This paper proposes the integrative learning of technology and science in which students create their own science applications on smartphones. The proposed learning aims to help students experience what science is and how it is technically utilized. In addition, discipline-specific representations were emphasized in the learning design to help students translate between those in different disciplinary and build up their meta-representational competence, central to engineering professional practice as well as learning about engineering design process in school. During the integrative learning, students were also expected to experience the shift of coding from studying how to write a program code to how to control a device to solve a problem, the computational thinking. The proposed learning practice was held and evaluated with 85 participants from high schools and universities. The results showed that students were motivated, and valued the proposed learning practice. Students perceived the usefulness and ease of use of the tools adopted in the learning practice. The study results suggest that the use of smartphones in education may support the orchestrating of the teaching and learning of science and engineering.

This article uses instructional and social interactions in the current era of networked learning as a conceptual metaphor to guide the design of engineering learning practice. Because of students' digital literacy and their customary means of acquiring information and peer-to-peer interaction, researchers have also explored the potentials of implementing social networks for student learning. This article values these two trends and explores how both mechanisms can be implemented in an engineering course. The topics delivered to students should be based on the needs of daily life. In addition, students in online discussion board-related learning are introduced to discussing their works. A learning activity design is proposed with the aim of providing a richer understanding of the interactional relationship between instructional and social interactions regarding the use of online discussion boards. The main findings reveal the importance of re-designing the online discussion board to bridge students' study between in-class and out-of-class discussion.