The challenge of teaching programming in higher education is complicated by problems associated with large class teaching, a prevalent situation in many developing countries. This paper reports on an investigation into the use of a blended learning approach to teaching and learning of programming in a class of more than 200 students. A course and learning environment was designed by integrating constructivist learning models of Constructive Alignment, Conversational Framework and the ThreeStage Learning Model. Design science research is used for the course redesign and development of the learning environment, and action research is integrated to undertake participatory evaluation of the intervention. The action research involved the Students' Approach to Learning survey, a comparative analysis of students' performance, and qualitative data analysis of data gathered from various sources. The paper makes a theoretical contribution in presenting a design of a blended learning solution for large class teaching of programming grounded in constructivist learning theory and use of free and open source technologies.

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Researchers often utilize the method of Participatory Design to work together with users to enhance technology. In particular, Cooperative Inquiry is a method of Participatory Design with children that involves full partnership between researchers and children. One important challenge designers face in creating learning technologies is that these technologies are often situated in specific activities and contexts. While children involved in these activities may have subject expertise (e.g., science inquiry process), they may not have design expertise (e.g., design aesthetics, usability). In contrast, children with design expertise may be familiar with how to design with researchers, but may not have subject expertise. Little is known about the distinction between child design and subject experts in Cooperative Inquiry. In this paper, we examine two cases -involving children with design expertise and those with subject expertise -to better understand the design process for both groups of children. The data from this study suggests that similarities do exist between the two cases, but that design and subject knowledge does play a significant role in how children co-design learning technologies.

The existing knowledge base on child development offers a wealth of information that can be useful for the design of children's technology. Furthermore, academic journals and conference proceedings provide us with a constant stream of new research papers on child-computer interaction and interaction design for children. It will require some effort from designers to gather and digest the scattered research results and theoretical knowledge applicable to their products. We conducted an extended research project whereby the existing knowledge relating to the design of technology for children aged five to eight have been gathered and presented in a way that makes it accessible and useful to designers in practice. This paper provides and extract from that research, focusing on ten useful lessons learnt from existing literature.

E-textbooks are often considered as having several advantages over printed textbooks. However, research shows conflicting results regarding school learners' satisfaction with e-textbooks. In South Africa a particular e-book platform, EduBook for e-textbooks, is currently used in 170 schools across the country. In this study the satisfaction and continuance intention of 10 learners from a South African high school where cross-subject implementation of the EduBook platform was piloted, were considered. In this mixed method study, a control group of 7 non e-textbooks users from other schools were used to compare the findings. Guided by the adapted ECM model of Baker-Eveleth and Stone (2015), quantitative data was collected through eye tracking tests and qualitative data was collected through individual interviews and a focus group discussion. The findings confirm the influence of usability, expectations and perceived usefulness on satisfaction and continuance intention to use the e-textbook platform. In addition, it highlights post-adoption expectations created by cross-subject implementation and its influence on learners' satisfaction. The important role played by the way in which teachers use the platform is emphasised and learners provided useful suggestions on how teachers can be prepared and assisted in the use of the platform.