It is widely accepted that in the context of Knowledge-based Society, the educational institutions must demonstrate their ideologically and pragmatic point of views, when discussing the role of the promoters of educational changes. The changes require - among other aspects of pedagogical and psycho-social issues - a reconsideration of what constitutes the effective teaching strategy, adapted to the needs of the learners.Thus, within the Science classes (Chemistry, Physics and Biology), the teaching approach cannot remain an expositional one, based only on the transmission and reception of information. A student-centred educational process, aiming to the development of key-skills, necessarily involves a pro-active approach that facilitates students’ involvement in research, scientific investigation, analysis of problematic situations or solving real problems or merely hypothetical ones. Through its specificity, the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) strategy may be a central component of such teaching approaches.The purpose of the article is to highlight the effectiveness of PBL, through presenting some of the best educational practices implemented by the Romanian Science teachers who participated in the “PROFILES - Education through Science” Continuous Professional Development Programme.The investigative approach is a qualitative one, focused on the analysis of the teaching practices based on PBL implementation, but also on the analysis of students’ and teachers’ opinions who used this strategy in Science lessons. The hypothesis that was stated as a premise of the research took into consideration the fact that when using the PBL teaching strategy during the Science lessons, the students will acquire not only cognitive skills but also a series of instrumental and transversal ones

The Internet of Things (IoT) has a major potential and already started to improve the human life in all sectors: smart cities, smart environment, smart water, smart metering, security and emergency, retail, logistics, industrial control, agriculture, home automation, eHealth and education. For example, in the construction and housing sector, smart buildings may integrate IoT technologies to increase efficiency, security, and comfort for inhabitants. In industry, smart wristbands may automate clocking in and out to precisely record the amount of time spent at work. In smart cities, the IoT technologies may be used to monitor parking spaces availability in the city, to monitor sound in different city areas in real time, to create intelligent and weather adaptive lighting in street lights etc. In education, the IoT technologies represent a great opportunity for schools and may be used in various ways: to collect and use data to enhance the learning experience, to support the meeting of the learning goals, to improve the overall school operations etc. Since IoT field is expected to grow significantly in the next years, it a must to prepare young generations for these changes. The article presents a survey undertaken with university students enrolled in technical specializations, concerning their perspective on different aspects related to IoT technologies, their knowledge and their willingness to learn about the topic.

At present, virtual world environments have a huge potential on changing the manner in which people can interact, navigate on Internet, and make business. Due to the fact that the virtual world environments become more pervasive, it is important for the researchers to be deeply involved in the understanding of those spaces. The paper describes the main aspects met by tutors and students on working in the Second Life environment, during the on-line course “Designing Technology-Enhanced Learning”, organized in the frame of the European LLP-KA3 project: “Enabling Creative Collaboration through Supportive Technologies” (code 511733-LLP-1-2010-1-FI-KA3-KA3MP). Second Life was chosen due to the fact that provides a strong collaborative environment equipped with modern features: voice interactions, chat and instant messenger, expanding the ways of communication and the possibilities for collaboration. For many Romanian students who participated to the course, it was a unique experience - they were involved in the collaborative work, together with their colleagues from Finland, Estonia and Norway, but also engaged in learning processes that enhanced creative collaboration

Teachers’ Perceived Self-Efficacy Concerning the Use of Mobile Technology in Education, Considering the “Working from Home” Format

The advancements in information and communication technologies (ICT) provide significant opportunities to improve teaching and learning. The use of ICT in science education offers even more advantages due to the attractive premises to simulate and interactively explore and test experiments which would be too expensive or too dangerous in real settings (for example in nuclear physics). The aim of this paper is to contribute to the research field of technology based learning by presenting several findings obtained during a multinational educational project (Comenius) regarding the use of computer in classroom, in science education, in Romania, Spain, Poland, Greece and Finland