Technology-Enhanced Teaching: A Technology Acceptance Model to Study Teachers’ Intentions to Use Digital Games in the Classroom

This research to practice paper uses a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to explore the factors that affect teachers’ intentions to use digital educational games in the classroom. Research shows that using computers and other digital technologies like digital games is one way to influence young people’s career aspirations and improve their digital literacy. This is particularly important as the world of work is changing and emerging jobs becoming more intensive in their use of digital technologies. In the developing world and in particular Nigeria, there have been calls to improve the digital literacy skills of young people to help them make informed career choices, and fully participate effectively and equally in the digital world. However, many of the computing and digital technology education initiatives have not produced the positive results intended. The lack of awareness, readiness and buy-in of the relevant stakeholders are some of the factors that has been identified as a barrier here. For example, for computing and digital technology-based projects in schools, the success largely depends on the support and attitude of teachers. As one of the major stakeholders in the classroom, teachers need to be consulted in decisions that affect the way they deliver their lessons; especially when novel ideas and approaches that challenge tradition are introduced. It is therefore important to consider their acceptance or otherwise of digital games in the classroom. A Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was modified to include constructs previously identified by teachers that potentially influence their intention to use digital games in the classroom. The extended TAM was developed into a questionnaire and tested with 220 teachers in Nigeria. Analyses of the results show that syllabus connectedness, perceived usefulness and self-efficacy are significant predictors of the intention of teachers to adoptdigital game-based learning in the classroom. Furthermore, the teachers' demographics including experience of teaching, age and gender all mediated the intention of the teachers to use digital game-based learning. The results and findings present recommendations for school leaders and developers of digital educational games. The practical insights from this are also important here and helpful for guiding the deployment of such games particularly in areas where such technological interventions have not been used before

YouTube Kids – Luring Kids in, One App at a Time

Whether you’re an overnight sensation like Justin Bieber or you’re uploading a tutorial on how to apply the perfect make up; YouTube has become the go‑to site for watching all the hottest videos. Technologically speaking, the cyber world has significantly changed over the years, especially with the Internet now being easily accessible from mobile devices. But the most alarming and overlooked trend is the ubiquitous use of the Internet by children. Today, children use iPhones, tablets and computers to access the Internet as early as three years‑old. With the amount of time children spend online, some have become skilled navigators. The Internet offers children a lot of great advantages. Kids can access educational videos and gain exposure to new concepts and ideas all at the click of the mouse. However, everyone knows as great as the Internet is, there are a ton of risks associated with its use. A particular drawback is the privacy issues that come with such widespread access to information. Children on the Internet alone creates a lot of public concern. Not to mention the development of new devices including cell phones, tablets, and applications (apps), that have now created an alternative way to expose children to a number of privacy related issues online

YouTube Kids – Luring Kids in, One App at a Time

Whether you’re an overnight sensation like Justin Bieber or you’re uploading a tutorial on how to apply the perfect make up; YouTube has become the go‑to site for watching all the hottest videos. Technologically speaking, the cyber world has significantly changed over the years, especially with the Internet now being easily accessible from mobile devices. But the most alarming and overlooked trend is the ubiquitous use of the Internet by children. Today, children use iPhones, tablets and computers to access the Internet as early as three years‑old. With the amount of time children spend online, some have become skilled navigators. The Internet offers children a lot of great advantages. Kids can access educational videos and gain exposure to new concepts and ideas all at the click of the mouse. However, everyone knows as great as the Internet is, there are a ton of risks associated with its use. A particular drawback is the privacy issues that come with such widespread access to information. Children on the Internet alone creates a lot of public concern. Not to mention the development of new devices including cell phones, tablets, and applications (apps), that have now created an alternative way to expose children to a number of privacy related issues online

System upgrade: realising the vision for UK education

A report summarising the findings of the TEL programme in the wider context of technology-enhanced learning and offering recommendations for future strategy in the area was launched on 13th June at the House of Lords to a group of policymakers, technologists and practitioners chaired by Lord Knight. The report – a major outcome of the programme – is written by TEL director Professor Richard Noss and a team of experts in various fields of technology-enhanced learning. The report features the programme’s 12 recommendations for using technology-enhanced learning to upgrade UK education

ImpacT2 project: preliminary study 1: establishing the relationship between networked technology and attainment

This report explored teaching practices, beliefs and teaching styles and their influences on ICT use and implementation by pupils. Additional factors explored included the value of school and LEA policies and teacher competence in the use of ICT in classroom settings. ImpaCT2 was a major longitudinal study (1999-2002) involving 60 schools in England, its aims were to: identify the impact of networked technologies on the school and out-of-school environment; determine whether or not this impact affected the educational attainment of pupils aged 816 years (at Key Stages 2, 3, and 4); and provide information that would assist in the formation of national, local and school policies on the deployment of IC

The students' point of view about quality of educational multimedia software

The study reported here is part of an international project supported by EU (PEDACTICE - Educational Multimedia in Compulsory School: From Pedagogical Assessment to Product Assessment) and had as main goal to know the opinion and the perception of the Portuguese students about criteria of quality of educational multimedia software. In order to obtain elements on the student`s point of view about educational multimedia software, we decided to interview small groups of pupils who are involved in the work with multimedia materials and than gather, organize and analyse the information got. The sample of interviewed pupils can be considered as representative of the Lisbon schools attended by teachers and pupils very much interested in multimedia materials which these students use not only as an aid to learning activities but also as a support to home and school work. As main results of the study we can refer: a) the confirmation of the success of computers and multimedia among the young Portuguese student population, being manifest either in their attitudes or in the diversity of their experiences, including the technical mastery of informas; b) the acknowledgment, by the students, of the role of the school and of those of their teachers who had till now led the process; c) an unexpected emphasis attached by the students, mainly by the older ones, to the use of computer as a resource for school work which, till now, was done without it; and d) the rare use of the computer for supporting tasks of creative or autonomous nature.European Comissio

Logo in mainstream schools: the struggle over the soul of an educational innovation

Technologies do not follow some predetermined and inevitable course from their context of production to their context of use, and technologies used in schools are no exception. Rather, technologies and their use in the classroom are socially contextualised. They are often appropriated in ways unanticipated by their developers, locking into institutional arrangements and reflecting elements of the prevailing social relations in and around the particular context(s) of application. Through the discussion of a particular technology (the Logo programming language) as a case study in educational innovation, this article demonstrates how the use of technologies in schools is socially shaped. The paper looks into the place that Logo occupied within the institutional and organisational cultures of US and UK mainstream schools after its introduction in the early 1980s. It discusses the ways in which Logo was received in the educational arena and was implicated in the politics of educational innovation at a time of conservative restoration

A short history off-line

Emerging technologies for learning report - Article exploring the history of ICT in education and the lessons we can learn from the pas

Computers in writing instruction

For computers to be useful in writing instruction, innovations should be valuable for students and feasible for teachers to implement. Research findings yield contradictory results in measuring the effects of different uses of computers in writing, in part because of the methodological complexity of such measurements. Yet the computer seems to be a promising tool in several new, theoretically based approaches to writing instruction. Research of these kinds of computer applications should continue, paying attention to context variables that influence the implementation process importantly