Education Commons^™

Perspectives On Teachers As Digital Library Users: Consumers, Contributors, And Designers, Mimi Recker

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

"...freed of the constraints of physical space and media, digital libraries can be more adaptive and reflective of the communities they serve. They should be collaborative, allowing users to contribute knowledge to the library, either actively through annotations, reviews, and the like, or passively through their patterns of resource use. In addition, they should be contextual, expressing the expanding web of inter-relationships and layers of knowledge that extend among selected primary resources. In this manner, the core of the digital library should be an evolving information base, weaving together professional selection and the 'wisdom of crowds.'" (Lagoze, Krafft, Payette, & …

Inst7870 - Data Visualization Theory & Practice, Fall 2006, Brett Shelton

Instructional Technology & Learning Sciences - OCW

In this course you will explore the question of what visualization is, and why you should use visualizations for quantitative data. In doing so, you will address theoretical concepts and examine case studies that show the importance of effective visualizations in real world settings.

You will also look at how to interpret meanings in visualizations. Elements of cognitive science theory are addressed, and you will practice techniques to help with your interpretations. An additional objective will center on how to create meaning with your own visualizations, then examine appropriate forms for representation and also review design considerations.

In the lab …

Inst5270 - Flash, Fall 2006, Andrew Walker

Instructional Technology & Learning Sciences - OCW

This course uses Flash 8/Actionscript 2.0. You may also be interested in INST 5245, which uses Flash CS3 (Flash 9)/Actionscript 3.0.

This course familiarizes students with Macromedia Flash. Topics to be covered include fundamental programming concepts (variables, variable types, code re-use, commenting code, and basic control structures) in addition to the fundamentals of the flash environment (animation or “tweening”, vector graphics, use of sound and video). Students finishing this course will have at least one completed fully functional Flash project for their portfolios demonstrating a strong knowledge of the tool and a good foundation in the ActionScript language as the …

The Competencies And Characteristics Required Of An Effective Project Manager: A Web-Based Delphi Study, Jennifer M. Brill, M. J. Bishop, Andrew Walker

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This study explores the competencies required for a project manager to be effective in the workplace. We used a Web-based Delphi method to lead experienced project managers through an anonymous consensus-building process consisting of two rounds of surveys. The Round I analysis of 147 respondents, all with 20 or more years of project management experience, yielded 117 project management success factors, 78 of which were identified as “trainable” competencies. The Round II analysis confirmed 42 of the 78 competencies (53.8%) as “very important” to “extremely important” to project manager success. Important contributions of this study include: (a) reporting on project …

A Social-Cognitive Framework For Designing Pedagogical Agents As Learning Companions, Yanghee Kim, Amy L. Baylor

Yanghee Kim

Teaching and learning are highly social activities. Seminal psychologists such as Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura have theorized that social interaction is a key mechanism in the process of learning and development. In particular, the benefits of peer interaction for learning and motivation in classrooms have been broadly demonstrated through empirical studies. Hence, it would be valuable if computer-based environments could support a mechanism for a peer-interaction. Though no claim of peer equivalence is made, pedagogical agents as learning companions (PALs) -- animated digital characters functioning to simulate human-peer-like interaction -- might provide an opportunity to simulate such social interaction in …

Content-Based English Learning Through Pedagogical Agents, Yanghee Kim, P. Punahm, Y. Ko

Yanghee Kim

This paper suggests how an advanced technology called pedagogical agents can be applied to English education to benefit learners across ages through computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and content-based language learning (CBLL). CALL, when designed appropriately, has positively influenced the development of a learner’s linguistic proficiency and communicative competence (Chun, 1994; Fotos & Browne, 2004). CBLL integrates language learning with subject-matter learning to make language learning more meaningful (Snow, 2001; Swain, 1998). However, the conventional CALL programs are often criticized for the lacking a social context, considered essential for successful language learning ( Warschauer, 2004). Also, CBLL seems rarely applied to …

Pedagogical Agents As Learning Companions: The Role Of Agent Competency And Type Of Interaction, Yanghee Kim, Amy L. Baylor, Pals Group

Yanghee Kim

This study was designed to examine the effects of the competency (low vs. high) and interaction type (proactive vs. responsive) of pedagogical agents as learning companions (PALs) on learning, self-efficacy, and attitudes. Participants were 72 undergraduates in an introductory computer-literacy course who were randomly assigned to one of four treatments: Low-Proactive, Low-Responsive, High-Proactive, and High-Responsive. Results indicated a main effect for PAL competency. Students who worked with the high-competency PAL in both proactive and responsive conditions achieved higher scores in applying what they had learned and showed more positive attitudes toward the PAL. However, students who worked with the low-competency …

A Design-Based Research Strategy To Promote Scalability For Educational Innovations, Jody Clarke-Midura, C. Dede, D. J. Ketelhut, B. Nelson, C. Bowman

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This article offers insights into how the design of innovations can enhance their “scalability”: the ability to adapt an innovation to effective usage in a wide variety of contexts, including settings where major conditions for success are absent or attenuated. We are implementing the River City MUVE curriculum, a technology-based innovation designed to enhance engagement and learning in middle school science, in a range of educational contexts. Based on our studies of these scaling up activities, we offer examples of design strategies for scalability and describe our plan to develop a “scalability index.”

Perceptions Of The Value Of Problem-Based Learning Among Students With Special Needs And Their Teachers, Brian Robert Belland, P. A. Ertmer, K. D. Simons

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

While problem-based learning (PBL) has been found to be effective with gifted and average students (Hmelo-Silver, 2004), little is known about its impact on students with special needs. This study examines the perceptions of middle-school students with mild, moderate, and severe disabilities and of their teachers regarding the value of participating in a PBL unit. The unit focused on the physical accessibility of a low-SES, rural community where the students’ school was located.We used the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to analyze interview data, and used observation data and artifacts to triangulate interview comments. Among the noteworthy findings …

Inst5280 - Blogs, Wikis, New Media For Learning, Spring 2006, David Wiley

Instructional Technology & Learning Sciences - OCW

Innovation continues to occur on the internet at an extremely lively pace. What was once the realm of email, FTP, Gopher, and the Web is barely recognizable a mere 10 years later. Keeping up with the speed of innovation and maintaining a familiarity with the most recent tools and capabilities is handy in some professions and absolutely critical in others. This course is designed to help you understand and effectively use a variety of "web 2.0" technologies including blogs, RSS, wikis, social bookmarking tools, photo sharing tools, mapping tools, audio and video podcasts, and screencasts.

Methodological Challenges For Identifying And Coding Diverse Knowledge Elements In Interview Data, Victor R. Lee, Moshe Krakowski, Bruce Sherin, Megan Bang, Gregory Dam

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper, as part of a symposium on the analysis of clinical interview data and the development of a framework for analyzing students' intuitive science knowledge, identifies and discusses methodological challenges encountered when specifying the knowledge elements and resources are invoked dynamically during a clinical interview. Drawing from interviews with middle school students about the seasons and an analysis of knowledge in terms of 'nodes', two classes of problems are identified: those associated with identification of nodes and those associated with their application as codes to a transcript-based data corpus. We posit that these challenges are common ones associated with …