Educational Technology Commons^™

Teachers, Education, And Inequality In The Developing World, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Investing in teachers is key but incentivising poor parents to keep their kids in school is crucial

The Semantic Student: Using Knowledge Modeling Activities To Enhance Enquiry-Based Group Learning In Engineering Education, Paul Stacey

Conference papers

This paper argues that training engineering students in basic knowledge modeling techniques, using linked data principles, and semantic Web tools – within an enquiry-based group learning environment – enables them to enhance their domain knowledge, and their meta-cognitive skills. Knowledge modeling skills are in keeping with the principles of Universal Design for instruction. Learners are empowered with the regulation of cognition as they become more aware of their own development. This semantic student approach was trialed with a group of 3rd year Computer Engineering Students taking a module on computer architecture. An enquiry-based group learning activity was developed to help …

A Multi-Case Study Of Electronic Communication Policy In Rural East Texas School Districts, Laura Lynn Dacus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this descriptive case study was to conduct a policy analysis regarding electronic communication between educators and students in three rural East Texas school districts. The policy analysis for each district began with the initial implementation of teacher communication via electronic sources provided by the districts. The focus of the study was limited specifically to the policy regulating nonschool related, electronic communication by educators with students. The challenge faced by school districts to embrace technology with one-to-one classrooms, virtual classrooms, constant connectivity, school texting applications, and open availability to teachers via email, complicates restrictions placed on non-school related …

How Design Features In Digital Math Games Support Learning And Mathematics Connections, Patricia S. Moyer-Packenham, Christina W. Lommatsch, Kristy Litster, Jill Ashby, Emma P. Bullock, Allison L. Roxburgh, Jessica F. Shumway, Emily Speed, Benjamin Covington, Christine Hartmann, Jody Clarke-Midura, Joel Skaria, Arla Westenskow, Beth L. Macdonald, Jurgen Symanzik, Kerry Jordan

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Current research shows that digital games can significantly enhance children’s learning. The purpose of this study was to examine how design features in 12 digital math games influenced children’s learning. The participants in this study were 193 children in Grades 2 through 6 (ages 8-12). During clinical interviews, children in the study completed pre-tests, interacted with digital math games, responded to questions about the digital math games, and completed post-tests. We recorded the interactions using two video perspectives that recorded children’s gameplay and responses to interviewers. We employed mixed methods to analyze the data and identify salient patterns in children’s …

Teaching Online Foundation Course--Track A, Fall 2018, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

Teaching Online (TOL) Cohorts

A seminar on designing and delivering courses for distance learning in Fall 2018

Transitioning To A Personalized Learning Environment Leveraging One-To-One Devices, Rebecca G. Myers

Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership Dissertations

Today’s educational blueprint is evolving from the traditional teacher-directed model into a student-driven curriculum approach. Specifically, education is experiencing a paradigm shift from the long-established one-size-fits-all model to a customized learning process known as personalized learning. Personalized learning aims at engaging students in more relevant and rigorous learning and turns them into co-designers as the curriculum becomes tailored to their individual learning needs, skills, and interests. Additionally, when coupled with educational technology, personalized learning will provide the teacher with the tools to individualize, differentiate, and accommodate multiple student learning styles and preferences. Indeed, as personalized learning increases in popularity the …

Research Innovation And Institutional Growth: Digital Humanities, Usm, And The University Of Maine System, Janet M. Billson, Katherine Bessey

Research Innovation and Institutional Growth

No abstract provided.

Cirt News - September 2018, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

CIRT News

This issue has the following articles:

Faculty Spotlight: Recording and Publishing Podcasts through Faculty Domains

Director's Message: CIRT Annual Report 2018

Upcoming Events

Digital Thinking: Horizon Report > 2018 Higher Education Edition

Best Practices Online: Aligning Objectives, Content, and Assessment

Canvas News

New in CIRT

The Development Of Young Children’S Social Identity In An Era Of Digital Tools, Sharon Rochelle Kaplan-Berkley

Educational Studies Dissertations

The advancement of innovative digital technologies has created a generation of digital natives (children) growing up in a diverse environment designed by a population of digital immigrants (adults). Consequently, this everyday experience has created some dissonance in their lifestyles, raising questions for educational leaders. The purpose of this mini-ethnographic case study was to develop a deeper understanding of how engaging with digital tools shapes the social interactions of young children, and to examine the various ways online/offline social environments influence face-to-face social peer group formation and functioning. Furthermore, this study explored whether digital technology influences the developing social identities of …

Rise: An R Package For Rise Analysis, David Wiley

Entrepreneurship Faculty Research

rise is an R package that implements the resource inspection, selection, and evaluation (RISE) technique described in (Bodily, Nyland, & Wiley, 2017). rise combines information about course learning outcomes, student use of learning materials aligned with learning outcomes, and student performance on assessments aligned with learning outcomes in order to automatically identify places where learning materials are not effectively supporting student learning. Automating the process of identifying areas for improvement allows designers to spend less of their time determining which learning materials need to be improved and more time actually making improvements to learning materials.

Exploring The Relationship Between Online Discourse And Commitment In Twitter Professional Learning Communities, Wanli Xing, Fei Gao

Visual Communications and Technology Education Faculty Publications

Educators show great interest in participating in social-media communities, such as Twitter, to support their professional development and learning. The majority of the research into Twitter-based professional learning communities has investigated why educators choose to use Twitter for professional development and learning and what they actually do in these communities. However, few studies have examined why certain community members remain committed and others gradually drop out. To fill this gap in the research, this study investigated how some key features of online discourse influenced the continued participation of the members of a Twitter-based professional learning community. More than 600,000 tweets …

Computer-Based Instruction As A Form Of Differentiated Instruction In A Traditional, Teacher-Led, Low-Income, High School Biology Classroom, Cheryl Casey

Dissertations and Theses

In 2015 the U.S. continues to struggle with academic achievement in public schools. Average test scores from 15 year olds taking the Program for International Student Assessment placed the U.S. as 38th out of 71 countries (Drew Devlin, 2017). It is common to discuss elimination of the achievement gap as the single most effective way to improve the U.S.'s mediocre standing among the highest scoring countries in the world in primary and secondary student test scores (McGhee,2004; Flemming 2012). In the broadest sense of the term the "achievement gap" refers to the difference in academic success between different groups of …

The (Re) Adaptability Of Research Methodologies In The Instructional Design & Technology Field, Enilda Romero-Hall, E-Ling Hsiao, Fei Gao

Visual Communications and Technology Education Faculty Publications

In its revolutionary piece, On The Origin of Species, Darwin (1859) provided compelling evidence for the existence of the natural selection process. He described how species interact with their environments to cause variations in traits. Just like the species that Darwin explored in his research, the methodologies used in investigations related to the instructional design and technology (IDT) field have (re)adapted. This (re)adaptability serves to help us better inquire and explore the landscape of formal and informal educational learning environments available today.

Tech, Tips, And Ideas For Podcasting With Or Without A Studio, Rachel S. Evans

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

Discusses the University of Georgia School of Law's media studio housed in the Law Library and provides examples and steps for creating your own podcast on a budget.

Help! I'Ve Been Asked To Mentor A Robotics Team, Mary L. Stephen, Sharon M. Locke

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Teaching Online Foundation Course--Track A, Summer 2018, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

Teaching Online (TOL) Cohorts

A seminar on designing and delivering courses for distance learning in Summer 2018

The Effect Of Choice Of Ipad-Delivered Math Independent Practice Of Elementary Grade Students With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Characteristics, Nora A. Altaweel

Communication Disorders & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

A choice-making strategy is an antecedent control that has proven to be effective for students with problem behaviors. Because students with Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) may display disruptive behaviors and show poor academic performance, it has been suggested that incorporating choice-making strategies into academic instruction could serve to increase academic engagement and task accuracy. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of iPad-based choice-making opportunities during math independent practice on each participant's task engagement, time required to complete task, task accuracy, and task completion, as well as the teacher and participants perceptions of social validity of the intervention. …

Mental Models And Social Media Personas: A Case Of Amateur Palaeontologists, Lisa Lundgren, Kent J. Crippen, Eleanor E. Gardner, Victor J. Perez, Ronny Maik Leder

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This study explores social palaeontology - an inclusive and collaborative form of science occurring across digital habitats. The purpose was to: 1) examine conceptualisations of amateurs via expressed mental models and 2) use the unified media-user typology (MUT) to explore any relationship between these models and social media persona. Data collection involved a survey, modelling task and interview. Findings reveal that persona was demonstrated in subtle ways, offering limited evidence for a relationship between persona and mental model. Sequential models were most common, but more so for advanced personas. Expertise development was expressed through the number of conventions used during …

Acceptance And Diffusion Of Educational Technology Innovations: Change Agency Of Instructional Support Professionals, Robert Wayne Jones

Theses and Dissertations

National narratives pushing distance education, online courses and degree programs, and a competency-based education have led to enlarging staffs of instructional support professionals (ISP) that accompany significant technological shifts to aid in diffusion and support. This study investigated the influence of ISP roles on behavioral intentions of college of business faculty to adopt educational technology generally as, 1) whether change agents provide value in the decision process, 2) how change agency contributes to the overall acceptance of educational technology, and 3) the effect of including change agency in acceptance models. The study design was a quantitative, non-experimental correlational survey as …

Incorporating Diegetic Elements To Increase Engagement In Games For Engineering Education, Katherine Smith, Yuzhong Shen, Anthony W. Dean

VMASC Publications

One of the difficulties in developing educational games is maintaining player engagement. This engagement is critical for games to provide effective learning experiences. One way to increase engagement in games is to limit interruptions during game play. In educational games, this can be accomplished by incorporating learning or problem-solving elements diegetically. Diegetic elements are those that are part of the game scene. With this in mind, a series of games for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education has been developed focusing on content in courses that are prerequisites to the engineering curriculum. These games cover topics in pre-calculus, calculus, …

Ipads And Chromebooks: Current Trends In Personal Device Use For Students Of Northeast Texas School Districts, Sarah Mcsparrin

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Co-Organizing The Collective Journey Of Inquiry With Idea Thread Mapper, Jianwei Zhang, Dan Tao, Mei-Hwa Chen, Yanqing Sun, Darlene Judson, Sarah Naqvi

Educational Theory and Practice Faculty Scholarship

This research integrates theory building, technology design, and design-based research to address a central challenge pertaining to collective inquiry and knowledge building: How can student-driven, ever-deepening inquiry processes become socially organized and pedagogically supported in a community? Different from supporting inquiry using predesigned structures, we propose reflective structuration as a social and temporal mechanism by which members of a community coconstruct/reconstruct shared inquiry structures to shape and guide their ongoing knowledge building processes. Idea Thread Mapper (ITM) was designed to help students and their teacher monitor emergent directions and co-organize the unfolding inquiry processes over time. A study was conducted …

Leveraging Technology Toward Family Supports For And Development Of Middle Schoolers, Elizabeth Gil

Administration and Instructional Leadership Faculty Publications

This Practitioner Perspective discusses how sharing a learning space with their parents, college students, and other adult members in a community-based technology program influenced middle school students’ familial support, their own technology knowledge and social capital, sense of membership in a learning community, and identity development. The program’s structure used technology as a starting point to develop skills, but also to aid Latino immigrant families to navigate their children’s schooling experiences.

Examining The Effectiveness Of Video Instruction On Teaching Daily Living Skills To Adolescents And Young Adults With Intellectual Disability, Annemarie L. Horn

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Independently performing essential daily living skills enables individuals to become more self-sufficient adults. Those with intellectual disability (ID) tend to require direct instruction and repetition to successfully aquire everyday tasks. Many adults with ID continue to show deficits in this domain, affecting independent living abilities (Luftig & Muthert, 2005). Video-based instruction holds promise in increasing autonomous functioning while decreasing reliance on staff. This review of the literature examines the effectiveness of using video instruction (VI) to teach daily living skills to adolescents and young adults with ID. Acquisition, generalization, and maintenance of target skills are examined across the literature. A …

Byte-Sized Bits April 2018, Online Campus

Byte-sized Bits - Online Campus Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Reclaiming Our Assumptions At The Intersection Of Technology, Learning And Equity, Matthew J. Kruger-Ross

Educational Foundations & Policy Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Designing, Developing, And Implementing Real-Time Learning Analytics Student Dashboards, Robert Gordon Bodily

Theses and Dissertations

This document is a multiple-article format dissertation that discusses the iterative design, development, and evaluation processes necessary to create high quality learning analytics dashboard systems. With the growth of online and blended learning environments, the amount of data that researchers and practitioners collect from learning experiences has also grown. The field of learning analytics is concerned with using this data to improve teaching and learning. Many learning analytics systems focus on instructors or administrators, but these tools fail to involve students in the data-driven decision-making process. Providing feedback to students and involving students in this decision-making process can increase intrinsic …

Teaching Online Foundation Course--Track A, Spring 2018, Center For Instruction & Research Technology (Cirt)

Teaching Online (TOL) Cohorts

A seminar on designing and delivering courses for distance learning in Spring 2018

2018 Ijbe Front Matter, Tamra Connor

International Journal for Business Education

1. Editorial Board
2. President's Letter
3. SIEC-ISBE International

Using Wikipedia In Israel Studies Courses, Shira Klein

History Faculty Articles and Research

Instructors of Israeli history or literature, like professors in other areas, complain about students’ use of Wikipedia—and with good reason. Unlike peer-reviewed scholarship, many Wikipedia articles contain information that is both incomplete and wrong. Most instructors will warn their students that relying on Wikipedia is a sure recipe for failing assignments. Yet there is a way to mobilize this giant encyclopedia for pedagogical purposes. When students in Israel Studies classes are assigned to edit Wikipedia articles, they achieve multiple goals: they gain critical reading skills, shape public knowledge about Israel, and engage in active learning. This article explains how to …