1,312 research outputs found
Inducing omnipotence or powerlessness in learners with developmental and attention difficulties through structuring technologies
Schoolwork of learners with developmental and attention difficulties is often characterised by low productivity, many errors due to carelessness or inattention and poor organizing ability. Focus learners have difficulties performing at the same level as their peers. This paper addresses these challenges and investigates the potential of technologies for creating and facilitating learning environments, where learners with developmental and attention difficulties are well-supported with respect to overviewing, structuring and planning tasks, evaluating and adjusting participation and management of time. Would it be possible to take advantage of the affordances of Persuasive Technologies and how could Persuasive Technology Tools in the hand of teachers and learners assist, motivate and enable the presence, participation and achievements of learners with developmental and attention difficulties at school? Using this lens, the authors examine, to what extent technology may assist teachers to create more ideal learning environments by reducing the threat for these learners and enable them to participate in learning. Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), digital templates, timers and calendars are identified as specific valuable tools for enhancing the learnersā ability to become ready to learn, join and maintain within the learning processes. Likewise, visualisations in the classroom, notifications, video instructions, assessment and evaluation tools to seems to help the learner to navigate, remember, become aware and understand their own role in the classroom. This paper suggest technologies for structuring and overviewing as basic assistive tools for equalizing the learning possibilities for learners with developmental and attention difficulties in an inclusive school setting
Affordances and limitations of electronic storybooks for young children's emergent literacy
AbstractStories presented on phones, tablets and e-readers now offer an alternative to print books. The fundamental challenge has become to specify when and for whom the manner in which children retain information from stories has been changed by electronic storybooks, for better and for worse. We review the effects of digitized presentations of narratives that include oral text as well as multimedia information sources (e.g., animations and other visual and sound effects, background music, hotspots, games, dictionaries) on children's emergent literacy. Research on preschool and kindergarten children has revealed both positive and negative effects of electronic stories conditional upon whether materials are consistent with the way that the human information processing system works. Adding certain information to electronic storybooks can facilitate multimedia learning, especially in children at-risk for language or reading difficulty. Animated pictures, sometimes enriched with music and sound, that match the simultaneously presented story text, can help integrate nonverbal information and language and thus promote storage of those in memory. On the other hand, stories enhanced with hypermedia interactive features like games and āhotspotsā may lead to poor performance on tests of vocabulary and story comprehension. Using those features necessitates task switching, and like multitasking in general, seems to cause cognitive overload. However, in accordance with differential susceptibility theory, well-designed technology-enhanced books may be particularly suited to improve learning conditions for vulnerable children and turn putative risk groups into successful learners. This new line of research may have far-reaching consequences for the use of technology-enhanced materials in education
The Effects of Incorporating Interactive Questioning During Shared Electronic Book Reading on Preschoolers\u27 Comprehension
The purpose of this study was to examine the potential effects of parental interactive questioning during shared electronic book reading on preschoolers\u27 comprehension outcomes and secondly to assess the effects of parent training on post-intervention parental interactive behaviors during shared electronic book reading. Four parent-child dyads participated in this seven week multiple baseline study. Participants were recruited from a suburban preschool in southeastern Virginia and child participants\u27 ages ranged from 48 to 68 months ( M = 55.75). Pre-intervention and post-intervention assessments evaluated the child participants\u27 comprehension skills and the parent-child dyad\u27s interactive behaviors during shared electronic book reading. Child participants\u27 story understanding was measured by comprehension questions and elicited story retellings and tracked through baseline, intervention, and maintenance phases. While all child participants showed gains in comprehension skills and parents increased interactive questioning skills, results showed that the level of intervention effectiveness differed among the participants across measures. This study contributed to the emerging literature base focusing on the effects of parental support during shared electronic book reading on literacy skill development. Findings suggest that training parents and teachers to scaffold comprehension skills during electronic reading may provide added benefits for comprehension skill development
The impact of interactive systems on preadolescent children in out-of-school time. Issues and answers from multiple cases and diverse contexts
This research investigates the experiences of preadolescents in School Age Care contexts (popularly known as After-school Care) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The study finds that children primarily form identities by exploring and pursuing their interests. They need adults to facilitate this process because they lack the experience, resources and status to do so themselves. The adultāchild care relationship thus conditions the efficiency and effectiveness of childrenās aspirations. The core concern of the study is learner identity formation by children in their approach to high school transition. The study responds to two current social concerns. First, how are children of school age best looked after in the hours when they are not at school and their parents are at work. Second, how can children be guided to stay at school until they matriculate, and not to drop out of school early. It is proposed that childrenās potential depends on their capacity to build resilient learner identities through the support founded in generational networks. This study makes use of multiple cases of childrenās out-of-school experiences, taken from six different kinds of School Age Care in Greater Sydney, NSW. Grounded-Theory analysis is applied to data and information sourced from multiple methods including drawings, group interactions and face-to-face conversations. Based on the self-reports of children, the study considers the barriers inhibiting childrenās learner identity formation. Scholarly discourse, media, reports and interviews with adult leaders at each field site provide commentary. An argument is made for partnering across childrenās networks at the interface between schooling and the worlds children inhabit outside of school. Children are theoretically conceived as being invested in the process of their own skill building to become agents for their own best interests. The adultāchild care relationship facilitates this process. It is argued that School Age Care, at the interface between school and home, has the potential to mediate between the various discontinuities found among the different contexts of childhood, particularly in the approach to the transition to high school. Based on this, existing and new School Age Care policy is reviewed to recommend practical approaches to adultāchild care relationship building and program planning. This includes the recommendation of new tools to generate data and information about the engagement of children in various activities. A methodology is modelled for building program-planning skills in School Age Care settings collaboratively with children. These tools and methodologies respond to the vision of policy directions initiated at the care ācoalfaceā since January 2012. They are intended to generate both ālagā and āleadā guidance for the development of professional standards and for enriching the benefits to children in out-of-school contexts
A Qualitative Descriptive Case Study of Special Education Teachers\u27 Experiences Utilizing Interactive Whiteboards for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Elementary Self-Contained Classrooms
The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to describe the experiences of special education teachers who use Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) to instruct students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in elementary self-contained special education classrooms. The theoretical framework for this study includes the persuasive technology theory and the social learning theory. Ten special education teachers from two elementary schools in a suburb of north Georgia will be asked to participate in this study. Data collection included an individual interview, and participant letters, followed by a focus group. Data analysis consisted of categorical aggregation, development of naturalistic generalizations, and development of themes. The methodology for this qualitative study followed the recommendation of Yin (2014) and has four stages: design the case study, conduct the case study, analyze the evidence, and develop the conclusion, recommendations, and implications
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