Education Commons^™

Determining The Duration Of R&D Processes Through Monte Carlo Simulation, Florentin Smarandache, Moga Monika, Calefariu Gavrila, Sarbu Flavius Aurelian

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The research and development (R&D) processes influence the economic development of a company, because in an industry that is changing fast, firms must continually revise their projects and range of products. Therefore in order to determine the specific costs of research and development activity we have to highlight the efforts and effects of these activities and to calculate some indicators of economic efficiency. In the cost calculation process in R & D we have emphasized the identification of the components of cost and the duration of the R & D processes, as a component of the R&D cost, that is …

Cirt Newsletter--March 2014, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

CIRT News

This issue contains:

Faculty Spotlight: Using Contextual Media to Support Learning

2014 Horizon Report: Higher Education Edition

Upcoming Events

Digital Thinking: 3D Printing

Best Practices Online: Aligning Objectives and Assessments

Blackboard News: Fixes and Assessment Tips

Online Test Proctoring

App Review: Taking Extraordinary Photographs with your Handheld Device

Blackboard>myWings Grade Transfer Tool

Accessing Student Blackboard Activity Data

Cirt Newsletter--January 2014, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

CIRT News

This issue contains the following articles:

Faculty Spotlight: Using WordPress to Publish Original Student Research

UNF Adopts Quality Matters

Upcoming Events

Digital Thinking: Google Hangouts

Best Practices Online: Digital Badging

Blackboard News: SP13 and Catalyst Awards Online Test Proctoring

App Review: Android KitKat

News from ITS: SPSS Upgrade and Student Resources

New in CIRT: Weekend Hours

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 …

Learner Perceptions On The Use Of Mobile Learning Strategies And Devices For Team E-Portfolio Content Creation, Devshikha Bose, Krishna Pakala

University Author Recognition Bibliography: 2014

This study intended to determine student perceptions on the efficacy of using mobile learning strategies and devices to create electronic content for inclusion in an engineering team/group e-portfolio. Sixty four students from an undergraduate engineering thermodynamics class, created multimedia videos and produced content demonstrating course content summaries, problem solving techniques, and written work on concept question solutions. Results from a post course completion anonymous survey and focus group meeting indicated that the majority of the students found this to be a very useful exercise in learning, communicating with their instructor, completing homework and assignments as well as to prepare for …

A Diachronic Overview Of Mobile Learning: A Shift Toward Student-Centered Pedagogies, Helen Crompton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This chapter provides a brief historical overview of the technology contributing to mobile learning (mLearning) and the concomitant progression towards student-centred pedagogies. To begin, mLearning is defined. The theoretical, pedagogical and conceptual underpinnings of it are then explained, with a focus on the technologies and the pedagogies of each decade, from the 1970s and Kay’s futuristic vision of a mobile learning device, to today’s mobile learning technologies that have surpassed Kay’s vision.

The Role Of Technology In Teaching And Learning Chinese Characters, Hong Zhan, Hsiu-Jen Cheng

Publications

Chinese characters have been an obstacle preventing the development of Chinese proficiency for learners of Chinese whose native language does not have characters. A substantial literature review identified linguistic, pedagogical, and political factors as causes of those difficulties. Tone changes represent different meanings of a word. Compound characters include the phonetic component radicals that do not always sound the same as the phonetic radicals. These unique linguistic features of the Chinese language add even more challenges for learning of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL). Technology integration has been found to facilitate the teaching and learning foreign languages in many …

Research And History Of Policies In K-12 Online And Blended Learning, Kerry Rice

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter provides a historical review of U. S. education policy from its earliest inception to the present day with a focus on policy developments in the 21st century that have influenced the growth and development of online and blended education and those that we can foresee will have the greatest impact moving forward. 21st century policies are synthesized into themes of Online and Distance Learning, Accountability, Innovation and Reform, and Teacher Preparation.

Educators’ Self-Identified Mobile Learning Training Needs: A Qualitative Study Involving Educators From 12 Diverse North American States, Helen Crompton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Mobile learning (mlearning) is changing the pedagogical landscape of traditional teaching. The myriad of constantly evolving mobile devices are providing new affordances which are attracting the attention of educators around the globe. Many educators may be excited at these new affordances to learning, others are more apprehensive of this technological intrusion on traditional practices. In this paper, the researchers share the results of a self-report survey that provides evidence of what educators reported they would like to receive training on for mlearning initiatives. These data suggest current trends in mlearning and the technological abilities of educators implementing mlearning in their …

Flipping The Classroom In Higher Education: A Design-Based Research Study To Develop A Flipped Classroom Framework, Helen Crompton, Judith Dunkerly-Bean, Michail N. Giannakos

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Over the past 20 years some higher education instructors have increased their technology use as a way to extend and enhance students’ understanding and move away from the traditional lecture approach. One recent strategy is to use a flipped classroom approach and have students use technology to access the lecture and other instructional resources outside the classroom; this leaves the in-class time to engage in active learning. However, at this time there are no empirically-based flipped classroom frameworks. The purpose of this study is to fill this gap in the academic literature and develop a framework. This will provide a …

Illuminating Change: Technology, Feedback, And Revision In Writing, Sarah Hunt-Barron, Jaime Colwell

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Using the method of a formative experiment, this investigation examines how the use of peer revision and collaboration in an online environment, specifically a social network, could be implemented in a middle school classroom to increase revision over multiple drafts and improve the quality of student expository writing. Thirty-six students in two sections of a seventh-grade English language arts class participated in the study. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected prior to, during, and after the intervention to establish baseline data, as well as determine progress toward the pedagogical goal. Analyses reveal improvement in the amount of student revision and …

Using Mobile Learning To Support Students’ Understanding In Geometry: A Design-Based Research Curriculum Study, Helen Crompton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Mobile learning offers new affordances to teaching and learning, such as learning that is contextualized, personalized, and unrestricted by temporal and spatial constraints (Crompton, 2013a). In this study, the affordances of mobile learning were utilized as students learned about angles. Using a design-based research methodology a local instruction theory was developed on how students can learn about angle concepts through mobile learning activities. The local instruction theory is comprised of two components: (a) an exemplary mobile learning curriculum for 4th grade students to study angle concepts, and (b) additions to the scholarly theories in how students learning about angle using …

Information Architecture For Social Media: A Case Study On Building An Event Backchannel With Twitter, Robert L. Moore

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This paper presents a case study on creating a backchannel through Twitter for the live event, featuring the Secretary of the US Navy, hosted by the School of Government. The project, which ultimately was successful in creating social media buzz for the lecture, was a new approach for the School of Government in how it markets its events. The study discusses the tools and processes used in the backchannel's creation and development. This paper was written because the author discovered a gap in existing literature on creating backchannels. It outlines how the adaptation of best practices from the general population's …

Generative Learning Strategy Use And Self-Regulatory Prompting In Digital Text, Alan J. Reid, Gary R. Morrison

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The digital revolution is shifting print-based textbooks to digital text, and it has afforded the opportunity to incorporate meaningful learning strategies and otherwise separate metacognitive activities directly into these texts as embedded support. A sample of 89 undergraduates read a digital, expository text on the basics of photography. The treatment prompted the reader with selfregulatory questions and embedded a generative strategy, paraphrasing, and confirmed previous research on the relationships between prior knowledge and level of self-regulation on reading comprehension.

A one-way between subjects ANOVA revealed significance for the level of self-regulation on comprehension-level items and for the level of prior …