Navigating Through a Pandemic (The Unknown): The Effects of Synchronous Learning for Online and in Person Students on Achievement Scores in Reading and Math in a Private Catholic School in South Texas

In the Spring of 2020, a wide world pandemic, specifically COVID-19, slammed the door on what we defined as normal life. COVID-19 and its associated pandemic exposed more explicitly great inequities such as access to devices, platforms, and/or places to do schoolwork outside schools in education systems (Fullan, 2020). It also interrupted international travel, it devastated economic growth, and it disrupted schooling globally (Harris & Jones, 2020). In the Summer of 2020, a Catholic school in South Texas set a plan in place to provide a 100% synchronous way of learning for students in elementary grades 1 through 8 to ensure that students received a full day of instruction despite being face-to-face or online

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Not AvailableInformation and Communication Technology is indispensable part of agricultural higher education. ICTs integration in higher agricultural education have been initiated for many purposes such as for administration of agricultural institutions, record-keeping, research, teaching and learning process etc. Education Division of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research has spent crores of rupees on establishment of e-libraries, SMART classrooms, SMART seminar halls, strengthening of computer laboratories and Educational Technology Cells in State Agricultural Universities of the country apart from developing e-courses, platforms like e-granth etc. In spite of all these efforts, there still exists a gap between the efforts made in the area of ICT at the ICAR level and actual implementation in the teaching – learning process in agricultural education in our universities. Thus, an attempt was made to find out the status of ICT tools and their impact in teaching learning situation. The study also attempted to identify the factors that affect the adoption of ICT tools and thereby develop a future roadmap which would lead to strengthening of ICT integration in agricultural higher education.Not Availabl

Using ICT to foster collaborative writing for EFL university students in Vietnam

The development of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has changed most aspects of life, and its diffusion into education was inevitable. Vietnam is a developing country where English and ICT are highly valued as two of the most important instruments of industrialisation and modernisation. These instruments help facilitate the country’s integration into the globalised world. Thus, the use of ICT in English language teaching and learning has received much attention from both policy makers and researchers. In this study, the possibilities of using ICT in fostering English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university students’ collaborative writing in a Vietnamese context were examined. Teachers’ and students’ readiness for ICT-supported collaborative writing as well as their attitudes and perceptions toward this learning mode were investigated. Pedagogical implications for ICT-supported collaborative writing are also discussed. A case study methodology using both quantitative and qualitative data was employed. The study consisted of two phases. Phase 1 was a preliminary investigation in which online surveys were distributed to 16 English language teachers and 315 first year students at FPT University. The results of the surveys suggested that it was feasible to implement ICT-supported collaborative writing in this university and that the most suitable ICT applications to use were Facebook and Google Docs. In Phase 2, an intervention, in which Facebook and Google Docs were used as ICT platforms for collaborative writing was conducted with three EFL classes of three English levels: elementary, pre-intermediate and intermediate. During Phase 2, methods of data collection such as observations, focus group interviews and experience-of-change interviews were employed. This study found that successful ICT integration in English language teaching and learning required not only the readiness of teachers and students to engage with technology, but also the pedagogy to use that technology informed by an understanding of the cultural characteristics of the learners. Based on the main findings, a number of recommendations have been suggested in relation to policies, teacher training, curriculum design, and future research

Educational technology adoption in leading Ghanaian state university business school

Today, the rapid growth of the use of technology in education has substantially increased the focus and relevance of educational technology research. This study addresses the question of whether technology can provide significant support in teaching and learning approaches and the associated issue of the elements needed for an effective implementation of technology within an educational reform context. Mixed methodological approach was adopted. Observations, interviews and questionnaires administration were the main form of data collection techniques employed by the researcher. Participants for the study were selected by purposive random sampling, which includes 20 teachers from business schools from four case study universities in Ghana together with 396 students. The study also took into consideration other stakeholders in the higher educational setting by interviewing 5 educational/learning technologists from the United Kingdom. The findings from the study suggest that most students and teachers do not use some form of educational technology due to the absence of these technologies and the poor training arrangement given by university authorities. Poor attitude was also seen to be an important factor for accepting and incorporating technologies in teaching and learning. The research provides an indication that information technology supports virtually every aspect of higher education, including research and e-learning which improves digital literacy of students and sustainability, and educators need to understand the range of problems their students face so they apply IT where it brings greatest value. The study also demonstrate that creating this IT support environment will require collaboration across organizational and national boundaries, bringing together the collective intelligence of people from backgrounds including education, corporations, and government. Keywords: Education, Learning, ICT, Educational technology, Higher Education, Leadershi