Technology-mediated Teaching Research Articles

Visualización de software, una alternativa efectiva en la enseñanza de la programación de computadoras

Las Técnicas de Visualización de Programas realizan representaciones gráficas y abstracciones de alto nivel que describen el código y los datos del programa, transformando la información tradicional en una más significativa que facilita la comprensión por el programador, lo que constituye un problema a resolver en la actualidad. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar el papel de la enseñanza mediada por tecnología como alternativa frente al modelo tradicional de enseñanza, el impacto de las herramientas de visualización de software, así como las bases teóricas adecuadas para el uso de estos sistemas de ayuda al proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, que contribuyen a elevar la excelencia del proceso docente en la carrera Ingeniería en Sistemas Computacionales de la Universidad Estatal del Sur de Manabí en Ecuador. Se utilizan herramientas y estrategias para mostrar las etapas en el diseño e implementación de algoritmos, que permiten concluir que el enfoque constructivista, la enseñanza significativa y el enfoque psicogenético de Piaget, deben ser fundamentos a considerar para diseñar ambientes mediados por tecnologías que permitirán desarrollar aplicaciones educativas eficaces en la enseñanza de la Programación de Computadoras, facilitando así la colaboración e intercambio entre los sujetos del proceso; así mismo se determina que el enfoque de Piaget es muy útil para diagnosticar lo que el alumno ya sabe y cómo ir, paulatinamente, usando sus potencialidades, incorporando los nuevos conceptos siempre en un mayor nivel de complejidad, respetando su ritmo para que pueda asimilar, acomodar y aplicar lo aprendido, desarrollando nuevas estructuras mentales.
 Palabras clave: programación de computadoras, visualización de programas, paradigmas pedagógicos, enfoques constructivistas.

Teacher, Teaching, and Technology: The Changed and Unchanged

The use of videotaped microlectures as a new medium of teaching has been receiving increased attention in China’s educational reform agenda. Since 2012, microlecture competitions targeting various levels of education have been held nationwide. However, a top–down contest-based approach, while efficiently popularizing the concept of microlectures, may create a false impression among classroom teachers unfamiliar with technology, leading them to confuse microlectures with exhibitions of complex computer and media technologies and, thus, intimidating them from trying the new teaching mode. Using autoethnography to document in detail the author’s production of a nationally awarded microlecture, the present study highlights what classroom teachers can do using technology-mediated teaching and asserts that teachers’ personal practical knowledge, rather than technology, plays the decisive role in producing a microlecture. It also argues that by taking on the dual role of ethnographer-as-researcher and ethnographer-as-informant, classroom teachers can use reflective autoethnography as a meaningful learning experience to understand and critique their teaching practices and develop living educational theories for the enhancement of technological pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) in massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Interlanguage Pragmatics, Curricular Innovation, and Digital Technologies

Human interaction is fundamentally about shared understanding, created when interlocutors engage with one another around their own intended meaning and the intended meaning of others. Pragmatics is at the core of this interaction. The fields of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and the teaching and learning of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) have grown up together. These fields have sometimes been at odds, but, more often than not, they have drawn on synergies from one another to advance. Emerging digital tools have made notable innovations in the field of ILP development possible, and, simultaneously, the needs of ILP researchers and practitioners have led to technological innovation. This article explores these advancements through a synthesis of key research in the field of technology-mediated teaching and learning of ILP in five core areas – curricular materials, classroom interventions, telecollaboration, research methodologies, and expanding pragmatic practices.

A Longitudinal Journey with BYOD Classrooms: Issues of Access, Capability and Outcome Divides

Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) classrooms is the latest addition to the ongoing quest for transforming pedagogical practices and driving educational development outcomes. Governments and policymakers around the world are embracing the idea of integrating digital learning technologies into educational settings backed by research on the benefits offered like the lifelong development of individual learners. While technological interventions open up unlimited possibilities for accessing information and improving collaboration, thereby engaging learners with more interactive learning activities, a new type of gap between individuals could also take shape as the penetration of technologies and adoption stages advance. Results from past projects of similar nature within educational settings have indicated the possible rise in the gap among individuals based on digital access (i.e., equity in access/ownership of digital learning technologies), digital capability (i.e., equity in digital/information literacy skills and usage) and digital outcome (i.e., equity in knowledge acquisition and progression).Therefore, we have conducted a longitudinal study to investigate a BYOD initiative by a New Zealand School. This study shares rich insights in the context of technology-mediated pedagogies and specifically BYOD classroom, as to how digital divides moved beyond access and skills to ensure inclusive learning outcomes. As a part of the five-year study of the technology-mediated teaching and learning initiative, we have been able to explain some of the unanswered questions around the issue of digital divides in the learning process. We investigated issues pertaining to digital divide in the context of BYOD classrooms to make the following revelations. First, the BYOD classroom initiative did not end up accentuating existing gaps in access to digital tools and technologies, despite earlier studies indicating towards increase in gaps. Second, our analysis strongly indicated the changing nature of digital divides with the presence of gaps in terms of information literacy and critical thinking ability, as the BYOD classroom progressed to mature stage. This was eventually bridged in the later stage, as students slowly adjusted to the classroom curricular structures in the BYOD classroom. Third, learner self-efficacy has been identified as a determinant of learning outcomes. In the earlier phase of ICT adoption, learner self-efficacy is influenced by a combination of information literacy, critical thinking ability, and positive motivation; however subsequently, self-efficacy influences affordances in various aspects of social cognitive abilities related to individual’s learning activities affecting how learners engage and apply technology to achieve learning outcomes.

On the notion of agency in studies of interaction and learning

This study explores teachers' reflections on the competences that come into play in technology-mediated teaching activities. Underpinned by educational design research, the collaboration between researchers and teachers followed a methodological design involving three iterative phases: (1) workshops in which teachers and researchers collaborated to develop instructional scenarios involving digital technologies, (2) lessons enacting instructional scenarios, and (3) reflective discussions based on video sequences from the instructional scenarios. The researchers selected video clips of instructional sequences involving so-called critical incidents where the teachers encountered some kind of challenge in the technology-mediated teaching activities. The unit of analysis comprised transitional episodes identified in the reflective discussions, where temporal shifts took place as the teachers elaborated on challenges and oriented towards future actions. Theoretically, the study is based on sociocultural perspectives, acknowledging social interaction as collective thinking. To analytically scrutinise temporal shifts in the interaction, interaction analysis was employed. The findings show that while the elicited video clips supported retrospective reflections, the collaborative context with colleagues and researchers interacting supported prospective reflections. These findings are discussed in terms of how the temporal shifts in the reflections can analytically be understood as teachers' envisioned or enacted transformative agency.

Rehabilitation of People with a Brain Injury Through the Lens of Networked Learning

This paper will demonstrate how avatar-mediated interactions and learning in networks might lead to identity formation and rehabilitation of language after a brain injury. With references to Vygotsky's notion of the social origins of higher mental functions (1978) and Hutchins claims that cognition is something that is embodied and externally distributed. (Hutchins, 1995), we will discuss identity formation after a brain injury in relation to Networked Learning (NL). The discussion is based on data from the first author's research (Konnerup, 2015) on avatar-mediated rehabilitation of people with aphasia (PWA). Rehabilitation is conceived as a collaborative endeavour, conducted in a social virtual community with peer-to-peer interactions. Central is the comprehension that relearning language is embodied and related to social interactions and renegotiation of identity.Individuals who lose the ability to communicate find it difficult to re-tell their own story and are at risk of being marginalised (Duchan, Linda, Garcia, Lyon, & Simmons-Mackie, 2001; Shadden & Agan, 2004). Although the focus in aphasia intervention has shifted from relearning correct language to a greater emphasis on life participation and regaining feelings of belonging to society and family, there is still a need for concrete suggestions for approaches that provide new contexts within which identity formation can be renegotiated.In recent years, learning via online social networks has been recognised as a means of constructing learning and identities through participative interactions. Additionally, avatar-mediated activities in games, online communities, and E-learning have become a part of everyday play, communication, and learning. As these methods are still in their infancy, reflections on traditional forms of learning, teaching and rehabilitation, are needed. Teachers and/or speech therapists need a deeper understanding of these methods, and to become skilled in practicing technology-mediated teaching. We will discuss the positions that rehabilitation in online communities and NL share; how insights from NL pedagogy can inform the development of rehabilitation; and, conversely, how our finding add perspectives to NL. In doing so, we will introduce the concept of locale framework, and how a specific setting and embodied interactions might trigger autobiographical memory, relearning communication competencies and renegotiation of identity.

Francis Schaeffer’s Epistemology as a Foundational Component for Edutainment

An integration of education and entertainment, also referred to as edutainment, has become pervasive due to the advancement of Information and Communication Technology in the 21st century. Many parents and educators who embrace this technology-mediated teaching and learning technique hold an assumption that instructional media is simply a knowledge-transmitting tool rather than reflecting certain worldview commitments that can potentially shape how learners see the world, interpret the world and live in the world. From the supposition that technology, education and entertainment are not neutral in terms of worldview, this article examines Francis Schaeffer`s epistemological standpoint that knowledge fundamentally emanates from God and its relevance to edutainment. Schaeffer`s God-centered epistemology offers Christians a vital framework for understanding, critiquing and responding to edutainment and its transformative capacity on users.

Key concepts in Applied Linguistics: Technology-mediated L2 Teaching.

Key concepts in Applied Linguistics: Technology-mediated L2 Teaching.

Transitioning Design and Technology Education from physical classrooms to virtual spaces: implications for pre-service teacher education

Technology-mediated teaching and learning enables access to educational opportunities, irrespective of locality, ruruality or remoteness. The design, development and delivery of technology enhanced learning in pre-service teacher education programs is therefore gaining momentum, both in Australia and internationally. Much research regarding online, or blended learning, has focussed on theoretically-founded learning areas, with less attention directed toward fundamentally practical learning areas, such as Design and Technology Education. Situated within the Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood Education, Primary, and Primary/Middle) degrees at the University of South Australia, Australia, this study captures the design, development and delivery of a blended Design and Technology course with first and third year pre-service teachers. Drawing on course learning analytics, pre-service teacher responses, and the reflective practice of teaching academics, this paper highlights the facilitators and challenges in transitioning to a blended model of curriculum delivery that addresses the contexts of the Australian Curriculum: Technologies.

IText, but iDon’t Teach With It: An Essay on i-Literacy in Teacher Education

In this article, the author explores her observations of preservice teachers’ technological literacy as it is often enacted across iterations of a writing methods course. Using personal examples and classroom anecdotes, the author argues that the construct of digital native is flawed and, instead, the author positions preservice teachers as instructional-technology learners rather than instructional-technology experts (i.e., natives). Within the context of teacher education, the author calls for explicit instruction in multimedia literacy and technology-mediated teaching with the goal that preservice teachers develop insider knowledge of multimedia literacy and the ways in which digital texts and devices work. To this end, the author positions technological-literacy learning as parallel to early language learning as well as second-language acquisition, suggesting that preservice teachers understand technology and digital products from behind the screen before they are expected to engage in instructional-technology strategies in front of the screen.

Strategies for information management in education: Some international experience

Background: Recent analysis of the management of information and communications technologies in South African education suggests strongly that there is only limited strategic thinking that might guide policy-makers, school principals, teachers, learners and suppliers of educational technologies. It is clear that here in South Africa, as elsewhere, the actual practice of technology-mediated education is driven more by the available technologies than by actual learner needs, good management principles and the wider national imperative. There might be lessons to be learned from experience elsewhere.Objectives: This article reports and analyses conversation with eight international educators in Europe, Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia. All are managing the impact of technology in different ways (reactive and pro-active), at different levels (pre-primary through to senior citizen), in different roles (teachers, administrators and senior managers) and in different contexts (schools and universities).Method: Open-ended conversations with educators and educational administrators in developed countries were recorded, transcribed and analysed. The qualitative analysis of the content was done in the style of ‘open coding’ and ‘selective coding’ using a qualitative content analysis tool.Results: Whilst technology is still seen to drive much thinking, it is found that that success is not derived from the technology, but from a full and proper understanding of the needs and aspirations of those who are directly involved in educational processes, and by means of a managerial focus that properly recognises the context within which an institution exists.Conclusion: Whilst this result might be expected, the detailed analysis of the findings further reveals the need to manage investments in educational technologies at different levels and in different ways.

Music technology-mediated teaching and learning approach for music education: A case study from an elementary school in South Korea

This study aims to show how music technology mediated (or music software mediated) music teaching and learning can provide an effective pedagogy in music education. It also seeks to demonstrate that music technology mediated teaching is in accordance with socio-educational trends for both postmodern values and IT mediated learning. The new approach in this study utilizes the principles of “convergence” and applies diverse digital technologies to the class. After implementing the music technology mediated approach to an after-school program in an elementary school in Gyeonggi Province in Korea for 3 months, this study analyzed mind maps, in-depth interviews with the students, and surveys to examine how the students changed in terms of creative engagement and perception of music in everyday life. Results indicate that the digital technology mediated teaching and learning approach have the potential to enhance students’ self-motivated engagement in the music class and their perception of music in general.

Cooperation for institutional strengthening: shared knowledge in the quest for improved teaching

Es presenta l’avaluació del projecte de cooperació institucional «Universitat i societat del coneixement. Enfortiment institucional en à rees dedicades a l’ensenyament universitari amb noves tecnologies» (FEUNT), finançat per l’Agència Espanyola de Cooperació Internacional per al Desenvolupament (AECID) i desenvolupat entre la Universitat de Santiago de Compostel·la (Espanya) i la Universitat Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina). El projecte, de quatre anys de durada, ha tingut per objectiu principal la inclusió de tecnologies en la institució posant l’accent en la millora de l’ensenyament i en les seves condicions institucionals. Amb una combinació d’estratègies top-down , bottom-up i middle-out (Cummings et al. , 2005), el projecte ha articulat cinc programes (recerca, formació del professorat, millora tecnològica, producció de materials per a la docència i difusió i coneixement obert) que van interrelacionar la formació del professorat amb la recerca en el camp de la tecnologia educativa i la inversió tecnològica. Tenint en compte les necessitats, es va invertir en tecnologies centrals i perifèriques (Salmon, 2005) que van permetre el desenvolupament de les activitats i se’n van proposar d’altres que van mostrar l’horitzó de noves possibilitats. El treball elaborat va aspirar a mobilitzar la cultura institucional amb l’objectiu de generar canvis en les prà ctiques d’ensenyament (Hargreaves, 2003). La formació de professors s’ha desenvolupat amb tallers que han tingut com a focus la producció de materials per a l’ensenyament com un artefacte que va possibilitar al professorat participant la reflexió sobre la presa de decisions a l’hora d’encarar els processos d’ensenyament intervinguts amb tecnologia (Cochran-Smith i Lytle, 2001). Els resultats de l’avaluació mostren l’èxit d’una proposta basada en l’enfortiment d’un grup de treball (Àrea de Tecnologia Educativa) que dóna suport al professorat. També mostra alguns punts febles, sobretot pel que fa a la sostenibilitat del projecte.

Beyond knowledge and skills: the use of a Delphi study to develop a technology-mediated teaching strategy

BackgroundWhile there is evidence to suggest that teaching practices in clinical education should include activities that more accurately reflect the real world, many educators base their teaching on transmission models that encourage the rote learning of knowledge and technical skills. Technology-mediated instruction may facilitate the development of professional attributes that go beyond “having” knowledge and skills, but there is limited evidence for how to integrate technology into these innovative teaching approaches.MethodsThis study used a modified Delphi method to help identify the professional attributes of capable practitioners, the approaches to teaching that may facilitate the development of these attributes, and finally, how technology could be integrated with those teaching strategies in order to develop capable practitioners. Open-ended questions were used to gather data from three different expert panels, and results were thematically analysed.ResultsClinical educators should not view knowledge, skills and attitudes as a set of products of learning, but rather as a set of attributes that are developed during a learning process. Participants highlighted the importance of continuing personal and professional development that emphasised the role of values and emotional response to the clinical context. To develop these attributes, clinical educators should use teaching activities that are learner-centred, interactive, integrated, reflective and that promote engagement. When technology-mediated teaching activities are considered, they should promote the discussion of clinical encounters, facilitate the sharing of resources and experiences, encourage reflection on the learning process and be used to access content outside the classroom. In addition, educational outcomes must drive the integration of technology into teaching practice, rather than the features of the technology.ConclusionsThere is a need for a cultural change in clinical education, in which those involved with the professional training of healthcare professionals perceive teaching as more than the transmission of knowledge and technical skills. Process-oriented teaching practices that integrate technology as part of a carefully designed curriculum may have the potential to facilitate the development of capable healthcare graduates who are able to navigate the complexity of health systems and patient management in ways that go beyond the application of knowledge and skills.

Mobilising teacher education: a study of a professional learning community

This paper reports on a study of a community of university educators that investigated the introduction of mobile technologies into their learning and teaching. The study was conducted by a subgroup of that community. Given the ubiquity of mobile devices, members of the community felt they needed to develop expertise in mobile learning so that they could incorporate it into their teaching. They studied their own learning, supported by a critical friend who evaluated the community’s functioning and activities, providing valuable feedback. Activities of this group were informed by and focused on: development of awareness of the potential of mobile devices for learning; construction of action plans within the community; and implementation of these plans. They also included investigating best-practice approaches by interviewing experts in the field, exploring the literature on mobile learning and then initiating and testing some mobile learning pedagogies in the context of their own teacher education subjects. The community met regularly to discuss emerging issues and applications. The paper shares some of the findings gained from studying the community, and discusses the challenges and constraints that were experienced. The authors conclude with recommendations for professional learning communities aiming to learn about technology-mediated teaching practices.

Studying the effectiveness of multi-user immersive environments for collaborative evaluation tasks

Massively Multiuser On-line Learning (MMOL) Platforms, often called “virtual learning worlds”, constitute a still unexplored context for communication-enhanced learning, where synchronous communication skills in an explicit social setting enhance the potential of effective collaboration. In this paper, we report on an experimental study of collaborative evaluation in an MMOL setting with 21 graduate students enrolled in university courses in technology-mediated teaching and learning. This study was carried out using a prototype of a 3D MMOL platform built around an interactive space called “MadriPolis”. This space was used to recreate an adequate scenario for a collaborative experience about Learning Object evaluation using the mainstream Learning Object Review Instrument (LORI), which is based on a Convergent Participation Model (CPM). The same experience was carried out using a conventional LCMS (Learning Content Management System) platform with the aim of contrasting the outcomes and interaction patterns in the two settings. This study makes use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) measures to describe the interactions between tutors and learners. By dwelling on the advantages of immersive environments, SNA indexes revealed that these interactions were rather dense and that student participation was rather broad-based in the case of the MMOL. The results suggest that MMOL platforms could be used in collaborative evaluation tasks as a means to enhance both tutor interaction patterns and the strength of the group's relationship.

Ethical Issues in Technology-Mediated Education

Contemporary system of education has been strongly revolutionised as a result of the current trends of facilitating learning and improving performance through creation, usage, and management of appropriate technological processes and resources. Manipulating technology in a way to use information correctly and realize information flow effectively has become a necessity. However, such necessity has been beclouded by variety of ethical issues that range from privacy, accuracy, accessibility to question of intellectual property rights. It is such ethical problems that this paper will address by analysing the impact of technology-mediated education on the transmission of socio-cultural and academic values. It also raises the issue of whether technology-mediated educational settings are conducive for academic freedom or do they undermine it?

Learning presence: Additional research on a new conceptual element within the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework

This paper presents an empirical study grounded in the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson Archer, 2000) and employs quantitative content analysis of student discourse and other artifacts of learning in online courses in an effort to enhance and improve the framework and offer practical implications for online education. As a theoretical framework the purpose of the widely referenced CoI model is to describe, explain, and predict learning in online environments. The current study grows out of an ongoing research agenda to understand student and faculty experiences in emerging technology-mediated education systems and to make recommendations for theory and practice. The major question addressed here is whether the CoI model adequately explains effective learner behavior in fully online courses and to articulate a new conceptual element — learning presence. Results indicate that learning presence is evident in more complex learning activities that promote collaboration and is correlated with course grades.

E-learning in engineering education: a theoretical and empirical study of the Algerian higher education institution

Technology-mediated education or e-learning is growing globally both in scale and delivery capacity due to the large diffusion of the ubiquitous information and communication technologies (ICT) in general and the web technologies in particular. This statement has not yet been fully supported by research, especially in developing countries such as Algeria. The purpose of this paper was to identify directions for addressing the needs of academics in higher education institutions in Algeria in order to adopt the e-learning approach as a strategy to improve quality of education. The paper will report results of an empirical study that measures the readiness of the Algerian higher education institutions towards the implementation of ICT in the educational process and the attitudes of faculty members towards the application of the e-learning approach in engineering education. Three main objectives were targeted, namely: (a) to provide an initial evaluation of faculty members’ attitudes and perceptions towards web-based education; (b) reporting on their perceived requirements for implementing e-learning in university courses; (c) providing an initial input for a collaborative process of developing an institutional strategy for e-learning. Statistical analysis of the survey results indicates that the Algerian higher education institution, which adopted the Licence – Master and Doctorate educational system, is facing a big challenge to take advantage of emerging technological innovations and the advent of e-learning to further develop its teaching programmes and to enhance the quality of education in engineering fields. The successful implementation of this modern approach is shown to depend largely on a set of critical success factors that would include: 1. The extent to which the institution will adopt a formal and official e-learning strategy. 2. The extent to which faculty members will adhere and adopt this strategy and develop ownership of the various measures in the context of their teaching and research responsibilities. 3. The extent to which the university will offer adequate support in terms of training, software platform administration, online resource development and impact monitoring and assessment.

REVIEW: The Handbook Of Blended Learning: Global Perspectives, Local Designs

Blended learning or blended e-learning sounds like a confusing term at first since it is relatively a new term for today’s instructors. However, Moore reports that it can be traced as far back as the 1920s which was called “supervised correspondence study”. For clarification of the term “blended learning” and informing the instructors about its common practices worldwide, the book provides readers a comprehensive resource about blended learning. It aims to raise awareness of adopting BL from institutional perspectives of many chapter authors from Australia, Korea, Malaysia, the UK, Canada and South Africa who are distinguished people mostly in instructional technology era. With this book, I guess the editors aim at both showing the big picture at macro level and present micro level examples which provide details of blended learning applications among their strengths and weaknesses. As introduced in the book, one of the editors Curtis J. Bonk, a former corporate controller and CPA, is now professor of educational psychology as well as instructional systems technology at Indiana University; the other editor Charles R. Graham is an assistant professor of instructional psychology and technology at Brigham Young University with a focus on technology-mediated teaching and learning.