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Research on note taking in pedagogical settings has received considerable attention. However, the awkwardness of integrating information across different media formats may present physical and cognitive barriers that prevent students from effectively organizing annotations from both printed and digital content while studying paper textbooks. The purpose of this paper is to develop a cross-media annotation system that incorporates a paper textbook with a computer as an integrated whole to facilitate the question-driven organization of annotations. While taking notes, students can digitally extract printed text and organize the copied passages based on guiding questions, all by using digital pens. Students can also link Internet-based learning resources to printed content to supplement their print-based studies. A user-based formative evaluation was conducted to assess the new functions of the cross-media annotation system and to explore their influence on students' notetaking behavior and performance. The results show that the new functions may facilitate the retention of key concepts of the paper textbooks and may improve knowledge construction based on explicit learning goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a 10-year review study that focuses on the investigation of the use of computer card games (CCGs) as learning tools in Computer Science (CS) Education. Specific search terms keyed into 10 large scientific electronic databases identified 24 papers referring to the use of CCGs for the learning of CS matters during the last decade. The findings revealed that the CCGs reported by the reviewed papers were used for the learning of diverse CS issues. The motivation behind the use of the aforementioned CCGs was based on: (a) students' familiarity with the CGs at hand, so that they might focus on the construction of their simulation, (b) the fact that, the logic of CGs is suitable for the teaching of various CS concepts, and (c) CCG-play as a motivational activity to engage learners in their learning. CCGs were used in two ways: as CCG-construction context based on supportive data provided by educators, and as CCG-play educational tools. The constructivist learning approach was implied behind the design and use of most of the CCGs reported in the articles reviewed. Evaluation of some CCGs also provided positive results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional non-computerized learning environments are typically founded on an understanding of learning as acquiring silence for an effective individual learning process. Recently, it has also been reported that the high expectations for the impact of computer-based technology on educational practice have not been realized. This paper sets out to challenge both the assumptions made about the requirements for effective learning environments by pointing in the direction of social creative learning processes, as well as the technologies for effective and creative learning processes by redirecting the focus from what has been labeled "traditional computer-based learning environments" towards user-driven learning networks. Thus, this paper proposes the concept of netlearning as a general label for the traditional use of computer-based learning environments as education tools and then, it suggests the concept of learning through networks as a challenging concept for addressing user-driven technologies that support social, collaborative and creative learning processes in, via, or outside typical educational settings. The paper is inspired by recent research into the interaction society and the Scandinavian tradition in system development that always have highlighted the importance of user-driven processes, users as creative social individuals, and a perspective on users as creative contributors to both the form, and content of new interaction technologies. The paper ends with a presentation of a participatory design project in which children developed their own computer-based tools for editing film and I present this technology followed by a discussion on user-driven design of learning technologies in which the technology is not just a container for something else, but instead, novel technologies as a tool that directly enable the children to do new things, i.e. to collectively learn through their computer-supported social network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The information overload in learning and teaching scenarios is a main hindering factor for efficient and effective learning. New methods are needed to help teachers and students in dealing with the vast amount of available information and learning material. Our approach aims to utilize contextualized attention metadata to capture behavioural information of users in learning contexts that can be used to deal with the information overload in user centric ways. We introduce a schema and framework for capturing and managing such contextualized attention metadata in this paper. Schema and framework are designed to enable collecting and merging observations about the attention users give to content and their contexts. The contextualized attention metadata schema enables the correlation of the observations, thus reflects the relationships that exists between the user, her context and the content she works with. We illustrate with a simple demo application how contextualized attention metadata can be collected from several tools, the merging of the data streams into a repository and finally the correlation of the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of digital resources by academic staff in a single UK University and its influence on academic practice over a two to three year period. The paper describes two linked studies that address several of the themes regarding the impact of electronic resources identified in this special edition. In particular it provides findings that contribute to our understanding of changing roles and practices in academic teaching (Oliver this edition). The themes explored in this paper include the way disciplinary differences affect the use of digital resources, and how academic progression is understood by academic staff in different disciplines, and its role in informing staff choices in deploying digital resources for student use. The paper also addresses the issue of changing academic practice and the adoption life cycle in relation to use of digital resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses issues of using computer technology to support in-classroom teaching and learning regarding one of the most frequent problems in such scenarios: the students' attention. First, it presents the distraction and focus of attention problems that arise while using computer technology with off-the-shelf software for supporting different activities which take place in usual lectures. Examples of these activities are presentations of learning material, discussion, individual and collaborative problem solving, and difficulties of switching from one to another. A solution to this problem is an integrated approach with a particular implementation under the notion of "CiC". The implemented system attempts to reduce the number of interactions needed to switch from one activity to another as well as to reduce the cognitive load for both teacher and students. The usage of both this system and standard software are compared and research results are presented. Results show the CiC is useful to solve the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In distance education, communications among students, educators, and administrators have been one of the most important problems. The distance education programs in The Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK) span not only Hong Kong but also many cities over a large area in China. To improve and monitor the quality of communications among students, tutors, and staff, we propose a communications management infrastructure based on an alert mechanism. Requests and messages in these systems (referred to as alerts) have to be delivered and handled timely to provide ubiquitous distance education communication support and management. We also propose using this platform for the integration of partners in China with the OUHK offices. Presently, most systems cannot address urgency and alerts are often handled in an ad-hoc manner. In this paper, we propose a sophisticated alert management system (AMS) for ubiquitous communications management in distance education under various requirements. We develop a model for managing alerts, in which alerts are associated with communication tasks and a set of parameters are captured for message routing and urgency management. The AMS matches the specialties of the educators and staff who receive an alert, based on the alert specification. We then propose a routing mechanism that is initiated when the alert message is not acknowledged or handled within the deadline, so that the alert can be re-routed if necessary. Monitoring is especially essential to ensure timeliness and availability of consultation or decision, otherwise suitable exceptions should be raised and handled. We outline our implementation framework for communications among education administrators, education staff, students, and system administrators, enhanced by alter management via various communication devices for ubiquitous support of communication in distance education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life-long learning is a key issue for our knowledge society. With social software systems new heterogeneous kinds of technology enhanced informal learning are now available to the life-long learner. Learners outside of learning institutions now have access to powerful social communities of experts and peers who are together forging a new web 2.0. This paper reviews current work in pan-European initiatives that impact upon life-long learning via views of professional learning, learner competence and social networking. It seeks to provide an overview of some of the critical research questions for the interdisciplinary field of social software research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a ubiquitous computing environment in order to support the learners while doing tasks; this environment is called PERKAM (PERsonalized Knowledge Awareness Map). PERKAM allows the learners to share knowledge, interact, collaborate, and exchange individual experiences. It utilizes the RFID ubiquities technology to detect the learner's environmental objects and location, then recommends the best matched educational materials and peer helpers in accordance with the detected objects and the current location. This environment provides the learner with Knowledge Awareness Map, which visualizes the space of the environmental objects that surround the learner, the educational materials space, and the peer helpers' space. PERKAM system was implemented and an experiment was done in order to evaluate the system performance and the learner's satisfaction. This paper illustrates the design, the implementation and the evaluation of this environment, and it focuses on Knowledge Awareness Map, which is personalized according to the learner's current need and location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual learning communities encourage members to learn and contribute knowledge. However, knowledge sharing requires mutual-trust collaboration between learners and the contribution of quality knowledge. This task cannot be accomplished by simply storing learning content in repositories. It requires a mechanism to help learners find relevant learning content as well as knowledgeable collaborators to work with. In this paper, we present a peer-to-peer based social network to enhance the quality of e-learning regarding knowledge sharing in virtual learning communities. From a technical viewpoint, we will present advanced semantic search mechanisms for finding quality content and trustworthy collaborators. From the social viewpoint, we will address how to support a trustworthy social network that encourages learners to share. Results of this research demonstrate that applying such mechanisms to knowledge sharing can improve the quality of e-learning in virtual learning communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the fading monopoly of the industrial mode of production and the emergence of the "information revolution," modern technology has pervaded almost every aspect of human life. In education, however, information technology has yet to find a place, despite the unceasing attempts to "fit" it into the existing educational system. The paper argues that the industrial mode of production was successful in inventing "education" as a new paradigm, institutionalizing it in schools, and implementing it through a number of tools, such as "certified" teachers, curricula, and textbooks. By contrast, the information mode of production has created the tools, namely "educational technology," before developing a corresponding paradigm or institution. This crisis of educational technology is therefore a corollary of its misplacement, and subsequent malfunction, in the still-in-use industrial paradigm and institution (education and school). The paper suggests that, in order to ensure a proper functionality of modern technology, we need to resolve this theoretical inadequacy. A possible solution would be to thoroughly restructure "education" and schools, as remnants of the industrial age, into a new paradigm and institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the anticipated challenges of today's e-learning is to solve the problem of recommending from a large number of learning materials. In this study, we introduce a novel architecture for an e-learning recommender system. More specifically, this paper comprises the following phases i) to propose an e-learning recommender system based on content-based filtering and good learners' ratings, and ii) to compare the proposed e-learning recommender system with exiting e-learning recommender systems that use both collaborative filtering and content-based filtering techniques in terms of system accuracy and student's performance. The results obtained from the test data show that the proposed e-learning recommender system outperforms existing e-learning recommender systems that use collaborative filtering and content-based filtering techniques with respect to system accuracy of about 83.28% and 48.58%, respectively. The results further show that the learner's performance is increased by at least 12.16% when the students use the e-learning with the proposed recommender system as compared to other recommendation techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although previous studies have acknowledged that helping behavior has many potential benefits, little research has aimed at understanding which factors would possibly enhance helping behaviors among team members in CSCL environment. Accordingly, this study was intended to identify underlying factors leading learners to collaborate in virtual CSCL settings. A total of 100 undergraduate students enrolled in organizational behavior course participated in this study. Participants were divided into 20 work teams and were asked to collaborate with team members to successfully complete their team report on time. This study corroborated that social identity was a critical preceding antecedent of the engendering of learners' helping behaviors. According to our empirical results, learners strongly identifying themselves with the team perceived a high sense of norms of collaboration and a strong trust in team members, which in turn would result in the delivery of more helping behaviors. Implications for educators and instructors to enhance helping behaviors among team members in CSCL environment are also discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health and social care students spend up to 50% of their course in practice. Placements are distributed across a wide geographical area and have varying degrees of IT access and support. Consequently, students may feel isolated from peers, academic staff, and resources required for effective learning. Mobile technology has considerable potential to enhance the learning of these students. This paper presents the development and implementation of the Centre for Excellence in Professional Placement Learning's mobile learning project and the principles that both drove and emerged from this work. Handheld devices were matched to students' pedagogic need. Principles covered areas such as pedagogy, partnership working, technology, inclusivity, evaluation, and research. Collaboration across sectors and institutions and an understanding of professional cultures and contexts were seen as key in instigating and embedding mobile learning to support students on placement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a study that focused on long-term web-supported learning diffusion among lecturers at Tel Aviv University (TAU), from an organizational point of view. The theoretical models we used to examine this process are Rogers' model for "Diffusion of Innovation" (1995) and Bass's "Diffusion Model" (1969). The study was conducted between the academic years 2000/01 and 2007/08. At that time TAU implemented a project aimed to integrate knowledge technologies in academic instruction. The main results show that the diffusion process among lecturers using web-based instruction was rapid and reached over 77% of the total lecturer population. However, differences in diffusion among lecturers were found in terms of academic units. The diffusion process found behaves similarly to Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation theory and Bass's diffusion model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a platform on which a new generation of applications targeted to aid the self-organised learner can be presented. The new application is enabled by innovations in trust-based security of data built upon emerging infrastructures to aid federated data access in the UK education sector. Within the proposed architecture, users and data providers (within Virtual Organisations formed for specific learning needs) collaborate in a more dynamic and flexible manner by defining their own data-object-based security policies. This is enabled using a Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) that presents trusted services to ensure that these policies are both applied and enforced. The work is significant because it presents a new level of both distributed and live data integration into the ePortfolio domain. New data objects can be integrated into the learning process from emerging areas like social networking, giving the learning processes more depth. For the learner this approach enhances the quality and range of data that they can use in the ePortfolio, and has the potential to enhance the self-organised learning process, which for society in general will enhance learning processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the results of a research project based on the field testing of a course aimed at developing arithmetic problem solving skills in primary school pupils. The course was designed to incorporate e-learning techniques, including the use of ARI@ITALES authoring tools. These tools allowed the integration in the course of constructivist activities based on interaction with a set of different microworlds. The aims of the project were twofold: to analyse how the adopted approach and tools could help the teacher design and manage classroom activities integrating technology; and to evaluate the effectiveness of the ARI@ITALES tools for supporting pupils' acquisition of mathematical skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web-based courses are promising in that they are effective and have the possibility of their instructional design being improved over time. However, the assessments of said courses are criticized in terms of their validity. This paper is an exploratory case study regarding the validity of the assessment system used in a semi presential web-based course. The course uses an authentic assessment system that includes online forums, online tests, self-evaluations, and the assessment of e-learner processes and products by a tutor, peers, and an expert. The validity of the system was checked using internal and external criteria. The results show that the authentic assessment system addresses technical problems, especially regarding reliability of instruments. Some suggestions are proposed to strengthen authentic assessment in web-based courses and to test it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earlier work at unsupervised playground computer kiosks in rural India, popularly called 'hole-in-the-wall', showed that children exposed to these kiosks learn to use computers on their own and that they are able to clear school examinations in computer science, without any classroom teaching for it. Extending this, our recent research work examines the possible impact on attainments in other curricular subjects, arising from self-directed use of these kiosks. This paper investigates the impact of use of the playground computer kiosk, on school examination results, of students in a rural school in India over a 2.5-year period from 2002-2004. A comparative study was conducted, of students from a kiosk school and a non-kiosk school, as well as of frequent and infrequent users of the kiosk. The study covered groups of a total of 161 students who were aged 13-14 in 2004. Students were measured for differences in their intelligence, creativity potential, leadership potential, and frequency of kiosk use. The school results show a significant impact of kiosk usage on Mathematics achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a rationale for change in roles and practices of the participants in mathematics education MA courses and their instructor, based on the integration and use of a web log, both as a medium for asynchronous communication, and as a mechanism for provoking professional reflection, through changes in the discursive style and the social practices of participants. It reports research carried out with 48 mathematics teachers, as students of two six-month academic (MA) courses. A framework for research and practice in on line learning (Garrison & Anderson, 2003) is related to theoretical constructs from the fields of mathematics education and online learning and is used as a first analytical filter. In terms of identifying kinds of discourse, the analytical categories used have aided in clarifying specific patterns. The first seems to be that of the development of different writing genres and the informal discursive style embedded in teachers' narratives. The second is the effort of participants to engage in communicatively demanding situations, adopting different roles and behaviours. These roles and behaviours are summarised in three profiles: the "blog enthusiast", the "blog frequent visitor" and the "blog sceptic". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents recommendations for the design of conceptual models for applications via handheld devices such as personal digital assistants and some mobile phones. The recommendations were developed over a number of years through experience that involves design of conceptual models, and applications of these multimedia representations with students in schools and higher education. Three sets of design recommendations are discussed: design presentation of conceptual models, small screen design, and design in relation to specific learning uses. These recommendations should prove useful to designers of multimedia resources and professionals engaged in instructional uses of these representations. The article calls for researchers to pay more attention to the design of conceptual models and other forms of multimedia resources and their instructional uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the rising of Web 2.0 has made online community gradually become popular, like facebook, blog, etc. As a result, the online knowledge sharing network formed by interpersonal interaction is now a major character of Web 2.0, and therefore, by this trend, we try to build up a collaborative service mechanism and further set up an analysis mechanism under which. A similarity analysis was conducted on learners' personal data in order to recommend learning partners of the same interests and specialties to learners. Under this recommendation mechanism, we can support Mobile Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning activities (MCSCL), building up learner-oriented mobile learning knowledge networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative problem solving (CPS) can support online learning by enabling interactions for social and cognitive processes. Teachers may not have sufficient knowledge to support such interactions, so support needs to be designed into learning modules for this purpose. This study investigates to what extent an online module for teaching nutrition in secondary school science, using a wiki for CPS, enables interactions, and social and cognitive processes. The module was implemented with 31 volunteer participants. Data collected from the online communications was analyzed for the types of interactions and processes based on the Community of Inquiry Framework. This was triangulated using transcripts of interviews with students. In addition, pretests and posttests were conducted to determine whether the learning outcomes were achieved. Analysis of the online communications showed that the interactions were mainly between learner and content (64.4%), with a large portion of cognitive processes (69.3%) but little social (4.0%), attitudes (9.9%), teaching processes (12.9%) and noise (5.9%). The findings suggest that the module could be used to improve outcomes of learning and encourage interactions for cognitive processes and online presences. The findings may provide insights in encouraging CPS for learning science online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the effect of listening to podcasts on Iranian upper- intermediate EFL learners' selfregulation ability and their perception toward the use of technology. To meet the objectives of the current study, 54 female Iranian EFL learners were selected. In experimental group they listened to podcast files while in the control group they listened to a radio program. The practices were done through cognitive and metacognitive strategies. A self-regulation ability questionnaire was administered among the participants of both groups. Also, the data obtained from learners' self-reflection journals were added and interpreted qualitatively and supported the results of this study. Keeping a self-reflection journal provided a detailed account of learners' thoughts and perception regarding their listening to podcasts. It revealed learners' positive prospective toward podcasting application in the language learning process and it was clear that the participants in experimental group played a much more dynamic role as a learner. According to the findings of this study use of podcasts as an educational technology can significantly influence and foster self-regulation ability of the learners. Most participants showed a positive perception toward the use of podcast as an educational technology in language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intercultural communication is now a crucial part of our globalizing lives; however, not everyone has an opportunity to engage in an intercultural interaction with people from different cultures. Computer-based technologies are promising in creating environments for people to communicate with people from diverse cultures. This qualitative synthesis of quantitative and qualitative research therefore aimed to investigate the literature in respect to intercultural learning through technology use. Besides reporting research descriptives in the literature, this review brought eight main points to the light: (1) an overall satisfaction with digital tools and intercultural learning, (2) increased knowledge toward both own and target culture, (3) superficial and factbased exchange between similar cultures and profiles, (4) varied levels of intercultural communicative competence development, (5) lack of in-depth analysis and of detailed reports, (6) necessity for training, guidance, and good communication skills, (7) need for stimulating contexts, and (8) technical and institutional challenges. The current study is timely to help researchers and practitioners to both comprehend the existing literature and to find new research and practice directions in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes an empirical investigation of technology-enhanced peacemaking in a conflict-stressed school environment. The peacemaking intervention required students in conflict-laden groups to collaborate on various game-like learning activities on a multitouch interactive tabletop, over the span of three weeks. Student interviews and video observations provided evidence that tabletops can become a means for communication and collaboration giving the chance for students in conflict to share a common space, shifting attitudes and improving their relationships. The study elaborates on the affordances of tabletops as they become apparent in the context of peacemaking, unpacking the still widely unexplored potential of multitouch interactive technology in peace education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Web allows self-navigated education through interaction with large amounts of Web resources. While enjoying the flexibility of Web tools, authors may suffer from research and filtering Web resources, when they face various resources formats and complex structures. An adaptation of extracted Web resources must be assured by authors, to give reliability, satisfaction of learners and content quality of E-learning platform. This study has proposed Fusion of Web resources approach to this problem and organized resources to an Adaptive Learning Domain into E-learning platform. The focus was firstly, on searching tools and filtering methods to extract the most relevant educational Web resources and structuring them to create courses, secondly, on adaptation of extracted Web resources. Our approach explores a new process of fusion in creation and in adaptation to learner's profiles. That approach doesn't need much time and many efforts which can be taken and done by authors to create courses. It also finds direct way to Web resources which are needed, and the update of courses that can be done directly from the Web with the reuse of extracted resources. The evaluation of this work has given high performance in comparison with different methods of course's creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology empowers one to access vast amounts of on-line data. From a learning perspective, however, it is difficult to access meaningful on-site information within a given context. The Hypercontextualized Game (HCG) design model interweaves on-site resources, translated as content, and the digital game. As a local game design process, HCG builds on the resources available on-site (context) and transfers them beyond their origin (hyper). A successful example is the HCG stories in LieksaMyst, an application developed for the Pielinen Museum, in which the player is guided through a series of activities by a virtual host from the historic past. It took three years of extensive work and research for the LieksaMyst HCG stories to mature from brainstorming concepts to a fully-fledged museum service. Curators, educational technology experts and a total of 476 visitors (from 6 to 77 years old) contributed to the design process. The analysis of the context and feedback from the visitors enabled us to choose media, content and activities suitable to the Pielinen Museum. Our findings indicate that quality time, sincere reflection and communication between local experts and potential players, are indispensable when designing a HCG based game. The analysis benefits researchers and practitioners who are interested in the ways in which a game can bridge the gap between people and relevant on-site information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more and more undergraduate students act as voluntary tutors to rural pupils after school, there is a growing need for a supporting environment to facilitate adaptive instruction. Among others, a teaching method retrieval system is intended to help tutors find relevant teaching methods for teaching a particular concept. However, teaching methods demanded by tutors might not be in well-organized forms or even unwritten. Thus, the technology of conventional information retrieval cannot be simply applied to retrieve teaching methods. Therefore, we propose to invite experts (teachers) to join the support environment and provide ad hoc teaching methods. Nevertheless, it is difficult for tutors to decide how long they will wait for replies from remote teachers, which is called a due time setting problem. Furthermore, a trade-off inherent in the problem is that an early reply does not necessarily mean a good one. Our idea is to propose an interactive approach to deal with the uncertainty during retrieving teaching methods. In this study, we define this problem and evaluate several waiting strategies. A prototype has been designed and implemented, and experiments have been conducted to evaluate the performance of the four waiting strategies. The results show that waiting strategies have a significant impact on retrieval performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software for simulation-based learning of electronics was implemented to help learners understand complex and abstract concepts through observing external representations and exploring concept models. The software comprises modules for visualization and simulative manipulation. Differences in learning performance of using the learning software either with or without the simulative manipulation module were investigated in 49 college sophomores. The learning performance was higher for learning software utilizing simulative manipulation and visualization yields than for that lacking simulative manipulation, which suggests that learning performance can be enhanced if visualized learning can appropriately integrate simulative manipulation activities. An analysis of the learning process revealed that the use of simulative manipulation activities to verify and clarify the existing knowledge is crucial to improving the learning performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project attempts to improve electronic portfolio software through the creation of a design model using ownership, ease of use, and social learning variables to predict user adoption. The pilot software attempts to encourage student learning by enhancing peer interaction. The software was used by two groups of students. The first group used it to submit course portfolios as a department-wide assessment program. The second group used it to complete a MBA course. Usage logs shows that students heavily used the social learning features. Survey results validate the design model; ease of use, social learning, and ownership proved to be critical variables in predicting user satisfaction. Interview results triangulate survey results. Future work shows promise in promoting higher standards by showcasing top content, as well as in helping students become intellectually engaged with their peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business intelligence and information logistics have become an important part of teaching curricula in recent years due to the increased demand for adequately trained graduates. Since these fields are characterized by a high amount of software and methodology innovations, teaching materials and teaching aids require constant updating. Teradata has teamed up with lecturers and researchers to build and run a portal to support teaching business intelligence and information logistics. This article describes how faculty can use the Teradata University Network (TUN) to prepare and run courses by reusing teaching materials and running state-of-the-art commercial software provided in an application service provider model. It furthermore describes experiences with an actual course on management information systems taught by the authors. Students' feedback on the course design is presented and conclusions are drawn on two similar courses. Our action research results show that students' adoption of and feedback about such courses has been very encouraging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent trends reveal that models of culture aid in mapping the design and analysis of information and communication technologies. Therefore, models of culture are powerful tools to guide the building of instructional products and services. This research examines the construction of the culture based model (CBM), a model of culture that evolved from historical and linguistic analyses of instructional products designed by and for African Americans. The findings extrapolated from the analyses reveal a treasure of cultural remnants. The cultural remnants provide evidence of how culture manifested in the instructional products. This data was further refined and generalized for a cross-cultural audience, resulting in the design factors of CBM. CBM is an intercultural instructional design framework that guides designers through the management, design, development, and assessment process while taking into account explicit culture-based considerations. The structure of CBM is presented and some ideas on its practical application are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While researchers have studied the use and value of educational software for many years, study of school Web sites and/or their effectiveness is limited. In this investigation, we identified goals and functions of school Web sites and used the foundations of effective Web site design to develop an evaluation checklist. We then applied these criteria to a random sample of Web sites to identify the extent to which the key features were evident in them. The majority of the elementary school Web sites surveyed provided evidence of basic design principles; however, scores were not as good for structure, design, general components, and general ratings. Based on our findings, we derived and present a set of guidelines for developing and improving elementary school Web sites. We also suggest that future research efforts should examine contextual factors influencing the effectiveness of elementary school Web sites and how various stakeholders use elementary school Web sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a project that explores strategies for narrowing the digital divide by providing a practicable e-learning option for the millions living outside the ambit of high performance computing and communication technology. The concept is introduced of a learning computer, a low bandwidth tool that provides a simplified, specialised e-learning environment which works with or without an internet connection. This concept is contrasted with the Learning Management System model widely adopted by universities, in which teaching material is accessed as web pages from a central repository. The development of an initial prototype and its field testing under realistic conditions is reviewed, and plans for future work outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article suggests that stakeholders involved in quality development need a specific competence, called quality literacy, in order to successfully improve learning processes. We introduce and describe quality literacy as a set of competencies that are needed for professional quality development. Quality literacy emphasises the importance of professionalism as a necessary component for quality development, in addition to structural quality management models. We argue that quality development is a co-production between learners and their learning environment. This means that the educational process can only be influenced and optimised through participation and not steered externally. Quality strategies cannot, therefore, guarantee a high quality of learning processes but rather aim at professionalisation of the educational process and stakeholders. This article suggests participation and negotiation between educational stakeholders (clients and providers) as a main condition for quality development. In addition, we present a quality model that conceptualises quality as a potential that can only be achieved through interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, the new quality standard for learning, education, and training, ISO/IEC 19796-1, was published. Its purpose is to help educational organizations to develop quality systems and to improve the quality of their processes, products, and services. In this article, the standard is presented and compared to existing approaches, showing the methodology and its advantages for educational organizations. However, since the standard is a reference model, it has to be adapted to the needs and requirements of an organization. Hence, the main aspect is the adoption and implementation process: How can ISO/IEC 19796-1 successfully be implemented in educational organizations and support the variety of involved actors? To answer this question, the quality adaptation model identifies steps and instruments to bring the abstract standard into practice. The article closes with a case study evaluating the use and adequacy of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of "information commitments" refers to both learners' online searching strategies and the evaluative standards that students use to assess the accuracy and usefulness of information in web-based learning environments. Based upon the results of a pioneering and qualitative study on information commitments, this study aimed to develop an Information Commitments Survey (ICS) for assessing the information commitments of 1220 college and graduate students. A series of multivariate multiple regression analyses were also conducted to evaluate the ability of students' evaluative standards as well as their Internet experiences for predicting their online searching strategies. The results showed that the ICS was deemed to be sufficiently reliable for assessing students' information commitments. Gender differences regarding the participants' usage of certain searching strategies were found in this study. Moreover, the students' grade level as well as their Internet experiences played a significant role in their information commitments. The multivariate multiple regression analyses revealed that both the students' use of sophisticated evaluative standards and their Internet experiences significantly predicted the use of sophisticated searching strategies, while their use of less advanced evaluative standards significantly predicted the use of less advanced searching strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies three uses of educational technology and evaluates their potential to change curricula and pedagogic strategies. The article is in four parts, with the first outlining a temporal model of change and discussing educators' expectations of continuities and discontinuities in practice. In order to distinguish minor modifications from culturally significant changes in practice, the second part recaps a variant of Merlin Donald's cognitive-cultural theory of human evolution. The third part adopts this theoretical perspective and classifies uses of multimedia-hypertext systems, generic software, and computer modelling software, as instances of functional substitution, delegation and innovation. The fourth and final part of the article evaluates the change potential of these types of use, with substitution sustaining existing teaching strategies and curricula, with delegation modifying practice, and with innovation prompting culturally significant change. The article concludes by suggesting that functional substitution and delegation dominate present-day uses of technology and that functional innovation will continue to present both challenges and opportunities to future generations of educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]