Insights into the use and affordances of social and collaborative applications for student projects

The use of social and collaborative computing has the potential of assisting learning and improving the ability to work together as part of a team. Team work is a graduate attribute that students need to acquire before transitioning from university into the workplace. The aim of this exploratory research was to provide insights into the use of social and collaborative applications by Computer Science students, and the emergent affordances student project teams have created with the use of these applications. It answers the questions: What elearning platforms or applications do students use to collaborate for team projects? What technology affordance draws students to use these applications? This study adopts affordance theory as the theoretical framework. Two types of content analysis: conventional content analysis and summative content analysis were used to analyse the data. Data was gathered using a pre-designed questionnaire with the teams during the first semester of 2016. Findings show that the university’s elearning platform is utilised for some of their courses; however students seem to prefer free and open source platforms. Student project teams used applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Docs, as well as email messages, to work jointly, and were successfully able to complete their team projects. Four types of technology affordances: communicative-affordance, document share-affordance, course resource-affordance, and integrity-affordance, were identified as being relevant

A mixed methods study of online course facilitators\u27 perceptions of mobile technology, design, and TPaCK affordances

The increase in mobile technology options for students in post-secondary, continuing education influences how instructors design and implement courses, specifically online courses (Sözcü, İpek, & Kınay, 2016). Much of the current research addresses technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPaCK), course design, and/or mobile technology as separate topics. There is limited research addressing the combination of TPaCK, design, and mobile technology from the course instructors’ perspective. The mixed methods study addressed design for online, mobile learning with a new layer of the TPaCK instructional framework in three phases. Phase 1 involved a pilot study of a survey that measured TPaCK, lesson design practices, and design perceptions. The pilot study responses informed Phase 2. In Phase 2, the survey was given to 33 current online course facilitators from PBS TeacherLine, an online continuing education course provider. Responses were gathered. In Phase 3, a qualitative interview designed to understand online course instructors’ perceptions of their use of mobile technology, design decisions, and the TPaCK, instructional framework was conducted with a random sample of twelve people from the survey participant pool. The threefold data collection process allowed for a triangulation of the findings, which heightened construct validity and comprehensive understanding. In Finding 1, 100% of the online continuing education course facilitators integrated TPaCK in their courses through the use of mobile and digital tools. In Finding 2, 100% of the online continuing education course facilitators made dynamic and innovative mobile and digital design decisions through the creation of supplemental course content. In Finding 3, 92% of online continuing education course facilitators utilized mobile technology in their online courses through an innovative inclusion of both mobile devices and mobile apps. Five conclusions resulted from the study and are discussed. The study contributes to existing literature by providing a 6-point effectiveness checklist, with the acronym “SCROLL” to operationalize for the professional development of pre-service and current online course facilitators

Does the human brain really like ICT tools and being outdoors? A brief overview of the cognitive neuroscience perspective of the CyberParks concept

The paper presents an overview of the latest studies on cognitive neuroscience that can help evaluate concepts that promote technologically-enhanced outdoor activities, such as CyberParks. The following questions are asked in the paper: does the human brain really like ICT tools? Does the human brain really like being outdoors? And finally: does the human brain really like technologically-enhanced outdoor activities? The results of the studies presented show that the human brain does not like ICT tools yet, it likes being outdoors very much. At the same time, it was shown that outdoors activities may be encouraged by ICT tools, yet outdoors activities themselves should be free from ICT tools. Using ICT tools and physical activity at the same time is a dual task, a type of activity that leads to cognitive and physical processes being destabilised, which leads to weakened effects of both cognitive and physical tasks. From the perspective of cognitive neuroscience, CyberParks are not a solution that the human brain really likes. Another issue is also discussed, namely: do technologically-enhanced outdoor activities—such as in CyberParks—really increase the quality of life

Does the human brain really like ICT tools and being outdoors? a brief overview of the cognitive neuroscience perspective of the CyberParks concept

The paper presents an overview of the latest studies on cognitive neuroscience that can help evaluate concepts that promote technologically-enhanced outdoor activities, such as CyberParks. The following questions are asked in the paper: does the human brain really like ICT tools? Does the human brain really like being outdoors? And finally: does the human brain really like technologically-enhanced outdoor activities? The results of the studies presented show that the human brain does not like ICT tools yet, it likes being outdoors very much. At the same time, it was shown that outdoors activities may be encouraged by ICT tools, yet outdoors activities themselves should be free from ICT tools. Using ICT tools and physical activity at the same time is a dual task, a type of activity that leads to cognitive and physical processes being destabilised, which leads to weakened effects of both cognitive and physical tasks. From the perspective of cognitive neuroscience, CyberParks are not a solution that the human brain really likes. Another issue is also discussed, namely: do technologically-enhanced outdoor activities—such as in CyberParks—really increase the quality of life?The study was supported by European Cooperation in Science and Technology Action: Fostering knowledge about the relationship between Information and Communication Technologies and Public Spaces supported by strategies to improve their use and attractiveness (CYBERPARKS) (TUD COST Action TU1306).peer-reviewe

Exploration of Collaborative Online International Learning : Interactional and Intercultural Competence in Technologically Mediated Education Settings.

Collaborative online international learning (COIL) represents a form of blended on-line and off-line learning in which students attending universities in different countries produce collaborative projects as part of their regular coursework. Given the highly distributed, technologically mediated interactions that are required for successful COIL collaboration, in this paper we consider the importance of recognizing how student competences routinely linked to intercultural skills and abilities are better formulated in terms of interactional competence. In addition, we briefly consider how such interactional competence can be approached as comprising a wide range of complex multimodal and epistemic interactional practices. As with the notion that the mere provision of study-abroad opportunities inevitably results in students acquiring intercultural competence, we argue that technologically mediated teaching and learning requires careful consideration of a range of constraints as well as the often-lauded affordances

Android-based augmented reality in science learning for junior high schools: Preliminary study

Technology in education encourages more effective learning facilitation processes. The lack of variation and innovation in the use of technology used in the form of learning media as a means of supporting learning activities raises many new problems for educational institutions. This research aims to identify the need to create innovations in the implementation of science learning, whose research focus is to analyze the needs for developing smartphone-based innovative augmented reality (AR) learning media. This research is descriptive qualitative. Data collection techniques are observation, interviews, and questionnaires. Teachers and students of junior high schools in Surakarta became the subject of this research. The results showed that students were less focused and unmotivated when participating in the learning process. In addition, the use of learning media is still conventional and not interactive, even though currently all students have smartphones. Based on field facts, the media used by teachers still tends to be conventional, and the majority of students have technological devices such as smartphones, there is great potential for developing innovative technology-based learning media. Smartphone ownership and the lack of interactive learning media are important foundations in innovating the development of smartphone-based augmented reality

Teacher Attitudes Toward Personalized Learning Plans

The aim of this research was to analyze Vermont K-8 teachers’ attitudes toward student personalized learning plans with respect to the independent variable of years of personalized learning plans implementation. This was an important study because personalization has become the new trend in Vermont education. The purpose of this study was to bridge a gap in the literature and research surrounding teacher attitudes toward personalized learning plan implementation. Personalized learning plans were being used as a pathway to high school graduation. Determining the attitudes of teachers toward this initiative seemed reasonable given the upswing of this recent trend in education. Over 150 Vermont teachers participated in this study, ranging geographically over more than twenty supervisory unions. The teachers range in personalized learning plans implementation of one year of experience to five or more years of experience. The Personalized Learning Environment Attitude Scale (PLEAS) instrument was used to collect the data. The voluntary teachers were given a link to the 27-question, five-minute online survey. A causal-comparative research design was used in this study with the one-way between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) as the tool of analysis. There was no statistical significance found; rather, the study found largely favorable attitudes toward personalized learning plans. It is recommended that more research be conducted around the effectiveness of personalized learning plans and the solicitation of teacher input of such research

Rethinking Pedagogy: Exploring the Potential of Digital Technology in Achieving Quality Education

(First Paragraph) The Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) is UNESCO’s Category 1 education Institute in the Asia-Pacific region devoted to education for peace and sustainable development, as enshrined in SDG Target 4.7. UNESCO MGIEP promotes the use of digital learning platforms where teachers and students can co-create and share a highly interactive learning experience. With the rise of the internet, there has been a proliferation of online content and digital resources intended to support teaching and learning, albeit widely varying in quality. Digital education media and resources, if carefully designed and implemented, have a significant potential to be mobilized on a massive scale to support transformative learning for building sustainable, flourishing societies

Still far from personal learning: Key aspects and emergent topics about how future professionals' PLEs are

The CAPPLE project is an exploratory research project that aims to analyse the PLEs of future Spanish professionals. An ad-hoc survey about their habits for learning was conducted using a sample of 2054 university students from the last year of a degree. After data collection, two main processes were carried out: (1) the analysis of some of the aspects learnt through the data collection; and (2) a series of focus groups in parallel, centered on the exploration of data to obtain some first conclusions with a descriptive analysis. The results of these processes showed firstly, that although the survey size is important, there are other factors to consider, such as the difficulty and constant engagement of questions, which that  seriously affected the rate of survey completion. Additionally, data show that future professionals prefer to use analogical tools to complete their learning tasks although they like being connected to social networks in their social lives. They do not have many strategies to organize their learning and are not very critical of the information that comes from their teachers. Regarding PLEs, there are some topics that emerge from the analysis that should be studied in the next future in order to understand better how our students - our future professionals- learn

Predictors of design and adoption of collaborative elearning environments: a multi-method analysis

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDResearch has shown that collaborative eLearning can provide educational opportunities to groups of learners; both distance learners as well as traditional campus-based learners. It provides innovative educational methods in which learning can be constructed. The way collaborative eLearning is administered, managed, used and adopted can assist in providing information for future design and improvement of collaborative software. The objective of this research is to provide an insight into adoption and use of collaborative eLearning environments and to discover new determinants of usage. To examine the usage of an eLearning environment at the University of the Western Cape, a cross-sectional survey was conducted with Computer Science students. While this study is specific to this university, the underlying principles can be generalised to other organisational types. This study is quantitative and qualitative in nature as well as deductive and inductive. Three hundred and six valid questionnaires were analysed using quantitative methods. Soft Systems Methodology was used to manage the research process and to create conceptual models to explain the research problem and identify solutions. It was a cyclical process. Findings show that although the university’s eLearning platform is utilised, students seem to prefer free and open source platforms. They use social and collaborative applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Docs as well as email messages. Four types of technology affordances: communicative-affordance, document share-affordance, course resource-affordance, and integrity-affordance were identified as being relevant in their choice of application. Furthermore, culture—masculinity/femininity, individualism/collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Power Distance—also have an effect on the adoption of collaborative eLearning applications and software the students used for learning. Chi-Square analysis found that individualism/collectivism and Power Distance were both significant and related to the adoption and usage of collaborative eLearning. Gender was found not to be a determinant of how students view the use of collaborative eLearning software applications. Finally, it was also found that understanding use and user behaviour, could provide the theoretical guidance to inform collaborative eLearning design. The analysis and findings show that culture influences the adoption of collaborative eLearning while technology affordance plays a major role in the use of collaborative eLearning