Incorporating computer-simulation modelling into project-based learning may be effective but requires careful planning and implementation. Teachers, especially, need pedagogical content knowledge which refers to knowledge about how students learn from materials infused with technology. This study suggests that students learn best by actively constructing knowledge from a combination of experience, interpretation and structured interactions with peers and teachers when using technology. Simulations do not work on their own, there needs to be some structuring of the students' interactions with the simulation to increase effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of project-based learning in a technology-rich environment. A science project, Land-use in Watershed, that takes advantage of Internet facilities was developed and integrated with a simulation software package, Structural Thinking and Experiential Learning Laboratory, with Animation, (STELLA) developed to promote deeper understanding of Land-use by students. The Participants in the study were 72 students in a quasi-experimental research design. Statistical analyses showed that students who participated in the manipulation of the experimental model of the watershed experiment and the STELLA simulation performed best on understanding the watershed concept.

Affect has been the subject of increasing attention in cognitive accounts of learning. Many intelligent tutoring systems now seek to adapt pedagogy to student affective and motivational processes in an effort to increase the effectiveness of tutorial interaction and improve learning outcomes. To this end, recent work has begun to investigate the emotions experienced during learning in a variety of environments. In this paper we extend this line of research by investigating the affective transitions that occur throughout narrative-centered learning experiences. Further analysis differentiates the likelihood of affective transitions stemming from pedagogical agent empathetic responses to student affect.

Online learning communities are an important means of sharing and creating knowledge. Online behaviors and online roles can reveal how online learning communities function. However, no study has elucidated the relationships among online behaviors, online roles, and online learning communities. In this study, 32 preservice teachers participated in an 18-week instruction program. Analyses of online group discussions revealed the following: (a) of thirteen identified online behaviors, the most common were constructing a positive atmosphere, providing opinions for group assignments, and providing reminders of assignment-related work; (b) of eight online roles identified within a group, the most common roles were information providers, opinion providers, and troublemakers; (c) four online learning communities based on “collaboration” and “participation” were identified. The evolution of these online learning communities indicates the interrelationships among online behaviors, roles, and learning communities.

The purpose of this study was to adapt the questionnaire Multimedia Attitude Survey (MAS; Garcia, 2001) to the Greek population in order to evaluate the educational multimedia application “Leonidas” considering the attitudes of ATHENS 2004 team leaders. In addition, the differences among the sex were also investigated. Participants were 232 team leaders, between the ages from 33-44 years old. One hundred twenty two (52.6%) of the participants were men and one hundred ten were women (47.4%). Data was collected using an on-line survey at the end of this study. Results from the factor analysis yielded eight factors accounting for 89.98% of the variance. Reliability analysis indicated a satisfactory internal consistency estimate of reliability for the attitude questionnaire. Independent-samples t test analysis revealed significant differences between the two sex groups, in the case of one factor: “general experience”. In the factor above the women reported better results. In conclusion the team leaders’ feedback from the questionnaires indicated a general level of satisfaction and contentment with this particular multimedia application. The scale adapted in the present study can be a useful tool for the evaluation of other relative multimedia applications by multimedia developers. Nevertheless, further examination is warranted in order to obtain additional information concerning the difficulties of multimedia experience on employees’ attitudes toward multimedia applications.

In building intelligent tutoring systems, it is critical to be able to understand and diagnose student responses in interactive problem solving. However, building this understanding into a computer-based intelligent tutor is a time-intensive process usually conducted by subject experts. Much of this time is spent in building production rules that model all the ways a student might solve a problem. In our prior work, we proposed a novel application of Markov decision processes (MDPs) to automatically generate hints for an intelligent tutor that learns. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach by extracting MDPs from four semesters of student solutions in a logic proof tutor, and calculating the probability that we will be able to generate hints for students at any point in a given problem. Our past results indicated that extracted MDPs and our proposed hint-generating functions will be able to provide hints over 80% of the time. Our results also indicated that we can provide valuable tradeoffs between hint specificity and the amount of data used to create an MDP.

When using mobile devices in support of learning activities, students gain mobility, but problems arise when group members share information. The small size of the mobile device screen becomes problematic when it is being used by two or more students to share and exchange information. This problem affects interactions among group members. To overcome the information sharing problem, the concept of Shared Display Groupware (SDG) has been proposed to support face-to-face collaboration using a shared display. However, little attention had been paid on the integration of the shared display with mobile devices in order to design a learning activity in the mobile learning environment. In this study, a learning activity was designed and a mobile learning environment was developed with the integration of the SDG to permit students to share information from individual and public spaces. During the learning activity, each student performed individual tasks using a PDA. Group tasks, following the individual tasks, were performed using a shared display, thus facilitating the sharing of information and group discussions. Each group was given their own display to share. To evaluate students’ perceptions and learning effectiveness regarding the use of the SDG in supporting mobile learning, an empirical study was conducted. The study included a survey questionnaire as well as a learning achievement test. The participants in the experiment included thirty-four fourth-grade students and followed a one-group pretest-posttest design. The results show that the participants evaluated high scores in every category of the questionnaire. Significant differences were found between pretest and posttest in most aspects of the learning achievement test on the creation of conditions for classifying plants.

There exists great diversity in the teachers’ digital world. Teachers are being discriminated based on numerous educational gaps. This paper seeks to assess the extent of the digital divide among the North Cyprus vocational teachers along the four axes: age, Internet access, computer access, and performance (computing knowledge/experience). A research was carried out through a questionnaire, which was then analyzed statistically. According to the experts’ views, the questionnaire was divided into three factors: technology-based e-learning applications; web-based e-learning applications, and administrative e-learning applications. There was a significant digital divergence among the teachers surveyed, which may adversely affect their ability to prepare the students to become a part of the knowledge society. To bridge these gaps in the world, action plans should be prepared, collaboratively with the instructional technologist and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) experts. This unique research study is the first to investigate the divergence of the digital world of teachers.

This article examined, thought a Cultural Historical Activity Theory lens, how immersive- or pervasive environments and pedagogical agents could more easily support social collaboration as foundation of contemporary learning theory. It is argued that the fundamentalism-liberationism contradiction (learn from versus learn with technology) is no longer justifiable as contemporary technology tools (pervasive/immersive environments and agent technology), the understanding of social networks, and recent neuro-science discoveries negate instructional design philosophies and innatist positions. The use of an activity lens allowed for identification of a number of educational technology design principles including explication of ideological positions, designs for contradictions, acceptance of a post-modern position, designs to overcome homophilic associations, and use of complex real-world learning activities.

The main aim of this study is to integrate cooperative learning strategies, mastery learning and interactive multimedia to improve students’ performance in Mathematics, specifically in the topic of matrices. It involved a quasi-experimental design with gain scores and time-on-task as dependent variables. The independent variables were three instructional strategies (CCL, CML and CCML) with academic abilities as the moderator variable. The sample for the study was 262 Form Four Malaysian students. A courseware entitled "Matrices" was developed using Macromedia Authorware as the authoring tool. In this study, the collected data was used to investigate the effects of the three learning strategies on the gain scores and time-on-task. Based on the gain scores and time-on-task, the effectiveness of the three learning strategies was discussed. This study showed that the CCML and CML strategies were superior compared to the CCL strategy; CCML strategy produced the highest gain score. For students with low academic ability, the CML strategy was found to be the most effective strategy. The findings of this study also suggested that high academic ability students would obtain high gain scores regardless of the instructional strategies. In terms of time-on-task, students in CCL and CML strategies demonstrated significant lower time-on-task than CCML strategy.

This study examined the effect of live simulation on students’ science learning and attitude. A total of 311 middle school students participated in the simulation, which allowed them to access and interpret satellite data and images and to design investigations. A pre/post design was employed to compare students’ science learning and attitude before and after the simulation. The findings revealed positive changes in students’ attitudes and perceptions toward scientists, while male students had more positive adoption toward scientific attitudes than females. The study also found that the change in student’s science learning was significantly influenced by the teacher. Hence, teacher classroom preparation for the simulation experience proved vital to students’ attitudes toward science as well as their scientific understanding. Implications for effective use of simulation to increase science-related career awareness and inform effective teaching practice are shared and discussed.

We propose to mine temporal patterns in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) to uncover useful knowledge that can enhance their ability to provide assistance. To discover patterns, we suggest using a custom, sequential pattern-mining algorithm. Two ways of applying the algorithm to enhance an ITS’s capabilities are addressed. The first is to extract patterns from user solutions to problem-solving exercises for automatically learning a task model that can then be used to provide assistance. The second way is to extract temporal patterns from a tutoring agent’s own behavior when interacting with learner(s). In this case, the tutoring agent reuses patterns that brought states of “self-satisfaction.” Real applications are presented to illustrate the two proposals.

To increase the interoperability and reusability of learning objects, Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative developed a model called Content Aggregation Model (CAM) to describe learning objects and express relationships between learning objects. However, the suggested relations defined in the CAM can only describe structure-oriented relationships and cannot express semantic relationships between learning objects. Although extended relations were proposed in the past, some of the proposed relations are redundant and even inappropriate. In addition, the usefulness of these relations has never been formally studied. To solve the problems, we systematically studied these relations from authors’ perspective and proposed an extension to CAM. The extension was tested by 30 authors using a web-based learning content management system that was developed by us.

This study aims at arousing college students’ metacognition in detecting lexical cohesion during online text construction as WordNet served as a lexical resource. A total of 83 students were requested to construct texts through sequences of actions identified as interaction chains in this study. Interaction chains are grouped and categorized as a meaningful entity in order to investigate the students’ thinking process and behavior in general and to understand the interaction between the computer and the students in particular. From the interaction chains, it was found that some students revised incorrect sentences to correct ones. In making correct revision, they needed to assess incoming information, interpret and organize textual information, engage in thinking what they know, monitor their own meaning construction process, and take remedial actions to reach comprehension. The rate of correct sentence selection increased from 34.04% to 55.02% in three sequential text construction tasks. The recognition of lexical cohesion was found to be a determining factor for successful construction of a text.

Johnson and Puplampu recently proposed the ecological techno-subsystem, a refinement to Bronfenbrenner’s theoretical organization of environmental influences on child development. The ecological techno-subsystem includes child interaction with both living (e.g., peers) and nonliving (e.g., hardware) elements of communication, information, and recreation technologies in immediate or direct environments. The theoretical techno-subsystem requires empirical validation. Parents of 128 children in first through sixth grade consented to cognitive developmental assessment of their children and completed questionnaires on children’s use of the Internet at home and family socioeconomic characteristics. In general, indices of home Internet use accounted for more of the variance in children’s cognitive development than did indices of socioeconomic status. The ecological techno-subsystem furthers our understanding of environmental influences on child development by emphasizing the impact of digital technologies on cognitive growth during childhood.

This study aimed to explore the effects of marking and metacognition-evaluated feedback (MEF) in computer-based testing (CBT) on student performance and review behavior. Marking is a strategy, in which students place a question mark next to a test item to indicate an uncertain answer. The MEF provided students with feedback on test results classified as correct answers with and without marking or incorrect answers with and without marking. The study analyzed 454 ninth graders randomly assigned to three groups: Gmm (marking + MEF), Gmu (marking), and Guu (none). Each group was further categorized into three subgroups based on their English ability. Results showed that marking improved medium-ability examinees’ test scores. This was a promising finding because the medium-ability students were the very target group that had the most potential for improvement. Additionally, MEF was found to be beneficial as well in that it encouraged students to use marking skills more frequently and to review answer-explanations of the test items. The follow-up interviews indicated that providing adaptive and detailed AEs for low-ability students were necessary. The present study reveals the potential of integrating marking and adaptive feedbacks into the design of learning functions that are worth implementing in CBT systems.

Certain learners are less sensitive to learning environments and can always learn, while others are more sensitive to variations in learning environments and may fail to learn (Cronbach & Snow, 1977). We refer to the former as high learners and the latter as low learners. One important goal of any learning environment is to bring students up to the same level of mastery. We showed that an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) teaching a domain-independent problem-solving strategy indeed closed the gap between high and low learners, not only in the domain where it was taught (probability) but also in a second domain where it was not taught (physics). The strategy includes two main components: one is solving problems via backward chaining (BC) from goals to givens, called the BC strategy, and the other is drawing students’ attention to the characteristics of each individual domain principle, called the principle-emphasis skill. Evidence suggests that the low learners transferred the principle-emphasis skill to physics while the high learners seemingly already had such skill and thus mainly transferred the other skill, the BC strategy. Surprisingly, the low learners learned just as effectively as the high learners in physics. We concluded that the effective element of transfer seemed not to be the BC strategy, but the principle-emphasis skill.

This paper explores the way that learning technologies frame teaching practice in higher education using both autoethnography and discourse analysis (interpretative repertoires). The analysis juxtaposes our own experience in the form of data from two interviews, with teaching and learning policy documents from the group of five Australian Technology Network universities, as a means of investigating the centrality of these technologies in the reconfiguring of teaching practice in higher education for the networked university. The data yielded three distinct discourses: technology as a bridge to globalised opportunity; technology as delivery of learning; and technology as communication and building relationships for learning. The first repertoire provides a utopian vision which glosses over the complex practice of implementation. The second repertoire also omits details of implementation, presenting learning technology unproblematically. The third repertoire, not present in the policy documents, but central to the autoethnographic accounts, focusses on both the possibilities and challenges of learning technologies in practice, and points to the potential for a complementary approach which foregrounds the student-teacher relationship. How these discourses can be reconciled is a central issue for academic teaching practice in higher education.

Technology is a growing part of any society today. Educational technology has become a cornerstone for any country’s efforts to improve students’ performance at K-12 schools. It has become the focus of educators worldwide. However, research studies investigating technology integration, particularly at the United Arab Emirates (UAE) K-12 schools, focus on quantitative data collection methodology. This study investigated technology integration at UAE Model schools using a mixed method of data collection consisting of focus group interviews and a questionnaire. Study sample consisted of 40 female and 60 male teachers from two schools in Al-Ain Educational Zone, Abu Dhabi. Study results showed that teachers at both schools are integrating technology in their classes’ activities. They use a variety of technologies to promote students’ learning. However, methods of integration by male teachers differed in some cases compared to their female colleagues. Implications for technology integration in the UAE context are discussed.

This paper proposes a self-regulated learning (SRL) system with scaffolding support in order to develop independent learning skills among students. The SRL system uses self-regulated learning and scaffolding theories to appeal to both instructors and learners. On the part of the instructors, a Content Accessibility Subsystem is provided to easily organize learning materials and to dynamically provide different levels of support for their learners. As for the learners, many subsystems are proposed that provide a conducive mobile learning environment for them. With the application of the scaffolding theory, the system can easily adjust to provide help to the learners, facilitating SRL processes anytime and anywhere, and establishing the learners’ SRL patterns gradually. The learners in the experiment deemed that that the proposed system could provide them self-regulatory attributes. The experiment results show that the average SRL score of learners increases, though the improvement is not significant. However, the result also showed that the SR skills of students in the group of Low SR significantly improved.

This study develops an educational computer game, FORmosaHope (FH), to explore the influences that an educational computer game might have on children’s cultural identities. FH is a role-playing game, in which children can actively explore a mini-world to learn about science, technology, and society. One hundred and thirty sixth-graders, about 11-12 years old, from four classes in a middle-sized elementary school in Taiwan, participated in the study. A quasi-experimental design was used. The experimental group was two classes that explored FH for a period of six weeks. The other two classes that served as the control group did not receive any experimental treatment. Descriptive statistics, T-test and ANCOVA showed that the experimental group significantly strengthened their cultural identities compared to the control group. This implies that educational games can have an impact on children’s cultural identities through their educational contexts.

According to Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), behavioral intention (BI) is predicted by attitude toward the behavior (AB), subjective norm (SN), and perceived behavioral control (PBC). Previous studies using the TPB to explain teachers’ intentions to use technology have resulted in inconsistent findings. This inconsistency might be due to overly broad definitions of the target behavior. To investigate this potential weakness, we defined a specific target behavior, using computers only to create and deliver lessons, and then used the TPB to investigate teachers’ decisions. An elicitation study was used to identify teachers’ salient beliefs and develop a closed-ended questionnaire. Results of the closed-ended questionnaire revealed that AB, SN, and PBC all were significant predictors of teachers’ intentions. However, AB had twice the influence of SN and three times that of PBC. This finding suggests that teachers must have positive attitudes about using computers to create and deliver lessons. They are less concerned about what others think of this practice, and far less bothered by internal or external constraints. Results provide specific information that can be used to design effective teacher development programs and remind TPB researchers of the importance of using specific definitions of the target behavior.