Education Commons^™

The Generational Digital Divide: Understanding Adult Learners’ Self-Efficacy In Online Education, Justin Allen Melick

Masters Theses

Higher education is seeing a substantial rise in both the number of adult learners who are returning to college as well as the number of online and blended courses being offered by institutions. Adult learners are returning to higher education and frequently finding themselves in an e-learning environment, which may not have existed during their first stint in college. Online and blended classes often require students to complete technology tasks that they may not be confident performing. This thesis uses descriptive statistics to determine which tasks commonly used in online courses adult learners are least confident performing, giving institutions more …

Ict Oriented Toward Nyaya: Community Computing In India’S Slums, Erik J. Byker

Faculty Publications

In many schools across India, access to information and communication technology (ICT) is still a rare privilege. While the Annual Status of Education Report in India (2013) showed a marginal uptick in the amount of computers, the opportunities for children to use those computers have remained stagnant. The lack of access to ICT is especially common in India’s urban slum areas, which is privy to the “Matthew Effect” (Merton, 1968) where the poor become poorer based in part on the scarcity of high-tech resources. This article’s purpose is to describe and report on ICT program interventions that target young people …

Facilitating Exposure To Sign Languages Of The World: The Case For Mobile Assisted Language Learning, Becky Parton

Walden Faculty and Staff Publications

Foreign sign language instruction is an important, but overlooked area of study. Thus the purpose of this paper was two-fold. First, the researcher sought to determine the level of knowledge and interest in foreign sign language among Deaf teenagers along with their learning preferences. Results from a survey indicated that over a third of the respondents did not realize that American Sign Language was not universally used around the world. Another key finding from the survey is that Deaf students are interested in learning foreign sign languages particularly from the per-spective of a potential world traveler and not necessarily from …

Perceptions Of Higher Education Online Learning Faculty In Lebanon, Noha Adib Haidar

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this case study was to explore faculty attitudes toward online learning in a Lebanese Higher Education Institution (HEI). The research problem addressed the disinterest among faculty at the Arts, Sciences, and Technology University of Lebanon (AUL) in enhancing learning using online technology. The research questions for this study explored the attitudes of the faculty toward applying online learning and the extent of the faculty readiness to adopt this technological change. A qualitative case study design was used that employed multiple sources of information including semi-structured interviews and existing literature. The target population was AUL faculty including full-time …

Formal Change Processes And Informal Teacher-Initiated Change Processes: A Longitudinal Case Study Of Technology Integration At An Elementary School, Candace Michelle Griffin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Although teachers and students in nearly every classroom have access to technology, for various reasons many teachers are unable to integrate technology successfully into their classroom instruction. The primary purpose of this longitudinal, qualitative case study was to investigate how formal change processes and informal teacher-initiated change processes facilitated technology integration at a small, private school in the southeastern United States. The change processes investigated were (a) formal professional development (b) informal job-embedded professional development, (b) informal communities of practice, and (c) informal teacher leadership. The secondary purpose was to investigate changes in teaching that resulted from technology integration at …

Assessing Student Learning With Technology: A Descriptive Study Of Technology-Using Teacher Practice And Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (Tpack), Lara Elaine Ervin-Kassab

Doctoral Dissertations

In 2013, a majority of states in the US had adopted Common Core State Standards under the Race to the Top initiative. With this adoption came the opportunity to utilize computer-delivered and computer-adaptive testing. Although the computer-based assessments were intended to assist teachers in designing classroom assessments and using student data to inform instructional practice, teacher-reported data indicated that the areas in which teachers are most unprepared, lack confidence, or are in need of development were assessment (DeLuca, 2012; Wayman et al., 2007) and technology (Brush & Saye, 2009; Kramarski & Michalsky, 2010).

The Technology Assessment Practices Survey (TAPS) study …