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The literature has frequently highlighted the usefulness of podcasting in higher education; however, there is an important gap between the theory on good practice in higher education and empirical studies about podcasting. With this in mind, we carried out an empirical study on an undergraduate degree course in Information Systems Management. The study consisted of the creation and broadcast of 13 podcasts, distributed over four months in which ninety distance students took part. The analysis follows the suggestions proposed in previous literature about the evaluation of technologies in a university learning environment. The findings, discussed within the framework of principles for good practice in higher education, suggest some interesting issues in distance courses, such as: (1) podcasting is a powerful tool as a complement to the traditional resources on a course, but not a substitute for them; (2) the characteristics of podcasting increase the impression of permanent contact between students and teachers, increasing students’ motivation; (3) the use of podcasting allows for a diverse range of student skills and learning methods. Other secondary findings are discussed and some suggestions for future research are proposed at the end of this paper.
Exchange is a collaborative learning application, originally developed for wirelessly interconnected Pocket PCs, that provides support for students and a teacher performing a face-to-face computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) activity in a Single Input/Single Display (SISD) mode. We extend the application to support a single display groupware (SDG) mode. In this new version, named Exchange-MM, three users each with their own mouse (Multiple Mice) interact on a single display with mediation by a technological network. The original collaborative interaction is maintained. We describe a collaborative learning activity and the software architecture that supports both interaction modes, and also present a usability analysis of the activity conducted with second-grade schoolchildren. The results show that as in SISD mode, in SDG with Multiple Mice (MM) the technological network improves communication, negotiation, interactivity, coordination and appropriability between members of collaborative learning groups.
Context-aware ubiquitous learning (u-learning) is an innovative approach that integrates wireless, mobile, and context-awareness technologies to detect the situation of learners in the real world and provide adaptive support or guidance accordingly. In this paper, a context-aware u-learning environment is developed for guiding inexperienced researchers to practice single-crystal X-ray diffraction operations. Experimental results showed that the benefits of this innovative approach are that it is “systematic”, “authentic”, and “economical”, which implies the potential of applying it to complex science experiments, such as physics, chemistry or biotechnology experiments, for graduate and PhD students in colleges, or research workers in research institutes.
Here we test if playing video-games require intelligence. Twenty-seven university undergraduate students were trained on three games from Big Brain Academy (Wii): Calculus, Backward Memory and Train. Participants did not have any previous experience with these games. General intelligence was measured by five ability tests before the training session. Training comprised 10 blocks of trials (10 trials per block). Ackerman’s (Ackerman, P. L. (1988). Individual differences and skill acquisition. In P. L. Ackerman, R. J. Sernberg, & R. Glaser (Eds.), Learning and individual differences: Advances in theory and practice (pp. 165–217). New York: W.H. Freeman and Company) theory of skill learning was used as a framework for the present study. Results show that playing the Train game increases the correlation with general intelligence across blocks of trials. This is not the case for Calculus and Backward Memory. These findings suggest strategies for designing video-games presumably appropriate to stimulate our core cognitive abilities.
The information technology (IT) of today forms an integral part of everyday living, thus the nurture of children’s IT awareness early in life is crucial. Young children have an innate curiosity for IT which suggests that in the school environment it can easily be integrated with other subjects in thematic and interdisciplinary curriculum. This quasi-experimental study used the Technology Foundation Standards for Students of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) project on National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) as the basis to design a thematic and interdisciplinary IT curriculum for elementary students. A total of 1273 elementary students and 12 computer teachers were separated into either a control or experimental group. After one academic year, students’ final scores in English, mathematics, science, social studies, and art were gathered and compared. Statistical analysis indicated that there were significant differences in the experimental group’s academic scores. Findings also suggested that an interdisciplinary curriculum design opened opportunity for collaborative work and cohesiveness among faculty. Further longitudinal studies are recommended to examine the long-term implications of a thematic and interdisciplinary IT curriculum design.
Aims Do college students’ ratings of a professor’s teaching effectiveness suggest that a professor’s teaching improves with time? Does anything predict which instructors receive the highest ratings or improve the fastest? And, importantly, do the correlates of change differ across face-to-face and online courses? Methods I used data from 10,392 classes taught by 1120 instructors across three years and fit a taxonomy of multilevel growth models to examine whether students’ ratings of teaching effectiveness (SETEs) changed across time, whether differences in average SETEs correlated with growth, and whether online vs. face-to-face, tenure, discipline, course level, sex, or minority status affected these estimates. Results SETEs remained relatively stable across time and teachers, although analyses uncovered a statistically significant, negative correlation between initial status and growth. Instructors starting with lower SETEs improved the fastest. These findings held across online and face-to-face instruction modes. However, in face-to-face classes, minority instructors received significantly lower average SETEs. This difference did not occur in online classes. No other predictors showed statistically significant effects. Finally, considerable SETE variance remained unexplained even when including the full predictor set in the model. Discussion These findings reveal that professors’ SETEs can improve. Additionally, they indicate that patterns of change in teaching effectiveness do not differ generally across online and face-to-face instruction modes. However, the results showed that minority teachers in face-to-face but not online classes received lower evaluations than their majority counterparts. Additional research should seek to understand what leads to SETE differences across minority and majority groups in face-to-face classes but not online classes.
While the issue of teachers’ perspectives on the barriers to technology use has received considerable attention, teacher concerns have not been studied in a systematic and holistic way. The present paper examines teacher concerns regarding a proposed technology-based innovation using Activity Theory as a theoretical framework. Fifty-one teachers participated in an inservice blended learning course in which a real-life Computer Supported Collaborative Learning example was presented and subsequently discussed in the online forum. The teachers were asked under which conditions they thought Computer Supported Collaborative Learning could be incorporated into their daily practices. Teacher concerns were identified through their online posts. Time and curriculum constraints were reported by teachers as the main obstacles to the proposed technological innovation. The examination of these obstacles using Activity Theory helped to identify three major contradictions in teachers’ activity system: (a) within the object of activity, (b) between the mediational means and the object of activity and (c) between the current and the proposed object. These contradictions are discussed from the perspective of Activity Theory and their implications for the design and implementation of technology are drawn.
Color coding has been proposed to promote more effective learning. However, insufficient evidence currently exists to show how color coding leads to better learning. The goal of this study was to investigate the underlying cause of the color coding effect by utilizing eye movement data. Fifty-two participants studied either a color-coded or conventional format of multimedia instruction. Eye movement data were collected during the study. The results indicate that color coding increased retention and transfer performance. Enhancement of learning by color coding was due to efficiency of locating corresponding information between illustration and text. Color coding also attracted attention of learners to perceptually salient information.
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