Educational Technology Commons^™

Ocean Sight One: Mixed Reality Experience, Lucas Michael Reyna

Computer Engineering

Ocean Sight One is an interdisciplinary project group consisting of Cal Poly staff and students from several different departments. It exists to educate the public on the marine ecosystems near the Santa Barbara coastline that is the home of twenty-three abandoned oil rigs. Despite one’s initial reaction to these massive abandoned structures, they actually provide an incredibly diverse dwelling for numerous forms of sea life. The site is a shining beacon for marine ecology researchers trying to formulate how to preserve wildlife in an era of worsening global environmental disruptions. The future of these oil rigs are not certain, as …

Examining Esl Preservice Teachers’ Personal Factors That Best Predict Their Confidence To Integrate Technology In Future Classrooms, Mohamed Ibrahim, MevlüT AydoğMus

Faculty Publications - Teaching and Educational Leadership

This study was designed to examine preservice teachers' personal characteristics that can predict their confidence to integrate technology in their teaching practices. The investigators used a questionnaire designed based on Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory to ask 168 ESL preservice teachers enrolled in the English Department in a public university located in central Anatolia. The results of this study found that the use of technology during ESL preservice teachers' training was the most significant predictor of their self-efficacy to integrate technology in their teaching practices, then followed by the number of years they are attending the education training and finally their …

Engaging Students With High-Stakes Problems, Deepak Basyal

Mathematics and Statistics

Engaging students in meaningful mathematics problem-solving is the intention of many education stakeholders around the world. Research suggests that the implementation of high-stakes problems in mathematics teaching is one way to strengthen students’ conceptual understanding. Many carefully crafted open-ended problems constitute high-stakes problems, and proper use of such problems in teaching and learning not only encourages learners’ flexible thinking but also helps detect their misconceptions. However, what is less practiced and understood is: how exactly one should aim to implement such problems in a classroom setting. Teaching pre-service middle school teachers for a few years using high-stakes (mostly open-ended problems) …

The Everydayness Of Instructional Design And The Pursuit Of Quality In Online Courses, Jason K. Mcdonald

Faculty Publications

This article reports research into the everydayness of instructional design (meaning designers’ daily routines, run-of-the-mill interactions with colleagues, and other, prosaic forms of social contact), and how everydayness relates to their pursuit of quality in online course design. These issues were investigated through an ethnographic case study, centered on a team of instructional designers at a university in the United States. Designers were observed spending significant amounts of time engaged in practices of course refinement, meaning mundane, workaday tasks like revising, updating, fine-tuning, or fixing the courses to which they were assigned. Refining practices were interrelated with, but also experienced …

Lms Problem-Posing Academic Relationships Between Faculty And Students: A Post-Intentional Phenomenological Study Of Dialogical Relationships In Asynchronous Online Courses, Sheri L. Prupis

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Drawing on Freire’s Engaged Pedagogy as a theoretical framework, I investigated the manifestation of dialogical relationships between faculty and students in fully asynchronous online courses. Employing a post-intentional phenomenological methodology, I examined how students and faculty held varying expectations for relationships in asynchronous online courses. The findings revealed that while students preferred transactional exchanges, faculty aspired to foster more profound and more enduring relationships with their students. This divergence can be partly attributed to the transactional exchange structure of Learning Management Systems (LMS), which heavily influences how faculty design and deliver courses and how students participate.

A Review Of Ai-Powered Writing Tools And Their Implications For Academic Integrity In The Language Classroom, Jasper Roe, Willy A. Renandya, George M. Jacobs

Journal of English and Applied Linguistics

Writers have many digital tools available to help them with the creation of text. In some cases, these tools have been in existence for a long time, such as spellcheckers and basic grammar checkers that are available on word processing software. Today, new and increasingly more advanced tools are in use, and the ramifications of their use are not yet fully understood, particularly in the language classroom. Public interest in such tools has reached new levels with the release of artificially intelligent tools such as ChatGPT. In addition to this, the speed at which assistive writing technologies are developing may …

Informal Practices Of Localizing Open Educational Resources In Ghana, Emily Durham Bradshaw, Jason K. Mcdonald

Faculty Publications

Research on the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) often notes the potential benefits for users to revise, reuse, and remix OER to localize it for specific learners. However, a gap in the literature exists in terms of research that explores how this localization occurs in practice. This is a significant gap given the current flow of OER from higher-income countries in the Global North to lower-income countries in the Global South (King et al., 2018). This study explores how OER from one area of the world is localized when it is used in a different cultural context.

Findings indicated …

Video Didactic Preparation Augments Problem-Based Learning For First Year Medical Students., Kelly L. Hamilton, Yu-Chun Kuo, Peter Horneffer, T. Peter Stein, Gary S. Goldberg

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

Problem-based learning (PBL) utilizes a self-directed strategy. This process relies on group participation to succeed. Students without a background in biology or medicine can feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the subject matter and unable to participate in the group learning process. We incorporated curated educational videos in the PBL curriculum to help address this situation. First year medical students participated in this study in the form of a typical PBL session. They were then assessed on basic and clinical science knowledge and their learning experience. Student basic science and clinical knowledge were similar between the student groups. However, the …

A Longitudinal Qualitative Study On Teachers’ Technology Barriers To Distance Learning: A School For Students With Dyslexia, Holli Bice, Hengtao Tang

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to develop an account of teachers’ perception of barriers to technology integration throughout distance learning. COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to adopt distance learning to cope with the crisis, but whether teachers are prepared for this change is unknown. Therefore, this study described teachers’ experience of technology integration over the course of distance learning and identified the barriers they faced at a small, private school for students with dyslexia. The findings found distance learning influenced teachers’ technological knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about technology integration. Barriers to technology integration were identified by all participants, …

Exploring The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On Academic Writing: Current Applications And Future Directions, Samson Otieno Ooko

Adventist Human-Subject Researchers Association

With the continued growth in Technology and the growing adoption of online learning in universities across the globe, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in academic writing has the potential to revolutionize the way research is conducted and written. This research will explore the current state of AI-assisted writing tools and their potential impact on the academic writing process.

Utilizing New Technologies To Measure Therapy Effectiveness For Mental And Physical Health, Jonathan Ossie

Dissertations

Mental health is quickly becoming a major policy concern, with recent data reporting increasing and disproportionately worse mental health outcomes, including anxiety, depression, increased substance abuse, and elevated suicidal ideation. One specific population that is especially high risk for these issues is the military community because military conflict, deployment stressors, and combat exposure contribute to the risk of mental health problems.

Although several pharmacological approaches have been employed to combat this epidemic, their efficacy is mixed at best, which has led to novel nonpharmacological approaches. One such approach is Operation Surf, a nonprofit that provides nature-based programs advocating the restorative …

Renewable Energy Educational Delivery System, Ryan Integlia

Florida Conference on Recent Advances in Robotics

Technology advancing rapidly and affecting our daily lives in more ways than ever before, it is clear that technology is now a driving force in our world. STEM disciplines are one of the key driving forces behind human progress, as their efforts have provided us with new levels of comfort and security. Every facet of engineering contributes to enhancing almost every aspect of our lives. As technology continues to evolve, the demand for skilled engineers will only increase. Therefore, it is essential that STEM education system adapts to the needs of today's digitized, diversified, and rapidly changing society through an …

English Pronunciation Skills And Intelligibility Of Native Russian Speakers, Zoia Palgova

Master's Projects and Capstones

The rapid growth of the native Russian-speaking population in the United States created an urgent need to improve their pronunciation skills and increase their second language speech intelligibility. The purpose of this field project was to present a research-based curriculum, with the use of embedded technology, that can be utilized to improve the American English pronunciation skills and intelligibility of native Russian speakers.

The body of analyzed scholarship demonstrated that speech intelligibility is the primary goal of second language pronunciation teaching, justified the importance of research-based pronunciation teaching, emphasized the significant role of technology in pronunciation research and teaching, and …

Post-Pandemic Digital Experiences & Attitudes Among Adult Immigrant Esol Learners, Lacey D. Goodloe

Master's Theses

This mixed-methods study considers the current reality of the “digital divide” as experienced by adult immigrant ESOL learners following the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period. Although prior research often assumes foreign-born individuals to have lower rates of access, skills and motivation to engage with technology, or to lack it altogether, this study seeks to contribute a more realistic picture which encompasses the full diversity of digital experiences among the foreign-born population. The review of the literature first covers two levels of the digital divide that often evince socioeconomic disparities: primarily access, skills and usage; and more recently, attitudes and motivation. Then, …

Understanding Motivational Differences Through The Lens Of Gamification User Types, Heather J. S. Birch

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

In the context of an educational technology course, teacher candidates completed Marczewski’s User Types Hexad Test, a questionnaire based on a typology for classifying both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational tendencies. The test results showed teacher candidates' motivational tendencies, through indicating their resonance with six different User Types, including Socializers, Free Spirits, Achievers, Philanthropists, Players, and Disruptors. Knowing their User Type allowed teacher candidates to reflect on their own personal motivations to use various types of digital tools, as well as to consider how their peers and their students with different user profiles may be motivated differently than themselves. The …

An Assistive Interface For Displaying Novice's Code History, Ruiwei Xiao

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

As Teaching Assistant (TA) programs grow in number and size in introductory CS courses, TAs play a significant role in novice programmers' experience and contribute to their success. However, many TAs are also relative beginners themselves and thus have limited experience in programming and teaching. Thus the effectiveness and consistency of their guidance can vary significantly. To improve interaction quality and assist TAs in providing better support, we examine the difficulties encountered by inexperienced TAs in previous literature and then identify the potential for the high cognitive load as an unaddressed difficulty that may prevent new TAs from initiating effective …

The Essence Of K-12 Teaching In A Catholic Archdiocese In Kentucky During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Danielle Atzinger Wiegandt

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic research showed that teacher attrition among new teachers (less than five years) was a problem for schools throughout the country and Catholic Schools were facing an even higher rate (Ingersoll, 2003). Research also shows that there are often cultural and structural components of Catholic schools that influence teachers to stay (Youngs, 2013; Convey, 2012, 2014). The COVID-19 pandemic forced the education system to pivot and teachers are expected to continue to have high standards for education while making these shifts.

In the early period of COVID-19 pandemic research was already suggesting attrition rates were rising …

Reconnaissance: Relationship Between Social Presence And Knowledge Construction In Second Life, Leah A. Hardesty

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

This qualitative research study explored levels of social presence in Second Life (virtual world) associated with phases of knowledge construction. The study explored images and data collected from users at two discussion-based activities. The findings revealed the three levels of social presence, according to the Interactional Process Model of Social Presence developed by Schultze and Brooks. Social presence established a sense of mutual monitoring of users that increased users’ sense of presence. This made their virtual interactions more real. Various phases of knowledge construction were observed as specified in the Interaction Analysis Model developed by Gunawardena, Lowe and Anderson. Knowledge …

Noteworthy Notes: Student Perceptions Of Online And Paper Notes, Hannah Hamaker

Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning

Notetaking is an often overlooked but important factor of student learning. Studies that have focused on notetaking in the past have highlighted performance over perceptions. This study investigated the importance of fifth-grade students’ perceptions of online and paper notetaking. The researcher collected data through pre- and post-surveys, interviews, observation field notes, student artifacts, and a data tracker. The researcher analyzed the data collected using the constant comparative method and a primary and secondary coding scheme. The resulting secondary codes were the copying process, features of online notes, features of paper notes, and use of notes. Findings suggest that students vary …

Percepción De Docentes En Integración De Herramientas Tecnológicas Utilizando El Modelo Picrat En Una Institución De Nivel Superior, Marangely Perez Montalvo

Theses and Dissertations

Este estudio tuvo como propósito analizar la percepción de los profesores sobre el modelo de integración tecnológica PICRAT y cómo este evalúa los niveles de reemplazo, amplificación y transformación que se le realizan a las herramientas tecnológicas para lograr una interacción pasiva, interactiva y creativa con el estudiante durante el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Se utilizó un enfoque cuantitativo con un diseño transeccional no experimental con un alcance descriptivo y correlacional. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 23 profesores universitarios que imparten al menos un curso de manera remota en el nivel académico de maestría con especialidades en Ciencias de …