22,524 research outputs found
Itās Not Brain Scienceā¦ Or Is It? How Early Second Language Learning Can Impact Future Achievement
Capstone paper from 2015 spring MPA program. Instructed by Allen Zagoren.We live in a global economy, yet U.S. citizens lag far behind in the knowledge of other countriesā languages, cultures, customs, geographies and peoples. Equipping the next generation with foreign language skills as well as knowledge of other cultures and customs will not only provide increased career opportunities for individuals but also aid in the future success of the U.S. economy. The U.S. educational system does not stress the learning of language beyond English: K-12 curriculum is rigidly mandated, budgets are tight, class time and teacher training is limited, and language programs are often among the first to be cut during budget crises. There is a time period when a childās brain is developing and most receptive to learning, and that is early childhood. If the seed were planted in a child before he/she enters kindergarten to learn the basics of a foreign language and culture, perhaps that knowledge could be nourished throughout the rest of their lives, preparing those children to embrace cultural differences, live and compete more successfully in an evolving and diverse world, and be better equipped for later education. Besides examining the current state of foreign language education in the U.S. and how learning occurs, the benefits of foreign language learning in relation to business and human relations are examined in this paper. Multiple solutions to solving the foreign language deficit are mentioned including a proposal for an early-learning language program
Bringing tabletop technologies to kindergarten children
Taking computer technology away from the desktop and into a more physical, manipulative space, is known that provide many benefits and is generally considered to result in a system that is easier to learn and more natural to use. This paper describes a design solution that allows kindergarten children to take the benefits of the new pedagogical possibilities that tangible interaction and tabletop technologies offer for manipulative learning. After analysis of children's cognitive and psychomotor skills, we have designed and tuned a prototype game that is suitable for children aged 3 to 4 years old. Our prototype uniquely combines low cost tangible interaction and tabletop technology with tutored learning. The design has been based on the observation of children using the technology, letting them freely play with the application during three play sessions. These observational sessions informed the design decisions for the game whilst also confirming the children's enjoyment of the prototype
The use of narrative to provide a cohesive structure for a web based computing course
Narrative has long been used as an educational tool. This article explains how narrative, in the form of popular accounts, has been used to provide context, structure and broad appeal to a large-scale, entry-level university course on Information and Communication Technology (ICT). This course is delivered via the web with online tuition. Students' responses to the use of narrative and the scope of the material has been encouraging. It is argued that narrative performs an enculturation function that is often under-utilised in ICT education
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Long-Term Student Experiences in a Hybrid, Open-Ended and Problem Based Adventure Learning Program
In this paper we investigate the experiences of elementary school children over a two-year period during which they engaged with a hybrid Adventure Learning program. In addition to delineating Adventure Learning experiences, we report on educational technology implementations in ecologically valid and complex environments, while drawing inferences on the design of sustainable and successful innovations. Our research indicates that the Adventure Learning experience over the two-year period was dynamic, participatory, engaging, collaborative, and social. Students eagerly became part of the experience both inside and outside of the classroom, and it quickly became apparent that they saw themselves as valued members of the unfolding storyline that mediated their learning. Our recommendations for future research and practice include a call to evaluate "authenticity," focus on the learner experience and narrative, and consider the interplay between pedagogy, technology, and design.Center for Learning and Memor
A Review of the "Digital Turn" in the New Literacy Studies
Digital communication has transformed literacy practices and assumed great importance in the functioning of workplace, recreational, and community contexts. This article reviews a decade of empirical work of the New Literacy Studies, identifying the shift toward research of digital literacy applications. The article engages with the central theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic challenges in the tradition of New Literacy Studies, while highlighting the distinctive trends in the digital strand. It identifies common patterns across new literacy practices through cross-comparisons of ethnographic research in digital media environments. It examines ways in which this research is taking into account power and pedagogy in normative contexts of literacy learning using the new media. Recommendations are given to strengthen the links between New Literacy Studies research and literacy curriculum, assessment, and accountability in the 21st century
Learning to communicate computationally with Flip: a bi-modal programming language for game creation
Teaching basic computational concepts and skills to school children is currently a curricular focus in many countries. Running parallel to this trend are advances in programming environments and teaching methods which aim to make computer science more accessible, and more motivating. In this paper, we describe the design and evaluation of Flip, a programming language that aims to help 11ā15 year olds develop computational skills through creating their own 3D role-playing games. Flip has two main components: 1) a visual language (based on an interlocking blocks design common to many current visual languages), and 2) a dynamically updating natural language version of the script under creation. This programming-language/natural-language pairing is a unique feature of Flip, designed to allow learners to draw upon their familiarity with natural language to ādecode the codeā. Flip aims to support young people in developing an understanding of computational concepts as well as the skills to use and communicate these concepts effectively. This paper investigates the extent to which Flip can be used by young people to create working scripts, and examines improvements in their expression of computational rules and concepts after using the tool. We provide an overview of the design and implementation of Flip before describing an evaluation study carried out with 12ā13 year olds in a naturalistic setting. Over the course of 8 weeks, the majority of students were able to use Flip to write small programs to bring about interactive behaviours in the games they created. Furthermore, there was a significant improvement in their computational communication after using Flip (as measured by a pre/post-test). An additional finding was that girls wrote more, and more complex, scripts than did boys, and there was a trend for girls to show greater learning gains relative to the boys
Culturally responsive classrooms through art integration
Integrating arts into teaching and learning can result in more engaging classrooms for students of all backgrounds. Addressing content through drawing, painting, music, drama, sculpture, and manipulatives results in motivating lessons that reach diverse learners by means of multiple pathways. Benefits of incorporating the arts include not only academic achievement (Ruppert, 2006; Rabkin & Redmond, 2006), but also increased cultural understandings, better self-esteem, and a healthier cultural identity (Purnell, et al., 2007; Graham, 2009). Sample lessons with detailed explanations from an elementary classroom are highlighted to demonstrate how forms of linguistic and nonlinguistic artistic expression benefit all children in their development
Player agency in interactive narrative: audience, actor & author
The question motivating this review paper is, how can
computer-based interactive narrative be used as a constructivist learn-
ing activity? The paper proposes that player agency can be used to
link interactive narrative to learner agency in constructivist theory,
and to classify approaches to interactive narrative. The traditional
question driving research in interactive narrative is, āhow can an in-
teractive narrative deal with a high degree of player agency, while
maintaining a coherent and well-formed narrative?ā This question
derives from an Aristotelian approach to interactive narrative that,
as the question shows, is inherently antagonistic to player agency.
Within this approach, player agency must be restricted and manip-
ulated to maintain the narrative. Two alternative approaches based
on Brechtās Epic Theatre and Boalās Theatre of the Oppressed are
reviewed. If a Boalian approach to interactive narrative is taken the
conflict between narrative and player agency dissolves. The question
that emerges from this approach is quite different from the traditional
question above, and presents a more useful approach to applying in-
teractive narrative as a constructivist learning activity
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