Integrating Technology With Student-Centered Learning

Reviews research on technology's role in personalizing learning, its integration into curriculum-based and school- or district-wide initiatives, and the potential of emerging digital technologies to expand student-centered learning. Outlines implications

Wrestling and wrangling with a worrisome wiki: an account of pedagogical change in the use of a Web 2.0 technology in a first year education course

The delivery of higher education in online and blended modes has implications across a range of contexts – economic, pedagogic, technical and social. This article explores the tensions and contradictions of teaching in a blended learning environment in terms of its pedagogic implications. It reports on how a specific Web 2.0 technology (a wiki) was used over a four-year period with and by students in an Education Course to enhance their learning outcomes during their first year of university study. Student feedback (qualitative and quantitative), and the personal reflections of the first author regarding her teaching approach, kept over a four-year period, provide the dataset for this article. Analysis of these data builds a story of how the wiki developed from an extraneous, inauthentic component of the course to an integral component of a successful teaching and learning experience for both the lead author and the students in the course. This story illustrates how an early career academic wrestled to develop appropriate approaches to adult education; wrangled with largely untested Web 2.0 technologies in higher education; and reaped the rewards of the use of such technologies in enhancing the educational experience of both the students and the lecturer. Although a highly personal account of wrestling, wrangling and reaping, the article provides valuable insights into the importance of establishing and maintaining authentic pedagogic relationships in increasing online educational environments. It cautions that the development of technical skills alone is insufficient to guarantee improved outcomes for students

The Virtual University and Avatar Technology: E-learning Through Future Technology

E-learning gains increasingly importance in academic education. Beyond present distance learning technologies a new opportunity emerges by the use of advanced avatar technology. Virtual robots acting in an environment of a virtual campus offer opportunities of advanced learning experiences. Human Machine Interaction (HMI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can bridge time zones and ease professional constraints of mature students. Undergraduate students may use such technology to build up topics of their studies beyond taught lectures. Objectives of the paper are to research the options, extent and limitations of avatar technology for academic studies in under- and postgraduate courses and to discuss students' potential acceptance or rejection of interaction with AI. The research method is a case study based on Sir Tony Dyson's avatar technology iBot2000. Sir Tony is a worldwide acknowledged robot specialist, creator of Star Wars' R2D2, who developed in recent years the iBot2000 technology, intelligent avatars adaptable to different environments with the availability to speak up to eight different languages and capable to provide logic answers to questions asked. This technology underwent many prototypes with the latest specific goal to offer blended E-learning entering the field of the virtual 3-D university extending Web2.0 to Web3.0 (Dyson. 2009). Sir Tony included his vast experiences gained in his personal (teaching) work with children for which he received his knighthood. The data was mainly collected through interviews with Sir Tony Dyson, which helps discover the inventor’s view on why such technology is of advantage for academic studies. Based on interviews with Sir Tony, this research critically analyses the options, richness and restrictions, which avatar (iBot2000) technology may add to academic studies. The conclusion will discuss the opportunities, which avatar technology may be able to bring to learning and teaching activities, and the foreseeable limitations – the amount of resources required and the complexity to build a fully integrated virtual 3-D campus. Key Words: virtual learning, avatar technology, iBot2000, virtual universit

Transforming pre-service teacher curriculum: observation through a TPACK lens

This paper will discuss an international online collaborative learning experience through the lens of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework. The teacher knowledge required to effectively provide transformative learning experiences for 21st century learners in a digital world is complex, situated and changing. The discussion looks beyond the opportunity for knowledge development of content, pedagogy and technology as components of TPACK towards the interaction between those three components. Implications for practice are also discussed. In today’s technology infused classrooms it is within the realms of teacher educators, practising teaching and pre-service teachers explore and address effective practices using technology to enhance learning

Teaching and learning in virtual worlds: is it worth the effort?

Educators have been quick to spot the enormous potential afforded by virtual worlds for situated and authentic learning, practising tasks with potentially serious consequences in the real world and for bringing geographically dispersed faculty and students together in the same space (Gee, 2007; Johnson and Levine, 2008). Though this potential has largely been realised, it generally isn’t without cost in terms of lack of institutional buy-in, steep learning curves for all participants, and lack of a sound theoretical framework to support learning activities (Campbell, 2009; Cheal, 2007; Kluge & Riley, 2008). This symposium will explore the affordances and issues associated with teaching and learning in virtual worlds, all the time considering the question: is it worth the effort

Rapid review of effective practice principles in the design and delivery of digital resources for teachers

This rapid review, commissioned by Life Education Australia (LEA), gathered evidence about effective practice in the design and delivery of digital professional learning for teachers. Its goal was to inform development of principles to guide the design and delivery of LEA’s own digital resources for teachers. The key research question for the review was: What does the research evidence say about the design and delivery of digital / online resources for teachers and what practice implications and recommendations could be made based on this research evidence

Promoting learner autonomy through multiliteracy skills development in cross-institutional exchanges

This contribution presents findings from two empirical case studies, which followed a task-based telecollaborative learning format. Participants included student teacher trainees, tutors, and language learners from colleges/universities in Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The projects aimed at promoting learner autonomy through awareness raising of modes and meaning-making online and multiliteracy skills development based on hands-on analysis of web resources and social networking tools. It was hoped that this awareness would foster the teachers' own autonomy in virtual learning environments and enable them to design tasks which—in turn—would promote learner autonomy as understood by Palfreyman (2006): the informed use of a range of interacting resources in context. We argue that this awareness is reflected in enhanced multimodal communicative competence, i.e., “the ability to understand the combined potential of various modes for making meaning” (Royce, 2002, p. 92), and multiliteracy, with the latter allowing teachers and learners to realize the potential of blended and online only settings for language acquisition purposes. Ideally then, while becoming gradually more versed in multimodality and multiliteracy, learners can also take over more control and self-direct their own learning when working online (Benson, 2001) which are also characteristics of autonomy

BECTA research project: International Baccalaureate E-Learning Laboratory (iBEL): evaluation report

The International Baccalaureate E-Learning Laboratory (iBEL) investigated the role that design-for-learning (D4L) plays in fostering independent learning on the International Baccalaureate programme using integrated open source platforms, namely Moodle and LAMS. Results from the project indicate these technologies increased independent learning, especially when teachers provided a clear framework by linking to pre-selected, reliable resources, and structured these through appropriate activities. Visual design was highly valued and learners enjoyed using resources containing rich media. In subject disciplines such as Modern Foreign Languages and English they were motivated by the integration of social learning tools, notably forum, glossary tools and chat. Students expected the use of technologies to form a part of their learning. Some teachers found that the use of the technologies assisted with long-term planning and enhanced their relationships with students. Adoption of a D4L system is more likely to succeed if introduced as a repository for existing content to which activities are later added and where it supports flexibility, fits the way that practitioners normally plan for learning, integrates easily with F2F teaching, contains a variety of easy to use tools, and accommodates the integration and updating of existing resources created by staff, such as Word, pdf and PowerPoint