Education Commons^™

Using Importance-Performance Analysis To Guide Instructional Design Of Experiential Learning Activities, Sheri Anderson, Yu-Chang Hsu, Judy Kinney

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Designing experiential learning activities requires an instructor to think about what they want the students to learn. Using importance-performance analysis can assist with the instructional design of the activities. This exploratory study used importance-performance analysis in an online introduction to criminology course. There is limited research on experiential learning in online courses as well as empirical data to assist with the instructional design of the experiential learning activities. The primary goal of this article is to demonstrate the use of importance- performance analysis to guide the instructional design of experiential learning activities.

Becoming A Maker Educator, Jackie Gerstein

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Maker Movement is a "global-do-it-yourself (DIY) movement of people who take charge of their lives, solve their own problems and share how they solved them" (Roscorla, 2013). This movement is gaining traction in the educational sphere, in both formal (public and private K-16 schools) and informal educational environments (after-school programs, community makerspaces, libraries, museums, etc.). As such, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of articles about the Maker Movement and Maker Education in professional journals, as well as increased attention to the topic with-in school-related professional development activities and education conferences.

Getting Graphic About Infographics: Design Lessons Learned From Popular Infographics, Joanna C. Dunlap, Patrick R. Lowenthal

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

People learn and remember more efficiently and effectively through the use of text and visuals than through text alone. Infographics are one way of presenting complex and dense informational content in a way that supports cognitive processing, learning, and future recognition and recollection. But the power of infographics is that they are a way of delivering the maximum amount of content in the least amount of space while still being precise and clear; because they are visual presentations as opposed to oral or text presentations, they can quickly tell a story, show relationships, and reveal structure. The following paper reports …

Using Voicethread To Facilitate Asynchronous Communication: A Design Case, Jesús Trespalacios

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Online courses have traditionally used text as the only medium to communicate. However, new technologies make it easier than ever before to integrate audio and video communication into online courses. The purpose of this design case study is twofold. Firstly, we sought to describe the different instructional activities designed for an Instructional Design online graduate course. Secondly, this study undertook to explain the integration of VoiceThread (a Web 2.0 tool with multimedia capabilities) to facilitate students’ interactions and the revisions made on some activities that used this tool. Data collected from two surveys administered at the end of the course …

Creating An Intentional Web Presence: Strategies For Every Educational Technology Professional, Patrick R. Lowenthal, Joanna C. Dunlap, Patricia Stitson

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recently, educators are pushing for students, specifically graduates, to be digitally literate in order to successfully read, write, contribute, and ultimately compete in the global market place. Educational technology professionals, as a unique type of learning professional, need to be not only digitally literate to lead and assist teachers and students toward this goal, but also model the digital fluency expected of an educational technology leader. Part of this digital fluency involves effectively managing one’s web presence. In this article, we argue that educational technology professionals need to practice what they preach by attending to their own web presence. We …

Sense Of Community, Perceived Learning, And Achievement Relationships In An Online Graduate Course, Jesus Trespalacios, Ross Perkins

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The ubiquity of online programs in higher education requires continued focus on designing instructional environments that improve students’ learning. We examine students’ perceptions of sense of community and learning, as well as academic achievement, using grades obtained from a final project and participation in asynchronous discussion forums. Findings indicate a significant correlation between perceived learning and the sense of community connectedness subscale. Although sense of community is closely associated with interactions, the results did not show a significant relationship between the sense of community and the discussions achievement variable. Implications and challenges in implementing activities to foster sense of community …

Effects Of Personalization And Invitation Email Length On Web-Based Survey Response Rates, Jesús H. Trespalacios, Ross A. Perkins

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Individual strategies to increase response rate and survey completion have been extensively researched. Recently, efforts have been made to investigate a combination of interventions to yield better response rates for web-based surveys. This study examined the effects of four different survey invitation conditions on response rate. From a large metropolitan university in the West, a group of 1,598 selected students were randomly assigned to four groups, each of which received a different version of the invitation email to participate in a survey of campus technology needs. Findings show that neither the degree of personalization nor the length of the invitation …

Effectiveness And Student Perceptions Of High-Enrolment Health Studies Online Courses, Ken-Zen Chen, Patrick R. Lowenthal, Christine Bauer

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: In countries such as the USA, colleges and universities are focusing on how best to serve their students in tough fiscal times and a highly competitive marketplace. Boise State University has specifically focused on providing online courses as one option to meet student needs. However, more recently, Boise State began developing high-enrollment online courses to resolve bottlenecks in enrolments, while maintaining robust, interactive, and engaging learning experiences.

Design: A mixed-method case study.

Setting: Three high-enrollment health studies online courses offered at a 4-year university in Boise, Idaho, USA.

Method: A systemic analysis of final course evaluations, student grades, and …

Learners’ Interpersonal Beliefs And Generated Feedback In An Online Role-Playing Peer-Feedback Activity: An Exploratory Study, Yu-Hui Ching, Yu-Chang Hsu

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Peer feedback affords interaction and critical thinking opportunities for learners in online courses. However, various factors prevent learners from taking advantage of these promising benefits. This study explored learners’ perceptions of the interpersonal factors in a role-playing peer-feedback activity, and examined the types of peer feedback that learners generated when playing a role. Participants were 16 graduate students engaged in an online role-playing peer-feedback activity. The results from survey responses revealed learners’ positive interpersonal beliefs, including psychological safety and trust, toward the role-playing peer-feedback activity. In addition, more than sixty percent of the participants reported being more comfortable critiquing peers’ …

Qualitative And Mixed Methods Social Media Research: A Review Of The Literature, Chareen L. Snelson

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social media technologies have attracted substantial attention among many types of users including researchers who have published studies for several years. This article presents an overview of trends in qualitative and mixed methods social media research literature published from 2007 through 2013. A collection of 229 qualitative studies were identified through a systematic literature review process. A subset of 55 of these articles report studies involving a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Articles were reviewed, analyzed, and coded through a qualitative content analysis approach. Overall trends are presented with respect to the entire collection of articles followed by an …

Open Access Journals In Educational Technology: Results Of A Survey Of Experienced Users, Ross A. Perkins, Patrick R. Lowenthal

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

As the academic publishing industry evolves, there has been an unprecedented growth of open access journals (OAJs). In educational technology alone, with an estimated 270 associated journals, nearly one-third are designated as open. Though OAJs are lauded for what their availability can contribute to social justice issues (reduction of subscription requirement barriers), some remain suspicious of the content found in them and question the legitimacy of publishing in them. In this study, we sought to discover the opinions of educational technology scholars about OAJs in their own field. We were able to learn which OAJs were deemed to be most …

Enhancing Graduate Students’ Reflection In E-Portfolios Using The Tpack Framework, Yu-Hui Ching, Dazhi Yang, Youngkyun Baek, Sally Baldwin

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

When electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) are employed as summative assessments for degree granting programs, it is imperative that graduate students demonstrate their knowledge in the field to showcase learning growth and achievement of the program learning outcomes. This study examined the extent master's degree students in the field of educational technology demonstrated their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) related elements in their e-portfolio reflection, when they were guided by TPACK framework grounded instruction. Using content analysis technique and open-ended survey responses, the findings show that graduate students were able to demonstrate their interconnected technological pedagogical knowledge in their reflection to justify …

Integrating Mobile Devices Into The Classroom: A Qualitative Case Study Of A Faculty Learning Community, Devshikha Bose, Patrick R. Lowenthal

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite the pedagogic affordances of mobile devices, many instructors are not prepared to effectively integrate them into their courses. “Western State University” has developed a program to support faculty in the innovative use of mobile devices in the classroom. This qualitative case study documents instructors’ experiences and perceptions of integrating mobile devices in their courses. Themes under investigation were the impact of mobile devices on teaching practice, student learning, and course learning outcomes. Results indicate that instructors used mobile devices to create content, communicate, store, and share information. Assignments were modified to take advantage of mobile devices, digital fluency was …

Teachers’ Perceptions About Math Snacks Spanish Materials, Sara Morales, Lida J. Uribe-Flórez, Karen Trujillo, Karin Wiburg

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mathematics has been a gatekeeper especially for diverse students (Martin, Gholson & Leonard, 2010). The implications of an increasingly diverse school population calls for the development of culturally and linguistically responsive materials, including support materials for mathematics in Spanish. Teachers of mathematics in the United States have limited resources available to them in Spanish to support bridging mathematics content and practices for English Learners (Moschkovich, 2013). The CCSS-M requires deep conceptual understanding in order for students to be successful in their formal K-12 education. Students, whose home language is other than English, need support and opportunities to success in mathematics …