Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is becoming an important part of general education, based on a concept that includes three components: Environmental, Social and Economic. The sustainable development curriculum in Croatia is based on this concept, and activities in this area are mainly limited to environmental protection and ecological activities. At the same time, the technological and political context needed to take the right action and develop critical thinking and a systemic approach is lacking. In this context, a survey on pupils’ attitudes towards the relationship between technology and engineering with the themes of ecology and sustainable development was conducted to investigate the impact of this curriculum on students’ awareness. The research was conducted on a stratified sample of primary school pupils (N = 2205) from Croatia. The results show that pupils view technology as important for life and progress, but do not understand how it relates to sustainable development and environmental issues. This refers to issues of water conservation, construction of facilities, waste disposal, and understanding technology only as pollution. These results point to the need for “deeper” and transformative technology teaching that takes place in a real-world context. Only in this way can students understand the concept and meaning of sustainable development and the role and importance of technology in this context, and be educated to be responsible citizens.
28 April 2020 in International Journal of Technology and Design Education
High achievements in the cognitive domain are the ultimate goal of any education, within it is important to understand the role of the teaching context. In this regard, the purpose of this research was to determine how teachers perceive the role of the teaching context on the pupils’ achievements in the cognitive domain in general technology education. For this purpose, a survey of teachers’ perception towards the influence of isolated elements of the teaching context, specific to technology education, on the achievements of learning objectives was conducted. The study was conducted as a survey on a stratified sample of technology education teachers (N = 194) from Croatia. ANOVA repeated measurements statistical procedure was used to process the research results. The analysis of the results showed that teachers give preference to certain contextual elements over others. These are activities with technological artifacts, models and simulations, service-learning activities, field trips, work in an appropriate space and the student’s presentation of their own results. These elements can be considered as a contextual basis for the cognitive development of pupils in general technology education. Teachers’ perception of the influence of other elements of the teaching context is not negligible, but obviously there is no priority over these elements, which is why further research is needed.
Cybercrime commonly refers to a broad range of different criminal activities that involve computers and information systems, either as primary tools or as primary targets. Cybercrime Science combines the methodology of Crime Science with the technology of Information Security. The few existing taxonomies of Cybercrime provide only general insights into the benefits of information structures; they are neither complete nor elaborated in a systemic manner to provide a proper framework guided by real system-principles. The main problem with such taxonomies is the inability to dynamically upgrade, which is why there is no timely cybersecurity actions. The current and past approaches were based mainly on the technical nature of cyberattacks and such approaches classified the impact of the activities from a criminological perspective. In this article, we present a systemic taxonomy of Cybercrime, based on definitions of the field items and the related data specifications. We develop a new method for estimating the fractal dimension of networks to explore a new taxonomy of Cybercrime activity. This method can serve to dynamically upgrade taxonomy and thus accelerate the prevention of cybercrime.
17 January 2024 in International Journal of Technology and Design Education
Today’s social, political and technological changes, known as the 4th Industrial Revolution, have merged the physical and digital worlds and are affecting expectations for student education. In addition to expectations for soft skills development, there is an emphasis on adaptability, sustainability and critical thinking. This requires a change in the role of the teacher, especially in the technical/technological area of teaching, which is dynamic but also offers numerous opportunities for the development of the desired skills. In this context, Education 4.0 emerges as a strategy that should provide today’s students with a personalized learning experience, mobile learning, a flexible and tailored curriculum and the development of practical and applicable skills. The analysis shows that in such a context, the teacher should primarily play the role of a mentor, facilitator and helper in discovering the student’s preferences, but also as an organizer of practical activities and a guide to the student’s development path according to their preferences. Whether a teacher is willing to take on such a role depends on their knowledge and skills, but also on their attitude, beliefs and teaching practice, as well as the willingness of educational authorities to lose complete control over the educational process.