two decades, provide opportunities to interact with, and construct controlled adaptive behaviors (Papert 1980

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This study explores young children's abstraction of the rules underlying a robot's emergent behavior. The study was conducted individually with six kindergarten children, along five sessions that included description and construction tasks, ordered by increasing difficulty. We developed and used a robotic control interface, structured as independent concurrent rules. To capture the children's changing knowledge representations, we have employed a framework that underscores the differences in generality between episodes, a unique sequence of events, scripts, which include repeating temporal patterns, triggered by an environmental condition and rules, atemporal associations between local environmental conditions and the robot's actions. Our data unravels the progression through which rules are constructed. From an episode that focuses on the robot's actions, noticing repeated sequences triggered by occasional environmental conditions emerges into scripts. Once both actions and conditions are attributed with similar importance, noticing the co-variance of environmental conditions with robot actions is made possible, bolstering abstraction of atemporal rules. In addition, we have supported the children's reasoning by helping them attend to relevant features, and compared their spontaneous and supported descriptions. We elaborate on the role of function and mechanism as invariants, and the support of ''concrete-abstractions'' in the interaction between cognitive schemas and object-embedded abstract schemas, for the children's evolving explanations of the robot's behavior.

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