Educational Technology Topic Guide

This guide aims to contribute to what we know about the relationship between educational technology (edtech) and educational outcomes by addressing the following overarching question: What is the evidence that the use of edtech, by teachers or students, impacts teaching and learning practices, or learning outcomes? It also offers recommendations to support advisors to strengthen the design, implementation and evaluation of programmes that use edtech. We define edtech as the use of digital or electronic technologies and materials to support teaching and learning. Recognising that technology alone does not enhance learning, evaluations must also consider how programmes are designed and implemented, how teachers are supported, how communities are developed and how outcomes are measured (see http://tel.ac.uk/about-3/, 2014). Effective edtech programmes are characterised by: a clear and specific curriculum focus the use of relevant curriculum materials a focus on teacher development and pedagogy evaluation mechanisms that go beyond outputs. These findings come from a wide range of technology use including: interactive radio instruction (IRI) classroom audio or video resources accessed via teachers’ mobile phones student tablets and eReaders computer-assisted learning (CAL) to supplement classroom teaching. However, there are also examples of large-scale investment in edtech – particularly computers for student use – that produce limited educational outcomes. We need to know more about: how to support teachers to develop appropriate, relevant practices using edtech how such practices are enacted in schools, and what factors contribute to or mitigate against successful outcomes. Recommendations: 1. Edtech programmes should focus on enabling educational change, not delivering technology. In doing so, programmes should provide adequate support for teachers and aim to capture changes in teaching practice and learning outcomes in evaluation. 2. Advisors should support proposals that further develop successful practices or that address gaps in evidence and understanding. 3. Advisors should discourage proposals that have an emphasis on technology over education, weak programmatic support or poor evaluation. 4. In design and evaluation, value-for-money metrics and cost-effectiveness analyses should be carried out

Using design-based research to develop a Mobile Learning Framework for Assessment Feedback

Students’ lack of engagement with their assessment feedback and the lack of dialogue and communication for feedback are some of the issues that affect educational institutions. Despite the affordance that mobile technologies could bring in terms of assessment feedback, research in this area is scarce. The main obstacle for research on mobile learning assessment feedback is the lack of a cohesive and unified mobile learning framework. This paper thus presents a Mobile Learning Framework for Assessment Feedback (MLFAF), developed using a design-based research approach. The framework emerged from the observation of, and reflection upon, the different stages of a research project that investigated the use of a mobile web application for summative and formative assessment feedback. MLFAF can be used as a foundation to study the requirements when developing and implementing wide-scale mobile learning initiatives that underpin longitudinal practices, as opposed to short-term practices. The paper also provides design considerations and implementation guidelines for the use of mobile technology in assessment feedback to increase student engagement and foster dialogic feedback communication channels

Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Abstracts 2005

Proceedings of the Advances in Teaching & Learning Day Regional Conference held at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 2005