Mainstreaming Innovation in Educational Technology

There is much innovation to be found in the field of Educational Technology, both in its design and in its use. However, this innovation is patchy and inconsistent and rarely informed by research evidence or effective research practice. When reviewing work from within academia, commerce and educational practice it is clear that vital information about the context of the innovative work is unrecorded and that the relationships between researchers, developers and practitioners rarely exist. The production of effective innovations in the design and use of educational technology will rely upon these key relationships being fostered and strengthened. Developers need to be aware of existing evidence and able to use sound research methods to evaluate their products, researchers need to work with developers to help them acquire the knowledge and skills, and educators must be part of the process through their input to the design and evaluation of the technologies being developed

What the research says about the use of different technologies to enhance learning

Educational technology is growing fast, with schools, colleges and universities more than ever looking for the best ways to use technology to support learning. At the same time, there is an increasing appetite for learning and teaching practices to be backed up by evidence. Few resources are able to offer guidance that has been vigorously tested by research. Now, 'Enhancing Learning and Teaching with Technology' brings together researchers, technologists and educators to explore and show how technology can be designed and used for learning and teaching to best effect. It addresses what the research says about: - how and why learning happens and how different technologies can enhance it - engaging a variety of learners through technology and helping them benefit from it - how technology can support teaching. This book is an accessible introduction to learning and teaching with technology for teachers and other educational professionals, regardless of their experience with using technology for education

Learning Sciences Beyond Cognition: Exploring Student Interactions in Collaborative Problem Solving

Composed of insightful essays from top figures in their respective fields, the book also shows how a thorough understanding of this critical discipline all but ensures better decision making when it comes to education

Reflections on the Ecolab and the Zone of Proximal Development

In 1999 we reported a study that explored the way that Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development could be used to inform the design of an Interactive Learning Environment called the Ecolab. Two aspects of this work have subsequently been used for further research. Firstly, there is the interpretation of the ZPD and its associated theory that was used to operationalize the ZPD so that it could be implemented in software. This interpretation has informed further research about how one can model context and its impact on learning, which has produced a design framework that has been successfully applied across a range of educational settings. Secondly, there is the Ecolab software itself. The software has been adapted into a variety of versions that have supported explorations into how to scaffold learners’ metacognition, how to scaffold learners’ motivation and the implications of a learner’s goal orientation upon their use of the software. The findings from these studies have informed our understanding of learner scaffolding and have produced consistent results to demonstrate the importance of providing learners with appropriately challenging tasks and flexible support. Vygotsky’s work is as relevant now as it was in 1999: it still has an important role to play in the development of educational software

Understanding teenagers' personal contexts to design technology that supports learning about energy consumption

© 2013 Taylor & Francis. Energy sustainability is prevalent in political and popular rhetoric and yet energy consumption is rising. Teenagers are an important category of future energy consumers, but little is known of their conceptions about energy and energy saving. We report on empirical research with two groups of teenagers. This is part of ongoing work to design learning technologies that support teenagers learn about personal energy consumption. In this paper we describe our analysis and methodology, which are shaped by the Ecology of Resources (EoR) design framework [Luckin, R. (2010). Re-designing learning contexts: Technology-rich, learner-centred ecologies. London and New York, NY: Routledge]. Our findings informed the development of an EoR model of the participants' personal context, which includes their world resources (people, tools, knowledge, skills, and environment) and their personal resources (conceptions, motivations and concerns around energy consumption). We discuss the range of methods we employed to understand learners' personal contexts. These findings contribute to our understanding of how to explore teenagers' personal contexts and have implications for the design of technology to support learning about personal energy consumption

Initiating e-learning by stealth, participation and consultation in a late majority institution

The extent to which opportunities afforded by e-learning are embraced by an institution can depend in large measure on whether it is perceived as enabling and transformative or as a major and disruptive distraction. Most case studies focus on the former. This paper describes how e-learning was introduced into the latter environment. The sensitivity of competing pressures in a research intensive university substantially influenced the manner in which e-learning was promoted. This paper tells that story, from initial stealth to eventual university acknowledgement of the relevance of e-learning specifically to its own context

Up and down the number line: modelling collaboration in contrasting school and home environments

This paper is concerned with user modelling issues such as adaptive educational environments, adaptive information retrieval, and support for collaboration. The HomeWork project is examining the use of learner modelling strategies within both school and home environments for young children aged 5 – 7 years. The learning experience within the home context can vary considerably from school especially for very young learners, and this project focuses on the use of modelling which can take into account the informality and potentially contrasting learning styles experienced within the home and school

The significance of context for the emergence and implementation of research evidence: the case of collaborative problem-solving

One of the fundamental purposes of educational research is to provide evidence to facilitate effective practice. However, the evidence itself does not have much value for practitioners unless key information about the context from which the evidence was generated is also provided. In this paper, we use the word ‘context’ to refer to factors that are relevant for learning, including the interactions that learners experience with multiple people, artefacts, and environments. Unfortunately, in many educational research studies, either these factors do not get the required attention or information about them is presented in an incoherent structure. The resultant lack of information leads to two significant drawbacks. First, it creates confusion among practitioners who want to apply research evidence in their practice. Second, it leads to research studies that on the face of it are similar, but that in reality have resulted from evidence that has been collected in significantly different contexts being included under the same categories in reviews, meta-reviews, and best-evidence syntheses. In this paper, we draw on the concept of ‘relatability’ of evidence and present taxonomy for collaborative problem-solving (CPS) that can be used to provide the valuable information against which research evidence can be indexed. By addressing the need for more detailed information about the contextual factors from which the evidence is generated to bridge the gap between research and practice in CPS research, we aim to exemplify the approach that is needed in educational research more generally

Context and collaborative problem solving (Cps): The development of observable signifiers to inform the design of cps learning analytics

Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) is a key skill for the modern workplace. We do not, however, have widely accepted ways of assessing and monitoring CPS to inform educators and learners and enable the provision of effective support. This paper reports the findings of an empirical study involving 15 school students aged 14-15 years taking part in a 2-day Hack Event. The analysis identifies the observable signifiers of CPS and offers a step towards the design of automated data capture protocols and CPS learning analytics