73,241 research outputs found

    Weblogs in Higher Education - Why Do Students (Not) Blog?

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    Positive impacts on learning through blogging, such as active knowledge construction and reflective writing, have been reported. However, not many students use weblogs in informal contexts, even when appropriate facilities are offered by their universities. While motivations for blogging have been subject to empirical studies, little research has addressed the issue of why students choose not to blog. This paper presents an empirical study undertaken to gain insights into the decision making process of students when deciding whether to keep a blog or not. A better understanding of students' motivations for (not) blogging may help decision makers at universities in the process of selecting, introducing, and maintaining similar services. As informal learning gains increased recognition, results of this study can help to advance appropriate designs of informal learning contexts in Higher Education. The method of ethnographic decision tree modelling was applied in an empirical study conducted at the Vienna University of Technology, Austria. Since 2004, the university has been offering free weblog accounts for all students and staff members upon entering school, not bound to any course or exam. Qualitative, open interviews were held with 3 active bloggers, 3 former bloggers, and 3 non‑ bloggers to elicit their decision criteria. Decision tree models were developed out of the interviews. It turned out that the modelling worked best when splitting the decision process into two parts: one model representing decisions on whether to start a weblog at all, and a second model representing criteria on whether to continue with a weblog once it was set up. The models were tested for their validity through questionnaires developed out of the decision tree models. 30 questionnaires have been distributed to bloggers, former bloggers and non‑ bloggers. Results show that the main reasons for students not to keep a weblog include a preference for direct (online) communication, and concerns about the loss of privacy through blogging. Furthermore, the results indicate that intrinsic motivation factors keep students blogging, whereas stopping a weblog is mostly attributable to external factors

    Designing the interface between research, learning and teaching.

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    Abstract: This paper’s central argument is that teaching and research need to be reshaped so that they connect in a productive way. This will require actions at a whole range of levels, from the individual teacher to the national system and include the international communities of design scholars. To do this, we need to start at the level of the individual teacher and course team. This paper cites some examples of strategies that focus on what students do as learners and how teachers teach and design courses to enhance research-led teaching. The paper commences with an examination of the departmental context of (art and) design education. This is followed by an exploration of what is understood by research-led teaching and a further discussion of the dimensions of research-led teaching. It questions whether these dimensions are evident, and if so to what degree in design departments, programmes and courses. The discussion examines the features of research-led departments and asks if a department is not research-led in its approach to teaching, why it should consider changing strategies

    Theoretical perspectives on mobile language learning diaries and noticing for learners,teachers and researchers

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    This paper considers the issue of 'noticing' in second language acquisition, and argues for the potential of handheld devices to: (i) support language learners in noticing and recording noticed features 'on the spot', to help them develop their second language system; (ii) help language teachers better understand the specific difficulties of individuals or those from a particular language background; and (iii) facilitate data collection by applied linguistics researchers, which can be fed back into educational applications for language learning. We consider: theoretical perspectives drawn from the second language acquisition literature, relating these to the practice of writing language learning diaries; and the potential for learner modelling to facilitate recording and prompting noticing in mobile assisted language learning contexts. We then offer guidelines for developers of mobile language learning solutions to support the development of language awareness in learners

    Empirical evaluation of an adaptive e-learning system and the effects of knowledge, learning styles and multimedia mode on student achievement

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    This paper presents an empirical evaluation of an adaptive e-learning system (AES). The system was evaluated in an experimental research. During the 9 weeks of experimentation, the students studied the learning material in two randomly allocated groups, an experimental group using the AES and a control group using the non-AES. Research findings are described as follows. Students who learned using the AES performed better significantly than those who learned using the non-AES. The implementation of test repetition as a function of knowledge adaptation in the AES increased student achievement significantly. When the effect of test repetition was removed, the implementation of learning style and multimedia mode adaptation in the AES was still found to have significant effect upon student performance. Students whose learning style and multimedia preferences were matched with the system achieved better results

    Personalised trails and learner profiling within e-learning environments

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    This deliverable focuses on personalisation and personalised trails. We begin by introducing and defining the concepts of personalisation and personalised trails. Personalisation requires that a user profile be stored, and so we assess currently available standard profile schemas and discuss the requirements for a profile to support personalised learning. We then review techniques for providing personalisation and some systems that implement these techniques, and discuss some of the issues around evaluating personalisation systems. We look especially at the use of learning and cognitive styles to support personalised learning, and also consider personalisation in the field of mobile learning, which has a slightly different take on the subject, and in commercially available systems, where personalisation support is found to currently be only at quite a low level. We conclude with a summary of the lessons to be learned from our review of personalisation and personalised trails

    Understanding requirements engineering process: a challenge for practice and education

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    Reviews of the state of the professional practice in Requirements Engineering (RE) stress that the RE process is both complex and hard to describe, and suggest there is a significant difference between competent and "approved" practice. "Approved" practice is reflected by (in all likelihood, in fact, has its genesis in) RE education, so that the knowledge and skills taught to students do not match the knowledge and skills required and applied by competent practitioners. A new understanding of the RE process has emerged from our recent study. RE is revealed as inherently creative, involving cycles of building and major reconstruction of the models developed, significantly different from the systematic and smoothly incremental process generally described in the literature. The process is better characterised as highly creative, opportunistic and insight driven. This mismatch between approved and actual practice provides a challenge to RE education - RE requires insight and creativity as well as technical knowledge. Traditional learning models applied to RE focus, however, on notation and prescribed processes acquired through repetition. We argue that traditional learning models fail to support the learning required for RE and propose both a new model based on cognitive flexibility and a framework for RE education to support this model

    Multiple perspectives on the concept of conditional probability

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    Conditional probability is a key to the subjectivist theory of probability; however, it plays a subsidiary role in the usual conception of probability where its counterpart, namely independence is of basic importance. The paper investigates these concepts from various perspectives in order to shed light on their multi-faceted character. We will include the mathematical, philosophical, and educational perspectives. Furthermore, we will inspect conditional probability from the corners of competing ideas and solving strategies. For the comprehension of conditional probability, a wider approach is urgently needed to overcome the well-known problems in learning the concepts, which seem nearly unaffected by teaching
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