Education Commons^™

Investigating The Factors That Influence The Use Of Digital Learning Resources In The K-12 Educational Context, Susan J. Bennett, Lori Lockyer, Ian M. Brown

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Australian and New Zealand governments have made a significant investment in the establishment of an on-line repository that will make digital learning resources, also called learning objects, available to teachers in the K-12 sector. The focus of this, and similar learning object initiatives around the world, has been on content development and delivery. Much of the current learning object research has been concerned with resolving the technical issues to support these processes, with little attention paid to pedagogical and practical issues that might influence learning object use. This paper argues for research to address this gap and reports on a …

Why Teachers Are Reluctant To Use New Technologies: Supporting Teachers' Action Learning Within A Web Environment, Garry Hoban, Anthony J. Herrington

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Action learning involves a small group (6-8 people) who meet regularly to share reflections and discuss ideas that they try out in practice. Key to the process of action learning is the sharing of personally relevant issues or problems in relation to the action being attempted. In this study a web environment was designed to support the sharing of strategies by teachers which also included a discussion space to provide feedback on the strategies attempted. One web environment was designed for an action learning team in a high school and another for a group in an elementary school. It was …

Interactive Television: Educational Use In The New Millenium, Jann Roberts, Janice A. Herrington

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

Interactive television (ITV) has a great deal of potential for facilitating interactive, collaborative, constructivist, situated, and authentic learning. Many teachers, however, are not familiar with the features of ITV, or how it could impact on teaching and learning in Australia. Inherent in its adoption, there are a number of issues which need to be addressed, including the lack of research into current generation ITV, the lack of availability of pedagogically sound, research-driven guidelines for ITV use, and the existing attitudes towards ITV. This paper describes some of the theoretical and practical issues surrounding the use of ITV in the classrooms …

From Surviving To Thriving: The Use Of Information And Communication Technology In An Induction Program For Early Career Teachers In Personal Development, Health And Physical Education, Douglas Hearne, Gregg S. Rowland, Amy L. Webb

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper is a discussion of a project with both face-to-face and online components designed to support early career teachers from the key learning area of Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) across three teacher employing authorities in New South Wales, Australia. The project was initiated in 2004 by the Australian Council for Health Physical Education and Recreation, NSW (ACHPER) in conjunction with the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme. Supporting all aspects of the project is the BEST:PDHPE (Beginning and Establishing Successful Teachers) website that has been developed to provide resources and communication tools. Research associated with the project …

The Use Of Embedded Tools And Support Materials Within A Classroom Simulation To Support Quality Teaching, Janice B. Turbill, Lisa K. Kervin, Brian Ferry, Brian L. Cambourne, John Hedberg, David Jonassen, Sarah Puglisi

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

This paper focuses on the use of embedded tools and support materials within a web-based simulated classroom environment. The developed simulation prototype allows the user to adopt the role of a Kindergarten teacher where they have to “teach” a typical literacy episode that we have called “days of the week”. During this episode the user is asked to make decisions about the organisation of the classroom, management of the classroom, and the teaching and learning experiences to be offered.

A key component of this on-line simulation is the incorporation of an embedded tool, referred to as a thinking space, at …