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International studies and theorists have posited that digital technologies play an important role in students' lives and that students display a broad range of literacy skills when using them. The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) states that students should be literate, critical thinkers who actively seek, use and create knowledge. This paper reports on findings from a New Zealand investigation of the extent to which students exhibited and teachers promoted critical information technology literacy skills. Using survey, diary and focus groups, the investigation explored teachers' beliefs about students' online information literacy and students' self-reported research strategies. Results from the investigation show students possess limited online information and critical evaluation skills and teacher pedagogical practice is not addressing this. The paper makes a case for teachers to develop both familiarity and confidence with online text types, alongside professional learning in online and offline information literacy pedagogical strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International studies and theorists have posited that digital technologies play an important role in students' lives and that students display a broad range of literacy skills when using them. The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) states that students should be literate, critical thinkers who actively seek, use and create knowledge. This paper reports on findings from a New Zealand investigation of the extent to which students exhibited and teachers promoted critical information technology literacy skills. Using survey, diary and focus groups, the investigation explored teachers' beliefs about students' online information literacy and students' self-reported research strategies. Results from the investigation show students possess limited online information and critical evaluation skills and teacher pedagogical practice is not addressing this. The paper makes a case for teachers to develop both familiarity and confidence with online text types, alongside professional learning in online and offline information literacy pedagogical strategies. (Contains 4 tables.)

The action research project described in this paper was part of an initiative to bring about change in the way courses are delivered in the vocational trades area at UNITEC New Zealand. We decided to focus on students' writing on a new Level 3 course -- the Certificate in Automotive and Mechanical Engineering (C.A.M.E.) in which all participants had netbooks or laptops for the first time. We selected blogging because it introduces new possibilities in a field where one would not expect to see much written work by students. Using the Problem Resolving Action Research (PRAR) model (Piggot- Irvine, 2009), we approached the project in three stages. At the reconnaissance stage it was clear that writing skills did not enjoy a position of priority. We gauged the C.A.M.E. students' attitudes to writing in general, and to digital technology via the use of a questionnaire and a focus group. We then implemented new approaches to teaching using digital technology in response to perceived needs. At the evaluation stage, we collected further responses via a questionnaire and a focus group on the students' attitudes to blogging and digital technology. Key findings included that the students were not discouraged by writing tasks, nor by digital technology, and that vocational tutors may need to play a more active role in embedding writing in courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines a study investigating the impact of the use of learning objects on the development of two key competencies from the revised New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 2007). It specifically focuses on the key competencies of 'thinking' and 'relating to others', and explores how teachers in an urban intermediate school (year 7 and 8) planned and integrated learning objects into a wider 'community' social studies topic, and the impact this integration had on student competency development. Outcomes from the study indicate that learning objects can, for some students, provide a motivating and engaging learning experience through which thinking capabilities and relationship skills can be enhanced, but that such development is dependent upon several factors including the design, content, and level of interactivity of the objects, how closely they align with learning goals, the careful selection of student groupings, and how access to the learning objects is organised and managed. The study also revealed some issues with the use of new digital data collection tools, particularly related to the accuracy of coding of visual information, and how to best translate this into text format for publication without 'diluting' its richness and meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst prior research has identified children as avid users of new technologies, insufficient studies have explored their patterns of use. This paper investigates how New Zealand pre-teens use technology out of school and identifies a typology of technology use. Two hundred and twenty four children between 10 and 12 years of age completed a comprehensive questionnaire about their use of technology. Results indicated that children of this age were immersed in technology related activities. A principal components factor analysis revealed a typology with five distinct factors underlying pre-teen digital behaviour. Two factors showed some differentiation by gender but differences were not evident for socio-economic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health professionals are attracted to the flexibility of the virtual classroom for their on-going education. Recent studies have documented the differences in pedagogy between Internet based learning online and the traditional classroom setting, but few have investigated student health professionals' transitional process while engaged in online learning. The purpose of this mixed methods evaluation study was to document students' experience of a six month online research methods paper (unit). Specifically it explores factors that influenced student transition to online pedagogy and successful completion of the paper. Descriptive qualitative and quantitative analyses were applied to 230 student evaluations and 1720 emails collected over a four year period. The findings supported those of previous studies; the main reasons students study online is the flexibility it offers (87%) and the ability to study without taking time off work (72%). The student experiences were captured in the overarching theme "from enduring to enjoying". A teacher who works within a collaborative team, engages students early with interactive skill acquisition learning activities, and is responsive to online students' unique needs, can successfully facilitate students through the virtual classroom transitional phases: from "virtual paralysis" to "engagement" to "getting into it" to "surprised enjoyment". Without strategies in place, however, teachers risk being overwhelmed by the onslaught of student emails, with the allotted teacher-student contact time slip sliding away. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Mobile and social media over the last decade has created significant shifts in society: how we communicate and collaborate, and in learning and teaching. This paper discusses a study that investigated how mobile social media tools and affordances could be harnessed to facilitate a student-determined learning experience (heutagogy). A design-based research (DBR) approach was utilised to analyse and investigate a set of draft design principles that was established in collaboration with a group of teachers and literature. The draft design principles guided the design of a first year course that was iteratively implemented and evaluated over 2 years with two different cohorts of students. As a key outcome of the DBR, a set of refined design principles is presented. These principles are capable of guiding other practitioners in designing and facilitating student-determined learning in authentic contexts using mobile devices, and social media affordances.

This paper summarises the findings from a literature review in mobile learning, developed as part of a 2-year six-institution project in New Zealand. Through the development of a key themes codebook, we address selected key themes with respect to their relevance to learner-generated learning through emerging technologies, with attention to mobile augmented reality and mobile virtual reality. We see that these two current mobile learning affordances, complemented though relevant approaches to research and practice in mobile learning such as design-based research and connected social learning, are critical to reconceptualise learning through mobile devices. We conclude that mobile learning still requires the theories, methodologies, and practices of its own as a field. We also see a need for mobile learning to be conceptualised around ever-changing learning affordances and educational settings, rather than focusing on static structures such as content-delivery approaches, while embedding it within the scholarship of technology enhanced learning.

This paper proposes a design based research (DBR) framework for designing mobile virtual reality learning environments. The application of the framework is illustrated by two design-based research projects that aim to develop more authentic educational experiences and learner-centred pedagogies in higher education. The projects highlight the first two phases of the DBR framework, involving the exploration of mobile virtual reality (VR) to enhance the learning environment, and the design of prototype solutions for the different contexts. The design of the projects is guided by a set of design principles identified from the literature.

Although educational online technologies (EOTs) have transformed the delivery of learning in higher education, significant EOT challenges have impeded their effectiveness, preventing widespread implementation. The persistence of these challenges suggests that tertiary education institutes (TEIs) have experienced a gap in understandings about the reality of key stakeholders' EOT needs. This research made a phenomenological interpretation of key stakeholders' EOT experiences, to establish their current EOT needs and challenges and provide a basis from which to recommend methods for effective EOT support. It analysed the EOT experiences of 10 students and 10 teachers from New Zealand and Australia and interpreted the meanings of the phenomena through an abstraction and articulation of local and global themes. This paper is the first in a series of six publications that presents the local themes. It documents the interpretations of students' experiences with teachers, in reference to their use of four types of EOTs: online conference tools, learning management systems, blog sites and lecture capture tools. These interpretations, which include descriptions of stakeholders' EOT challenges, helped to inform a set of recommendations for effective EOT use, to assist TEIs in their efforts to address EOT challenges and meet stakeholders' needs.

This paper presents findings from a study of Australian and New Zealand academics (n = 276) that teach tertiary education students. The study aimed to explore participants' early experiences of learning analytics in a higher education milieu in which data analytics is gaining increasing prominence. Broadly speaking participants were asked about: (1) their teaching context; (2) their current student retention activities; (3) their involvement in, and aspirations for, learning analytics use and (4) their relationship with their institution around learning analytics. The sampled teaching staff broadly indicated a high level of interest but limited level of substantive involvement in learning analytics projects and capacity building activities. Overall, the intention is to present a critical set of voices that assist in identifying and understanding key issues and draw connections to the broader work being done in the field.

Online learning has grown considerably in recent years. However attrition rates from online courses indicate that not all learners are successful in such settings, and various factors have been identified as crucial to learner persistence. Research evidence suggests that motivation is one such factor. This study builds on previous studies by using self-determination theory (SDT) as an analytical framework to explore, in-depth, the motivation of pre-service teachers situated within an online learning context. In particular, the underlying concepts of autonomy, competence and relatedness from SDT were adopted as critical lenses to identify social and contextual influences which undermined the psychological needs of these learners. Most prominent among these in the current study were: high workload, assessment pressure, perceptions that the learning activity lacked relevance (autonomy-undermining), unclear and complicated guidelines, insufficient guidance and feedback from the instructor (competence-undermining), and communication issues with peers (relatedness-undermining). By not exclusively focusing on learners' autonomy needs as others have done, the paper offers a more extensive picture of undermining influences on motivation than has been previously identified in online studies.

This case study discusses a collaborative three year project involving two school clusters located in the North Island and South Island of New Zealand. The project was named Project ACTIVate and its main thrust was to study how the use of the interactive whiteboard (IWB) combined with teaching, learning and research across schools. The project was also partnered with the Ministry of Education, New Zealand, a tertiary institution, and information and communication technology-related and enterprises. The aim of the research was to develop effective teaching and learning practices using IWB technology in New Zealand classrooms. It was also deemed significant for the project to use the IWB to enhance specific curriculum goals and environments where students and teachers could learn and research as partners in cognitive proximity within schools and across schools. A number of successes and challenges presented themselves during the three year time frame. One aspect of particular importance for education arising from the case study is the future implications for IWB technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The action research project described in this paper was part of an initiative to bring about change in the way courses are delivered in the vocational trades area at UNITEC New Zealand. We decided to focus on students' writing on a new Level 3 course--the Certificate in Automotive and Mechanical Engineering (C.A.M.E.) in which all participants had netbooks or laptops for the first time. We selected blogging because it introduces new possibilities in a field where one would not expect to see much written work by students. Using the "Problem Resolving Action Research" (PRAR) model (Piggot-Irvine, 2009), we approached the project in three stages. At the reconnaissance stage it was clear that writing skills did not enjoy a position of priority. We gauged the C.A.M.E. students' attitudes to writing in general, and to digital technology via the use of a questionnaire and a focus group. We then implemented new approaches to teaching using digital technology in response to perceived needs. At the evaluation stage, we collected further responses via a questionnaire and a focus group on the students' attitudes to blogging and digital technology. Key findings included that the students were not discouraged by writing tasks, nor by digital technology, and that vocational tutors may need to play a more active role in embedding writing in courses. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

In response to recent social, economic, and pedagogical challenges to tertiary-level teaching and learning, universities are increasingly investigating and adopting e-learning as a way to engage and motivate students. This paper reports on the first year of a two-year (2009-2010) qualitative multiple case study research project in New Zealand. Using perspectives from activity theory and the scholarship of teaching, the research has the overall goal of documenting, developing, and disseminating effective and innovative practice in which e-learning plays an important role in tertiary teaching. A "snapshot" of each of the four 2009 cases and focused findings within and across cases are provided. This is followed by an overall discussion of the context, "within" and "across" case themes, and implications of the research. (Contains 1 table.)

Our paper reports upon and critically analyses findings from a two-year research project into the provision of continuing professional development for making purposeful use of Web 2.0 tools in teaching. Based on our research, we make recommendations for delivering effective continuing professional development workshops whilst also acknowledging the limitations of this form of continuing professional development. The advantages of alternative forms of professional development are discussed and implications for practice are outlined. (Contains 6 tables.)

While society has moved through a number of "ages" since the industrial age, many schools have remained firmly entrenched in an education system designed for a world which, largely, no longer exists. Educational policy and literature is replete with discourse related to school reform, 21st century learning and the importance of information and communication technologies (ICT). It is also replete with stories of failed reform initiatives. ICT is no exception. Internationally, there is little evidence of any real shift in the ways students experience learning, or that schools are becoming a digital environment rather than a paper-based one. In this article, we argue that the lack of apparent success in promoting educational reform through ICT is due, at least in part, to a policy disconnect which exists where strategic discourse (goals, purposes, values) is translated into operational discourse (concerning activities and outcomes), rather than where operational discourse becomes operational practice (implementation in classrooms). The conclusion drawn is that operational discourse needs to make explicit the rationales underpinning ICT policy, and policy makers need to ensure that teachers are provided with the necessary opportunities to explore, challenge and change beliefs and practice. (Contains 4 figures.)

This paper discusses how the use of digital technologies may support a shift of cultural practices in teaching and learning, to better meet the needs of 21st century higher education learners. A brief discussion of the changing needs of the learners is provided, followed by a review of the overall impact of digital technologies on teaching and learning. In the final section we suggest how digital technologies may provide a more active and flexible learning experience by adopting a participatory pedagogical approach and by blending formal learning with informal learning.

This paper outlines a study investigating the impact of the use of learning objects on the development of two key competencies from the revised New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 2007). It specifically focuses on the key competencies of "thinking" and "relating to others", and explores how teachers in an urban intermediate school (year 7 and 8) planned and integrated learning objects into a wider "community" social studies topic, and the impact this integration had on student competency development. Outcomes from the study indicate that learning objects can, for some students, provide a motivating and engaging learning experience through which thinking capabilities and relationship skills can be enhanced, but that such development is dependent upon several factors including the design, content, and level of interactivity of the objects, how closely they align with learning goals, the careful selection of student groupings, and how access to the learning objects is organised and managed. The study also revealed some issues with the use of new digital data collection tools, particularly related to the accuracy of coding of visual information, and how to best translate this into text format for publication without "diluting" its richness and meaning. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Whilst prior research has identified children as avid users of new technologies, insufficient studies have explored their patterns of use. This paper investigates how New Zealand pre-teens use technology out of school and identifies a typology of technology use. Two hundred and twenty four children between 10 and 12 years of age completed a comprehensive questionnaire about their use of technology. Results indicated that children of this age were immersed in technology related activities. A principal components factor analysis revealed a typology with five distinct factors underlying pre-teen digital behaviour. Two factors showed some differentiation by gender but differences were not evident for socio-economic factors. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)

Built on the foundation of four years of research and implementation of mobile learning projects (m-learning), this paper provides an overview of the potential of the integration of mobile Web 2.0 tools (based around smartphones) to facilitate social constructivist pedagogies and engage students in tertiary education. Pedagogical affordances of mobile Web 2.0 tools are evaluated, and student usage and feedback is outlined via an interactive multimedia timeline (using "YouTube" videos) illustrating how these mobile Web 2.0 pedagogical affordances have transformed pedagogy and facilitated student engagement in a variety of course contexts. A rubric for evaluating appropriate smartphone choices is provided, and a model for implementing mobile Web 2.0 pedagogical integration is presented. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.)

Social construction of understanding has long been a significant underlying principle of learning and teaching, and while there are many models for the design of online activities to promote this, there are considerably fewer models for the facilitation of such dialogue. This paper examines some of these facilitation models from the point of view of a university tutor seeking to encourage social construction of understanding through online dialogue, and proposes an alternative which extends the principles of community of inquiry theory. It unpacks conceptions of community and dialogue in the context of learning and teaching and describes a research project whose purpose is to develop and iteratively test a professional development intervention, which will help university tutors to facilitate a dialogic approach to learning online. (Contains 1 figure.)

This paper presents a spreadsheet based simulation game for teaching and learning production management concepts of forecasting, material requirements planning, order review and release. In this game the student plays the role of a production planner managing two products, for which customer orders are placed in variable quantities throughout the week. The student builds forecasting and material requirement planning systems to help in the tasks of production and vendor order release. In parallel with this, we have run a small learning awareness program, to test and stimulate the skill of reflection. Initial student responses to the game have been favourable, but the proportion of time spent on reflection is low. Contemplated refinements are presented. (Contains 6 figures and 1 table.)