To Game or Not to Game? How Using Massively Multiplayer Online Games Helped Motivation and Performance in a College Writing Course: A Mixed Methods Study

The use of Massively Multiplayer Online Games or MMOGs is receiving attention in the educational world due to increased availability of such games, a growing consumer base, and the proven benefits of video games as engagement tools. MMOGs that have been known to possess a significantly high capacity to keep users involved over sustained periods, which gives them the potential to enhance learning experiences and performances. However, most available studies on MMOGs do not discuss relationships between MMOG use and performance outcomes in Higher Education. Additionally, majority of such studies focus on examining a single MMOG, providing limited scopes of understanding the benefits of multiple MMOGs as educational tools. Using a sample of 32 students, this mixed-methods study investigates and supports how inserting MMOGs within an undergraduate Online English Composition section helped improve learners’ performance and engagement. Practitioner and future research implications are also discussed

A model for putting connectivism into practice in a classroom environment

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementTechnology in education, as in most pillars of society, represents a trend for the new era. Often referred to as Smart Education, the integration of technology into learning environments with the goal of enhancing the experience for students and teachers has been of growing interest to learning institutions. The emergence of a heterodox theory of learning, connectivism, has come to prioritize the incessant search for new and accurate information and, consequently, the capacity of the learner to build knowledge through the connection of nodes within the chaos of contradictory opinions. Being connectivism associated with the reality of an e-learning context, it remains challenging to adapt it into a setting of presential university classes. The model developed in this paper is a proposition of how to fill this gap, hence answering the question of how to put connectivism into practice in a campus environment. The framework, which combines the students’ self-research, and online interaction with their peers through social media platforms, culminating in physical classroom discussions, reflects the connectivism principles and is beneficial for the majority of students. Unlike most connectivism-inspired class dynamics, here, the professor’s role is critical, with the responsibility of moderation and capacity to assess whether the students have been successful in building knowledge through their connections. Although the aim of the study is to apply connectivism principles in a physical campus, the relevance of work-oriented social media platforms in this model is undeniable

Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health

Based on a literature review and interviews with digital learning experts, explores how digital games can foster skills and knowledge for better academic performance and health. Makes recommendations for government research, partnerships, and media

A REVIEW OF DIGITAL FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT TOOLS: FEATURES AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The Internet and the software stores for mobile devices come with a huge number of digital tools for any task, and those intended for digital formative assessment (DFA) have burgeoned exponentially in the last decade. These tools vary in terms of their functionality, pedagogical quality, cost, operating systems and so forth. Teachers and learners need guidance on how to choose the most effective digital formative software to make the most out of it. This study provides an in-depth critical review of the features of most popular formative assessment tools available on the Internet. It aims to unearth what current DFA tools are capable of doing and what further developments are needed for more effective use. The tools for analysis were sampled using frequency of mentions in educational technology websites and blogs and two scholarly databases (Web of Science and Scopus). After identifying the most frequently recommended reviewed and researched formative assessment tools, the researchers inspected 14 tools in terms of various issues, ranging from platforms and devices used, item-types offered by the software, features related with monitoring student performance and providing feedback (through student/instructor dashboards), grading, scoring of open-response items and collaborative responses. The results indicated that all closed-ended items were common to all the tools examined and they were automatically scored, while only a few of them offered underdeveloped methods of grading open-ended items. All the tools provided learner analytics with diverse forms of data and different mechanisms for feedback, yet the most common form of data were immediate answers and numerical scores. It was also clear that popularity did not necessarily mean offering more functionalities and better tools. Based on the current status of the tools, avenues for further research are discussed. Keywords: Digital formative assessment, mobile learning, feedback, distance education and online learning, improving classroom teachin

Virtual Architecture: Designing and Directing Curriculum-Based Telecomputing

Is it worth it, all this Internet stuff? Worth the time and energy it takes? Worth it because your students will learn more? Worth it because you\u27ll be a better teacher? The answer to these questions-yes and no-can be found in this readable, conversational, practical, and slyly revolutionary work. The author proposes that integrating computer-mediated technology into your classroom is well worth it if accomplished in a way that helps new and worthwhile things happen there. And then she shows you how to do just that. You\u27ll begin building with a flexible framework-clear, strong, and simple activity structures-that becomes your foundation for designing and implementing powerful curriculum-based telecomputing projects. Don\u27t expect a project directory, general reference, or manual. This is a book you\u27ll read from start to finish and be glad you did. It\u27s worth it

Hybrid human-AI driven open personalized education

Attaining those skills that match labor market demand is getting increasingly complicated as prerequisite knowledge, skills, and abilities are evolving dynamically through an uncontrollable and seemingly unpredictable process. Furthermore, people's interests in gaining knowledge pertaining to their personal life (e.g., hobbies and life-hacks) are also increasing dramatically in recent decades. In this situation, anticipating and addressing the learning needs are fundamental challenges to twenty-first century education. The need for such technologies has escalated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where online education became a key player in all types of training programs. The burgeoning availability of data, not only on the demand side but also on the supply side (in the form of open/free educational resources) coupled with smart technologies, may provide a fertile ground for addressing this challenge. Therefore, this thesis aims to contribute to the literature about the utilization of (open and free-online) educational resources toward goal-driven personalized informal learning, by developing a novel Human-AI based system, called eDoer. In this thesis, we discuss all the new knowledge that was created in order to complete the system development, which includes 1) prototype development and qualitative user validation, 2) decomposing the preliminary requirements into meaningful components, 3) implementation and validation of each component, and 4) a final requirement analysis followed by combining the implemented components in order develop and validate the planned system (eDoer). All in all, our proposed system 1) derives the skill requirements for a wide range of occupations (as skills and jobs are typical goals in informal learning) through an analysis of online job vacancy announcements, 2) decomposes skills into learning topics, 3) collects a variety of open/free online educational resources that address those topics, 4) checks the quality of those resources and topic relevance using our developed intelligent prediction models, 5) helps learners to set their learning goals, 6) recommends personalized learning pathways and learning content based on individual learning goals, and 7) provides assessment services for learners to monitor their progress towards their desired learning objectives. Accordingly, we created a learning dashboard focusing on three Data Science related jobs and conducted an initial validation of eDoer through a randomized experiment. Controlling for the effects of prior knowledge as assessed by the pretest, the randomized experiment provided tentative support for the hypothesis that learners who engaged with personal eDoer recommendations attain higher scores on the posttest than those who did not. The hypothesis that learners who received personalized content in terms of format, length, level of detail, and content type, would achieve higher scores than those receiving non-personalized content was not supported as a statistically significant result