Photo of Ale Okada

Dr Ale Okada

Research Fellow in e-Assessment

Research Fellow

My research interests lie at intersections between Technology, Education and Science to foster digital, scientific and inclusive society. My specialism focuses on emancipatory education for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in the digital age. The purpose of RRI is to align scientific and technological innovations with societal needs for a desirable future through the interaction among citizens, professionals, organisations and policy makers.

My work draws on sociocultural theory, critical pedagogy and mixed methods to examine how learners use technology to ”reflect-on” and “reflect-in” action collaboratively for developing knowledge, skills and attitudes based on real-world experiences.

With this purpose, my research projects are explicitly designed to help learners and teaching educators address how best to foster digital scientific skills facing the pace of technology to think and act critically. My academic work centres on building new frameworks, methods and tools for socially constructing and extending knowledge-in-context working scientifically.

My major contribution to theoretical knowledge lies in the new field of “Knowledge Cartography”, a unified body of conceptual and methodological work during 15 years with empirical and analytic studies developed together with various scholars. I developed the technique “evidence-based dialogue mapping” to help students develop scientific argumentation using technology. This technique was used by secondary pupils, undergraduates and Ph.D. students to enquire, analyse, solve and communicate scientific reasoning. It has been applied in a variety of areas, such as collective inquiry, collaborative learning, community-based participatory research and policy analysis.

My underpinning research led to two European-funded proposals on inquiry-based science education as PI.

In weSPOT(2012-2014), I conceptualised the term inquiry workflow linked to a working environment with social personal open technologies, which included mobile devices and learning analytics to foster pervasive learning. This model enabled communities to set up projects supported by mobile interfaces and mapping tools in eight countries. I led the pilot studies in the UK, Brazil and Portugal with schools that brought more than 100 students each to support tests, implementation and evaluation. My distinctive approach ‘co-inquiry with mobile devices’ brought together secondary and Ph.D. students, researchers, educators and parents in science projects outside classrooms.

In ENGAGE(2014-2017), I co-authored a novel framework of inquiry skills for RRI. The purpose of this framework was to help Youth discuss thepotential risks and benefits of scientific innovations and consider the needs and concerns of society. This work led to a significant rethinking of curriculum design and assessment in Europe. The curriculum materials and online courses based on the inquiry skills for RRI constituted the core model of the ENGAGE, which reached more than 15,000 teachers in 80 countries and recently has been linked to AQA National Exam Board in the UK.

My Research Keywords:Keys: SCIENTIFIC LITERACY (Responsible Research and Innovation, Inquiry-Based Learning, Citizen Science), COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ( Knowledge Media Technologies, Open Educational Resources and Mixed Realities Interfaces) and COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE (knowledge mapping, mass collaboration, peer production and participatory media).

Dr. Alexandra Okadais a  research fellow in e-Assessment at the Learning and Teaching Innovation. She is also visiting honorary lecturer at the Open University in Brazil and Portugal.  Previously, she worked as an educational technology consultant to the Association for Science Education UK and to the Secretary of Continuing Education, Literacy, Diversity and Inclusion of Brazilian Government; as well as a computer scientist at Johnson & Johnson and IBM Brazil.  She holds a BSc Computer Science (Hons); MA (Education: Curriculum); MBA (Knowledge Management and Communication ); Ph.D. Educational Technology. She has over ten years’ experience in technology-enhanced learning and assessment, working as Principal Investigator in various European funded projects in ICT and Science with and for Society. She has directed three projects funded by Brazil government on gender and inclusion; digital literacy and teacher professional development. Currently, she is the coordinator of the research network COLEARN on collaborative open learning and of the ENGAGE project on Responsible Research and Innovation.

2019

2018

2017

2016

  • Mikroyannidis, Alexander; Okada, Alexandra; Correa, Andre and Scott, Peter (). Inquiry-Based Learning on the Cloud. In: Chao, Lee eds. Handbook of Research on Cloud-Based STEM Education for Improved Learning Outcomes Hershey PA, USA: Information Science Reference, pp. 291-310.

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

  • Okada, Alexandra; Buckingham Shum, Simon; Bachler, Michelle; Tomadaki, Eleftheria; Scott, Peter; Little, Alex and Eisenstadt, Marc (). Knowledge media tools to foster social learning. In: Hatzipanagos, Stylianos and Warburton, Steven eds. Handbook of Research on Social Software and Developing Community Ontologies Hershey, PA, USA: IGI Global, pp. 357-380.

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

Completed

TeSLA (An Adaptive Trust-based e-assessment system for learning) 2016 - 2018