Abstract:

This paper describes a pilot project that focuses on the necessary interventions in the development of the Web Technologies course, one of the most popular courses among IT University students. Our analysis is based on a series of observations of a group of volunteer students, who, beyond the official framework of the course, participated in a series of projects related to the lesson. This paper attempts to define and set the principles and structures of metacognition for one of the most high-end IT course in an Informatics department.

Causes and incentives of activity:
A large number of both technologically-oriented secondary and college students consider that the aim of a course on Web Technologies should be limited on the design and development of web pages. For the involved parties, the creation of the material and finally, the teaching of the course, the course aim is at the direction to present the Internet operating principles, the description of key technologies and the programming languages which are connected to the development of Web applications. In other words, the course aims to prepare a new type of expertise in order to form a new generation of Internet technicians and engineers. In this direction, those involved in the course offering are required to prepare trainees not only in a series of a wide range of activities and specific thematic, theoretical and laboratory exercise, but also a different perspective on web services and programming, for example as educational platforms or training tools.

The main part of the course includes the formatting language html5, standard css3, the development of dynamic applications that run on the client, the utilization of JavaScript and the development of dynamic applications that run on the server side using php. Additional topics, beyond the main core, include the study of design patterns, the programming of special applications, the investigation of algorithms for modern search engines, aesthetic issues, interconnectivity and transparency construction, adaptation and functionality to new devices and finally end security issues.

Upon the completion of the academic year 2014-15, along with the updating and expansion of the course, we wondered about the degree of completeness of the objectives, the degree of the students’ satisfaction, the possibility of extending the teaching and, finally, the possibility of intervention at the level of metacognition. In this context, we established a voluntary group of students aiming to extend their knowledge in this area with their involvement in various research and development projects. This form of cooperation between the students is still in progress. So far, we observe enthusiasm on the participation, as well as willingness to “create knowledge” in this aspect.
This article describes the metacognitive experience of teachers and the first conclusions from the results of the students collective work.

Finally our purpose is to explore how students, through developing their metacognitive skills, can examine their misconceptions about the web technologies course and, in doing so, to begin to acquire new habits of partnerships and techniques which will be enable them to become an expert in internet technologies.

Acknowledgement: The publication of this paper has been partly supported by the University of Piraeus Research Center.

Keywords:

Web technologies, research projects, html5, CSS, SEO, teamwork strategies, operation research teams, metacognition.