Education Commons^™

Our Courts: Making Strides In Educational Gaming, Jason Lancaster, Carrie Lewis Miller, Nancy Haas, Wilhelmina Savenye

IT Solutions Publications

The iCivics study will be of interest to those affiliated with educational gaming, multimedia production, technology integration or evaluation. The study and results described below will be covered in the session, as will the overall vision of Justice O’Connor and the iCivics group. A detailed PowerPoint presentation and handouts will be provided in addition to the opportunity to play one of the iCivics games and explore the website for those who bring laptops to the session.

iCivics and its products are the vision of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor as a method of helping middle-school children learn about civics and civics …

Cirt Newsletter--November 2011, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

CIRT News

This issue contains:

Faculty Spotlight: Finding and Presenting Images with ARTStor

Using Peer Instruction To Boost Student Engagement And Promote Learning

Upcoming Events

Digital Thinking: Uses for Video in Scholarship

Changes to the Online ISQ Process

New Poster Templates

Best Practices Online: Blogs

Blackboard News

iTunes U in Blackboard

New Faculty Bio Tool

App Review: ShowMe

News from ITS: December Outages and New Student E-mail

New in CIRT: Changes to Equipment Checkout Procedures

Cirt Newsletter--September 2011, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

CIRT News

This issue contains:

Faculty Spotlight: Capturing Student Attention with Animated Character Video

Teaching Online Seminar and Distance Learning at UNF

Upcoming Events

Digital Thinking: New Media Consortium Summer Conference

Best Practices Online: Using Communication to Build a Rich, Engaging Learning Environment

Blackboard News: New Timer and StudyMate Class

App Review: Jump Start Your iPad With Appstart and Swype for Android

News from ITS: Survey Tool Upgrade

Participational Agency, Stephen C. Yanchar

Faculty Publications

Participational agency is presented as a conceptual account of human action, volition, and possibility. Rooted in hermeneutic and narrative traditions, this view differs from other theorizing about agency (and most psychological theorizing in general) in that it makes no effort to explain human action by virtue of reified constructs. As an alternative to traditional theorizing in this area, participational agency is defined as meaningful engagement in the world and treats the experienced meaningfulness of practical human activity as its central feature. The concept of meaningful engagement is clarified through the presentation of four related themes—situated participation, existential concern, dispositional action, …

Asynchronous Use Of Engineering (Materials) Education Videos, Craig Johnson, Arthur D. Morken

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Engineering education delivery is dynamic and increasingly asynchronous. An observation that students had very different levels of knowledge and skills as they progressed through our programs, led the authors to use audio/visual media as a leveling intervention. In this effort the authors collected data to determine if audio/visual media can be used to increase performance in the development of a program related task and guide students to higher levels of learning on Blooms Taxonomy through the development of student created learning aids.

One specific need was reflected in the disparate skills of our majority component of ‘transfer’ students in our …

Cirt Newsletter--March 2011, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

CIRT News

This issue contains the following articles:

Faculty Spotlight: Teaching with an iPad and Keynote

Director's News and Notes

Upcoming Events

Digital Thinking: 2011 Horizon Report

Best Practices Online: Using Wikis for Group Collaboration

Blackboard News

What's New in CIRT? Digital SLR

Scantron Update

Cirt Newsletter--January 2011, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

CIRT News

This issue contains:

Faculty Spotlight: Concept-focused Presentations with Prezi

Using and Publishing Open Textbooks

Upcoming Events: You Choose!

Digital Thinking: Demonstration Video

Best Practices Online: Discussion Boards

Blackboard News: Bb 9.1 Upgrade

What's New in CIRT?

Conference Poster Printing Update

Integrating Technology Into Secondary Social Studies Curricula, Ronald G. Helms Ph.D.

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

The social studies teacher preparation program described in this article is a 5th-year Masters of Education degree and licensure program—a graduate program preceded by a 4-year history or social science education degree offered by the College of Liberal Arts. The social studies graduate program aims at preparing teaching candidates to learn knowledge and skills necessary to plan and teach technology-rich lesson plans and resource units. Teaching candidates are required to apply new technology skills to actual classrooms, while collaborating with cooperating teachers. The program is designed to be compliant with the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Program Review, …

Telehealth Stroke Education For Rural Elderly Virginians, Patricia A. Schweickert, Carolyn M. Rutledge, David C. Cattell-Gordon, Nina J. Solenski, Mary E. Jensen, Sheila Branson, John R. Gaughen

Nursing Faculty Publications

Objective: Stroke is a prevalent condition found in elderly, rural populations. However, stroke education, which can be effective in addressing the risks, is often difficult to provide in these remote regions. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of delivering stroke education to elderly individuals through telehealth versus in-person stroke prevention education methods.

Materials and Methods: A quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group design was used in this study. A convenience sample of 11 elderly adults (36% men, 64% women) with a mean age of 70 was selected from an Appalachian Program for All Inclusive Care for the Elderly …

Mathematics In The Age Of Technology: There Is A Place For Technology In The Mathematics Classroom, Helen Crompton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

In today’s world of ubiquitous computing there are a number of technologies available to K-12 educators for teaching and learning mathematics. However, Koehler and Mishra (2008) have described how teaching and learning with such technologies presents a “wicked problem,” as it can involve a number of variables, independent of each other and contextually bound, that need to be brought together. This article highlights the advantages technology offers for mathematics education and looks at some of the reasons behind the poor uptake, such as teacher beliefs and lack of training. A number of solutions are offered to address these issues, including …

Rethinking The Development Of Weapons And Their Impact, Petros J. Katsioloudis, Mildred V. Jones

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article presents information on conventional weaponry and threats posed by it for the environment. Weapons consist of chemical, biological, depleted uranium, landmines, nuclear, jet fighters, and even the conventional lead bullets. It is stated that the manufacturing of biodegradable weapons that don't pollute the environment must be promoted, as they also strengthen the laws which ban the use of toxic and other chemical weapons. A table on correlation with standards for technological literacy, is also presented.

The Whole World In Their Hands, Helen Crompton, Lynne Goodhand, Susan Wells

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

A North Carolina middle school didn't have enough computers to give students reasonable access to the Internet, so administrators implemented a one-to-one iPod touch program. Now every student is connected.

The Use Of Virtual Environments In Teacher Preparation, Sharon Judge, Petros Katsioloudis, Theo Bastiaens (Ed.), Martin Ebner (Ed.)

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

While virtual technology for training in the simulation field has had a long history in medicine and the military, the application of emerging and innovative technologies in teacher preparation and education has been limited. TeachME™ (Teaching in a Mixed Reality Environment) is an innovative mixed-reality environment (the blending of real and synthetic content) where prospective teachers can interact with a group of virtual students. The purpose of the virtual teaching environment of TeachME™ is to positively impact teacher recruitment, preparation, and retention in education by allowing teachers to improve their skills with virtual students, providing a more ethical approach to …

The Visport Project: Visualization Of Port Logistics, Petros J. Katsioloudis, Ginger S. Watson

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article focuses on the introduction of Visualization in Port Logistics (VisPort) web-based tool project for the visualization of port careers and logistics in the U.S. It outlines the educational objectives of the project including the virtual reality experience associated with port operation, the multimedia environment for the learning of students, and the simulation of port logistics. It mentions that the scientific and technical visualization curriculum offered to students enhances the skills related to scientific and mathematical concepts as well as the experience on graphic techniques.

Effective Knowledge Development In Game-Based Learning Environments: Considering Research In Cognitive Processes And Simulation Design, Amy B. Adcock, Ginger S. Watson, Gary R. Morrison, Lee A. Belfore

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Serious games are, at their core, exploratory learning environments designed around the pedagogy and constraints associated with specific knowledge domains. This focus on instructional content is what separates games designed for entertainment from games designed to educate. As instructional designers and educators, the authors want serious game play to provide learners with a deep understanding of the domain, allowing them to use their knowledge in practice to think through multifaceted problems quickly and efficiently. Attention to the design of serious game affordances is essential to facilitating the development of domain knowledge during game play. As such, the authors contend that …