Empowering educators' inspiration during the learning design process with citizen science data and technology-enhanced learning

The creation of learning designs (LD) represents a pivotal aspect of pedagogical practice, as it entails the integration of subject-matter knowledge with the pedagogical expertise of individual educators. Furthermore, the design of LD with themes that motivate students, such as those connected to real problems, has the potential to positively impact student learning and skills development. In this context, Citizen Science (CS), which facilitates the involvement of citizens in scientific research that address real-world issues, can serve as a model for educators when designing these learning activities. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the various facets of CS, it is recommended to browse through the plethora of online platforms that provide information about the numerous CS projects and the practice itself. This dissertation presents the technical aspects that must be considered in order to facilitate access to CS online distributed data (Calvera-Isabal et al., 2023). Furthermore, the dissertation seeks to elucidate the design, interaction, and technical implications that must be taken into account in order to support educators during the exploration, inspiration, and use of this data for the creation of learning designs (Calvera-Isabal, Santos & Hernández-Leo, 2023). Finally, during the conceptualisation phase of the LD, this research aims to understand the design process followed by teachers and what and how textual stimuli emerged during data exploration to support their inspiration (Calvera-Isabal & Santos, under review.). In order to achieve the objectives outlined above, a four-cycle Design-Based Research (DBR) methodology was employed. The findings of the evaluation studies indicated that automated methods, such as web scraping and data mining techniques, are effective tools for data processing and offer the possibility of obtaining data classified for understanding many aspects of CS (Calvera-Isabal et al., 2023). This analysis enables us to identify the communicative strategies employed by practitioners in online publications regarding learning from different perspectives. It also allows us to ascertain how the comprehension of science, the utilisation of ICT tools and the development of skills are perceived through participation (Calvera-Isabal et al., under review). In order to exhibit the stimuli derived from the data extracted online from CS projects, a data exploration tool was co-designed with teachers and TEL experts. Finally, the study on the subject of how to support inspiration during activity design generated knowledge about the design process followed by teachers, the most commonly used sources of inspiration, and a better understanding of how to measure inspiration through the LD created by teachers (Calvera-Isabal & Santos, under review).