Ground-breaking fresh ideas: introduction to the special issue for young researchers

The IJTEL young researcher special issue on ‘Ground-breaking fresh ideas in technology enhanced learning’ is a bit different than other journal special issues. The main idea of IJTEL’s editor in chief Ambjörn Naeve was to have a platform where PhD students and early post-docs can present their visions for TEL. Freed from the empirical limitations of a dissertation, it should allow young researchers to take a step back and bring fresh ideas to the field. This concept was picked up by an enthusiastic group of guest editors consisting of PhD students and young postdocs at JTEL Summer School 2010. But not only is the theme something different, we also tried to innovate in the process: the programme committee included experienced reviewers as well as novel reviewers to get different perspectives on the submitted papers. Furthermore, we provided an ideas clinic, where potential authors could present their ideas and seek feedback and collaboration. An abstract submission prior to the full paper submission completed the effort to provide as much feedback and guidance as possible. The whole process was overseen by managing editor Fridolin Wild to guarantee the high quality standards of both IJTEL and Inderscience.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Teachers' views on integrating augmented reality in education : needs, opportunities, challenges, and recommendations

The integration of Augmented Reality (AR) in education is promising since it enhances teaching and offers more engaging and appealing learning experiences. Teachers can have a catalytic role towards the adoption of AR in education and therefore, their perspectives with regard to AR in teaching and learning are very important. The current study explores teachers’ views on the integration of AR in education through an open-ended questionnaire that has been answered by 93 educators worldwide. A set of digital skills that can support student-centered pedagogies in an appropriate infrastructure are the main requirement for effective teaching with AR. Among the perceived benefits and opportunities are interactive teaching and learning, increased interest and engagement, better understanding of complex concepts. As barriers, participants reported the lack of AR educational applications, the cost of buying and maintaining AR equipment and resources, the lack of teachers’ and students’ digital skills, classroom management issues as well as security and ethical issues. Moreover, survey participants highlighted the need for raising teachers’ awareness for the added value of AR in education and the need for teachers’ continuous professional development. Implications and future research recommendations on the integration of AR in education are discussed

Developing a Sustainable Online Platform for Language Learning across Europe

In this paper, we present a sustainable approach for addressing the language skills gap among EU citizens, which significantly hinders their mobility across the EU and their participation in education, in training, as well as in youth programmes. Our approach is based on the sustainable design of the OpenLang Network platform, which provides an open and collaborative online learning environment for language learners and teachers across Europe, and addresses the limitations of existing computer-assisted language learning approaches. The OpenLang Network platform is bringing together educators and Erasmus+ mobility participants to improve their language skills and cultural knowledge. To this end, the OpenLang Network platform offers a collection of multilingual Open Educational Resources and language learning services. The paper presents the results from the user evaluation of the platform, which has been conducted with members of its community of language teachers and learners. A mixed methods approach has been adopted in order to collect and analyse both qualitative and quantitative data from users about the sustainable design of the OpenLang Network platform, as well as to measure the user satisfaction levels of the platform’s language learning services. According to the user evaluation results, the platform offers a sustainable online environment and a positive user experience for language learning. The user evaluation has also helped us identify a set of best practices and challenges associated with the long-term sustainability of an online language learning community

Development and validation of the teachers' augmented reality competences (TARC) scale

While Augmented Reality (AR) can offer many advantages in education, one reason for the difficulty of integrating it in instructional practices is the lack of teachers' AR competences. Therefore, there is an increasing need to address the required competences needed by teachers to effectively integrate Augmented Reality (AR) in their teaching. This study develops and validates a comprehensive Augmented Reality competences scale for teachers. The suggested instrument encompasses skills related to the creation, use and management of Augment Reality resources for teaching. The scale was validated on a sample of 150 educators from 45 countries teaching in primary, secondary or tertiary levels. Confirmatory Factor Analysis demonstrated valid results in terms of model fit criteria, factor loadings, validity, and reliability. The final scale is composed of 11 items and 4 competence components. Teaching subject, general digital skills and previous AR class experience revealed significant differences across the scale components, while gender and age did not reveal any significant associations. Educators in higher education institutions self-reported higher competence level for designing, developing, and modifying AR resources compared to secondary and primary levels. The scale can be used by educators to self-assess their AR competences, teacher professional development institutions and policy makers to develop training programs in AR and software companies to develop AR experiences that can empower educators

Doctoral Education for Technology-Enhanced Learning in Europe: report

This report informs about the state of doctoral education in the area of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) in Europe. The report aims to inform policy decisions in doctoral education and in the implementation of these policies. We reviewed 35 cases of institutional doctoral education in TEL identified in 11 European countries. The results indicate that educational institutions use different approaches to doctoral education in technology-enhanced learning. The doctoral degrees in this field are awarded by departments in different academic areas, within different study programs, with correspondingly different curricula, and therefore heterogeneous foundational knowledge. The report also contains the results of the survey of doctoral education in TEL. The objectives were to inform the design of curricula in the field, improve doctoral education overall, and to collect background on the current practices and challenges. The survey was implemented as an online questionnaire with 31 close and open questions in seven sections: professional background, thematic content, general PhD training topics, research methods, learning sources, challenges, supervision and mentoring, and personal background. In total, 229 participants responded to the survey, including 103 PhD candidates, 92 PhD holders, and 26 Master’s degree holders. The survey results indicate that doctoral courses and educational materials are most needed in the TEL community for the topics: learning analytics, artificial intelligence in education, personalized and adaptive learning, self-regulated / informal learning, smart / intelligent learning environments, pedagogical patterns, gamification, visualization / visual analytics, mixed and augmented reality, and engagement / emotion / affect. There is a need for courses and enough materials on the general PhD training topics of academic writing and publication, dissemination of research results, communication about research, project management, and research ethics. The primary learning source for TEL topics is academic publications, for general PhD-level training is supervisor help, and for research methods: supervisor help, academic publications, and courses in the PhD program. The most difficult barriers for TEL PhD candidates are work-life balance, project management, and psychological challenges. Among the different challenge areas, those related to supervision are the most reliable predictors of student satisfaction with their doctoral studies. Most innovative supervision practices, such as learning how to write scientific papers by example, team supervision, and discussion of the overall PhD ideas, were found useful by both PhD students and PhD holders. Many of the innovative supervision practices are rare within the TEL community. Overall, doctoral education in TEL reflects the complexity of the interdisciplinary field of TEL. This report provides an input for curricula design, educational and supervision practices, examples of administrative contests, and existing challenges

The OpenLang Network Platform: Building a European Community of Language Learners and Teachers

This paper presents the OpenLang Network platform, an open and collaborative online environment for networking between language learners and teachers across Europe. The OpenLang Network platform brings together educators wanting to discover and share open language learning resources, as well as Erasmus+ mobility participants that wish to improve their language skills and cultural knowledge. This initiative aims at raising language awareness of mobility European languages and fostering the Open Education European multicultural and multilingual vision via Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

The Landscape of MOOC Platforms Worldwide

Previous studies have mainly investigated major massive open online course (MOOC) platforms such as Coursera, edX, and Udemy. This study used 21 metrics to explore 35 MOOC platforms from across the world. Five Web analytics tools were used to analyze these MOOC platforms using data from MOOC platform directories and exploration of platform sites. The findings revealed that many universities, companies, and organizations have cooperated with the platforms and provided MOOCs through them. Major global platforms have offered thousands of MOOCs while regional platforms were more likely to have offered dozens. Some large platforms had millions of registered users while others registered just thousands. The major global platforms were established in the US to offer MOOCs mainly in English, though they offered MOOCs in other languages as well. The regional platforms offered MOOCs mainly in local languages, and to some extent in English and other languages. Some platforms engaged users for long periods while others failed to keep users after they viewed the first page of the platform. On average, a visitor stayed on a platform for 8 minutes visited 7.2 pages per visit. Major global platforms attracted users from all over the world, while regional platforms mainly attracted users from countries where the regional platform language was spoken. Some platforms had very few accessibility and contrast errors while other platforms performed poorly. Most platforms were mobile-friendly. However, administrators of almost all MOOC platforms should take actions to increase the speed of their platform. Other recommendations include undertaking marketing campaigns to increase the number of partners, the number of MOOCs offered, and the platforms’ visibility