Technology-enabled Active Learning (TEAL) – A Study of its Influence on Student Learning

Using an active learning framework proposed by Shroff et al (2019), our study evaluates the impact of technology-enabled active learning (TEAL) on student learning in an Australian business school, using the individual reflections of accounting students as data collection strategy. We found positive influence of the three constructs of the framework - interactive engagement, problem solving and feedback on learning. Our study found interactive engagement, development of problem-solving skills and individualized learning context enabled by accounting technology have positively contributed to the learning effectiveness. Technology-enhanced scaffolds designed in the learning process have contributed to the consolidation of learning and to learning effectiveness. Our study observed that though students’ interest and curiosity enabled by technology is expected to have positive influence on learning, lack of student effort, poor timing of feedback, and absence of a sense of challenge, have limited their learning

Robot Consciousness: Physics and Metaphysics Here and Abroad

Interest has been renewed in the study of consciousness, both theoretical and applied, following developments in 20th and early 21st-century logic, metamathematics, computer science, and the brain sciences. In this evolving narrative, I explore several theoretical questions about the types of artificial intelligence and offer several conjectures about how they affect possible future developments in this exceptionally transformative field of research. I also address the practical significance of the advances in artificial intelligence in view of the cautions issued by prominent scientists, politicians, and ethicists about the possible dangers of such sufficiently advanced general intelligence, including by implication the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

Toward Understanding Teaching in the Making: Explaining Instructional Decision Making by Analyzing a Geology Instructor\u27s Use of Metaphors

There is a need to enhance science and geoscience literacy. Effective instruction allows students opportunity to build their own models, test them, make their own arguments, and discern reliability of the claims and arguments of others. Attempts at designing and importing such instruction have shown limited implementation fidelity, even with attached professional development. Up to present, attempts to understand the problem of implementation sought to focused on the context of the teacher (beliefs, knowledges, and motivations) to explain teacher practice, and results indicate great complexity. Maintaining a similar focus, this investigation analyzes a geology instructor\u27s use of metaphor, when talking about teaching, learning, and knowledge, to understand and explain the factors involved in his instructional decision making. Eric (pseudonym), a geology professor, implemented a curricular intervention in two successive introductory geology classes. However, Eric selected and amended only particular facets of the intervention. The research utilizes classroom observations and multiple audio recorded meetings with Eric to understand why he chose and amended certain parts of the intervention and not others. Results show that Eric described his teaching in terms of two metaphors: the puzzle metaphor and the field trip metaphor. The metaphors paralleled each other in terms how Eric saw his role, his students\u27 role and the role and the nature of knowledge, and therefore influenced what and how he taught. This study suggests that curriculum designers need to take instructor context into consideration when designing curricular interventions and analyzing for the use of metaphor may be an effective way to discern that context

Assessing the impact of a cloud-based learning platform on student motivation and ownership of learning

Has the KuraCloud learning platform increased student motivation and ownership of their learning? Cloud-based educational technologies are used with the expectation that they will assist students to become life-long learners. These technologies give students more control over their learning and this has been shown to motivate them to work harder (Yurco, 2014). This research examines the impact of a recently implemented cloud-based learning platform (KuraCloud) on student motivation and ownership of their learning. All students enrolled in the undergraduate Bachelor of Nursing programme at Wintec will be invited to participate in an online survey. Areas that will be explored to assess motivation include whether students feel more motivated, whether they feel encouraged to seek extra information about topics, and whether their participation is influenced by particular aspects and exercises within the KuraCloud lessons. Areas that will be explored to assess ownership of learning include whether the KuraCloud lessons helped them to learn independently, to problem-solve, and to understand the topic content and the lesson concepts. The research has not been completed yet, but the results will be presented at the conference. It is expected that the results will inform future planning to enhance student motivation and ownership of learning using this technology

Tangible user interfaces : past, present and future directions

In the last two decades, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. Drawing upon users' knowledge and skills of interaction with the real non-digital world, TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with and leverage digital information. However, TUI research is still in its infancy and extensive research is required in or- der to fully understand the implications of tangible user interfaces, to develop technologies that further bridge the digital and the physical, and to guide TUI design with empirical knowledge. This paper examines the existing body of work on Tangible User In- terfaces. We start by sketching the history of tangible user interfaces, examining the intellectual origins of this field. We then present TUIs in a broader context, survey application domains, and review frame- works and taxonomies. We also discuss conceptual foundations of TUIs including perspectives from cognitive sciences, phycology, and philoso- phy. Methods and technologies for designing, building, and evaluating TUIs are also addressed. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limita- tions of TUIs and chart directions for future research

Ghost hunting in the broken archives:Re-historicizing digital education in an institutional context

Digital education is often presented as breaking from tradition. A failure to account for how digital education emerges from historical institutional activity is problematic insofar as this activity continues to circulate through the present and future, appearing and disappearing in often unexpected ways. Using Derrida’s hauntology as a theoretical lens, this paper traces how a digital education initiative at the University of Edinburgh in 2003 carried through to the creation of a course to train teachers to teach online in 2019, which in turn informed the university’s response to the pandemic in 2020. Working in a broadly autoethnographic way alongside archival document analysis, several findings emerged. First, hauntology provides a mechanism for institutions to trace their own histories and to note how these histories, often hidden in archives or carried forward into the present by hosts, inform their present and future trajectories. Second, broken archives, those that have ceased to function as active repositories but are disconnected from institutional domains and ontologies, shut due to absent gatekeepers, or merely forgotten, contribute​ to the sudden and often unexpected emergence of hauntings in present and future trajectories. Third, curation of the archive is an act of reinterpretation, one that troubles historical narratives and introduces new hauntings. All these findings assert a re-historicizing of digital education by emphasising the hauntings from the past that inform its emergent present and contested future, countering many of the ahistorical imaginaries of digital education

The Effect of Technology-Rich School Environments on Academic Achievement and Attitudes of Urban School Students

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of technology-rich educational environments on student academic achievement and attitude. The primary independent variable was the type of school (technology-rich school (TRS) and traditional school (TS)). Additional independent variables included gender, ethnicity, and computer ownership. The dependent variables were: (1) student academic achievement (Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (4th-grade), Virginia\u27s Literacy Passport Test (6th-grade), and Tests of Achievement and Proficiency (11th-grade)) and (2) and student attitudes (questionnaire). The design examined the differences between TRS and TS (N = 1088). Compared were 4th-grade elementary school students attending a TRS (n = 47) and a TS (n = 42); 6th-grade middle school students attending a TRS (n = 337) and a TS (n = 244); and 11th-grade high school students attending a TRS (n = 248) and a TS (n = 170). An examination of pre-treatment academic achievement data indicated no significant differences between the treatment and comparison groups. Academic achievement findings indicated that: 4th-grade TRS students\u27 ITBS scores were higher than 4th-grade TS students (p = 0.0441) based on type of school and computer ownership; 6th-grade TRS students\u27 LPT scores were higher than 6th-grade TS students (p = 0.0071); 11th-grade TRS students\u27 TAP scores were higher than 11th-grade TS students (p = 0.0009), based on the interaction of type of school, gender, and ownership. Attitude findings indicated that: 6th-grade TRS students had higher attitude-toward-school scores (p = 0.0001) and composite-attitude scores (p = 0.0044); 6th-grade TRS students had higher attitude-toward-school scores (p = 0.0121), attitude-toward-technology (p = 0.0176), and composite-attitude scores (p = 0.0042) based on the interaction of type of school, gender, and computer ownership; 11th-grade TRS students had higher attitude-toward-school scores (p = 0.0116), attitude-toward-technology (p = 0.0095), and composite-attitude scores (p = 0.0047); and, 11th-grade students had higher attitude-toward-school scores (p = 0.0334) based on the interaction of type of school and gender. The overall findings indicated that TRS environments contribute to increased academic achievement of 4th-grade, 6th-grade, and 11th-grade students and contribute to positive student attitudes toward school, technology, and overall attitude for 6th-grade and 11th-grade students

How purchase type influences customers´ engagement on brands´ social media platforms

Our society is currently suffering an urge of keep purchasing new products with hedonic characteristics, which will make us feel happier and more fulfilled. Nowadays, there are almost no customers’ decisions that are unaffected by social media, which leads to the increased importance for brands of generating customer engagement via their social media platforms. Thus, it’s crucial to understand if different types of brands generate different levels of engagement. In order to fill this gap on the literature, this dissertation investigated whether, on the hedonic brands category, purchase type – material vs. experiential – influences the level of customers’ engagement on the brands’ social media networks. Furthermore, it was perceived how price and gender affect this relationship. To this end, an online survey with 178 respondents was conducted to identify some patterns of behavior on this subject. Based on questionnaire results, although experiential products tend to create more user generated content, when it comes to Customer Brand Engagement (CBE) on brands’ own social media platforms, material brands take the big win. Moreover, it was accepted a positive relation between the price of the purchase and CBE on brands’ social media. Nonetheless, price does not have any moderation effect on the relation between the brand type and CBE. Additionally, it was recognized stronger levels of CBE by females than by males, yet gender also does not moderate the relation between both variables.A nossa sociedade está atualmente a sofrer de uma urgência contínua da compra de novos produtos com características hedônicas, que nos fazem sentir mais felizes e realizados. Hoje em dia, quase todas as decisões tomadas pelos consumidores são afetadas pelas redes sociais, isto leva à crescente importância para as marcas em gerar envolvimento com o consumidor através das suas plataformas online. Desta forma, é importante perceber se diferentes tipos de marcas geram diferentes níveis de envolvimento. De maneira a preencher esta lacuna na literatura, esta dissertação investiga se, em marcas de categoria hedônica, o tipo de compra – material vs experiencial – influencia o nível de envolvimento dos consumidores com as redes sociais das marcas. Além disso, foi testado como é que o preço e o gênero afetam essa mesma relação. Para esse fim, foi realizado um questionário online com 178 participantes de forma a identificar alguns padrões de comportamento. Com base nos resultados do questionário, embora os produtos experienciais tendam a criar mais conteúdo gerado pelo usuário, quando se trata de CBE (customer brand engagement) nas próprias plataformas, as marcas materiais saem vitoriosas. Além disso, foi aceite uma relação positiva entre o preço da compra e o envolvimento do consumidor nas redes sociais da marca. No entanto, o preço não tem nenhum efeito de moderação na relação entre o tipo de marca e CBE. Foi também confirmado níveis mais elevados de CBE por mulheres do que por homens, porém o gênero também não modera a relação entre as duas variáveis