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Numerous research publications have mentioned the need to prepare teachers to design and enact technologically enhanced learning experiences for students, thus increasing their academic performance and their engagement when learning. This paper addresses the crucial issue of how to train pre‐service and novice teachers effectively to become good designers of Moodle‐based units of learning (UoLs), and to improve their critical thinking skills when engaging in peer‐review sessions. A teacher training professional development approach for teachers that requires trainees to elicit, depict, reflect on, share design ideas, and co‐create small UoLs in a Moodle learning management system is proposed. The training process follows the phases of the Think–Pair–Share learning strategy, and makes use of the features of the CADMOS graphic learning design editor that allows designers to see a preview of their unit of learning in Moodle. The findings of an evaluation study with 28 trainees showed that the proposed approach was easy to follow, and led to the creation of good‐quality, re‐usable designs for Moodle‐based UoLs and enhanced trainees' design thinking skills. Transformations in the way in which the newly minted learning designers thought, acted, and reflected were observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gamification is the use of game design elements in nongame contexts and has been shown to be effective in motivating behavior change. By seeing game elements as "motivational affordances," and formalizing the relationship between these elements and motivational affordances, it is the position of this article that gamification can be effectively applied to improve software systems across many different application domains. The research reported here aims to formalize the relationship between game elements and motivation, toward making gamification's use more systematic. The focus is on the development of a framework linking commonly occurring game elements with the components of a psychological motivational model known as the self-determination theory, coupled with a proposed framework of commonly occurring game elements. The goal is to inform system designers who would like to leverage gamification of the game elements they would need to employ as motivational affordances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The market is full of vendors selling products each designed to solve institutional problems. But how does one choose the right tool for their institution and situation? Topics addressed in this chapter include: how to gauge institutional needs, how to evaluate products, and understand the available institutional resources (current and future). The chapter concludes by offering six suggestions for IR offices (and professionals) when they start to consider vendor products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large amounts of data used nowadays have motivated research and development in different disciplines in order to extract useful information with a view to analyzing it to solve difficult problems. Data mining and machine learning are two computing disciplines that enable analysis of huge data sets in an automated manner. In this paper, we give an overview of several applications using these disciplines in education, particularly those that use some of the most successful methods in the machine learning community, such as artificial neural networks, decision trees, Bayesian learning and instance-based methods. Although these two areas of artificial intelligence have been applied in many real-world problems in different fields, such as astronomy, medicine, and robotics, their application in education is relatively new. The search was performed mainly on databases such as EBSCO, Elsevier, Google Scholar, IEEEXplore and ACM. We hope to provide a useful resource for the education community by presenting this review of approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We developed a software system consisting of a container app for smartphones and a web portal. The container app, named 'MimasAR' (iOS container app: ; Android container app: ) can be used to recognize Chinese characters on printed media quickly and reliably for intuitive and interactive Chinese learning. The web portal - MIMAS () is a fast tool for creating various sub-apps within the container app, simply by uploading and linking prepared contents. Teachers or educational content providers can then create smartphone apps easily for their own teaching topics, even without any programming skills. Different from Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, which is sensitive to the orientation of the character image and its background, our approach can recognize the character accurately from any angle. It does not matter whether the character is printed in uncommon fonts, on cluttered background or marred by drawings around it. The character recognition is reliable and fast without requiring the user to capture the image from the character at its upright position. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability of user-friendly coding software is increasing, yet teachers might hesitate to use this technology to develop for educational needs. This paper discusses studies related to technology for educational uses and introduces an evaluation application being developed. Through questionnaires by student users and open-ended discussion by the developers, the feasibility of educators to be involved in developing a new evaluation application is discussed. Results showed user satisfaction level of the application was high overall, although application updates incorporating feedback from users should be considered. Developing an evaluation application was achieved, and recommendations of design and software development are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates learner preferences for the format of feedback when using technology-based instruction ( TBI). The primary method of data collection was to provide subjects with a range of options for TBI feedback following responses to multiple-choice questions and then observe their choices. A software tool both presented the feedback options and tracked subsequent interactions. Over a 3-year period, data were collected relating to 2066 postgraduate students studying one or more of three items of TBI. These students responded to a total of 61 929 questions. In addition, a series of semi-structured interviews were conducted which investigated why subjects made their choices and the factors that affect these choices. Recommendations to educators regarding the content, timing and delivery of TBI feedback are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing students with high quality feedback is important and can be achieved using computer-based systems. While student and educator perspectives of such systems have been investigated, a comprehensive multidisciplinary study has not yet been undertaken. This study examines student and educator perspectives of a computer-based assessment and feedback system at undergraduate and postgraduate levels across a range of disciplines, course sizes and educator experience levels. The results suggest that students and educators may enjoy quality, efficiency and quantity benefits from such an approach, without the drawbacks of low personalisation and specificity identified within the literature. Time and effort are, however, required by educators for training and installation. Thus, workload and training allowances are recommended for practitioners, particularly for large courses where group assignments require highly personalised feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study takes a design-based research approach to explore how applications designed for mobile devices could support reflection in learning in K-12 education. Use of mobile devices is increasing in schools. Most of the educational apps support single-person use of interactive learning materials, simulations and learning games. Apps designed to correspond to collaborative learning paradigms, such as collaborative progressive inquiry or project-based learning, are scarce. In these pedagogical approaches, reflection plays an important role. This paper presents a design-based research study of mobile device apps, Re Flex and Team Up, that are specifically designed for use in student-centred and collaborative school learning, in which continuous reflection is an important part of the learning process. The design of the apps has relied on earlier research on digital tools for reflection and research about mobile devices in classroom learning. The design of the apps was accomplished as part of the qualitative design-based research conducted with a total of 165 teachers in 13 European countries. As a characteristic for a design-based research, the results of the study are twofold: practical and theoretical. The apps designed, Re Flex and Team Up, are practical results of the qualitative research carried out in schools with teachers and students to understand the design challenges and opportunities in schools, to renew their pedagogical practices and to take new tools in use. To understand better the capacity of the apps to facilitate reflection, we analysed the apps in light of earlier studies concerning the levels of reflection that digital tools may support and categorisations of affordances that mobile device apps may provide for classroom learning. Our research indicates that there is potential for fostering the practice of reflection in classroom learning through the use of apps for audio-visual recordings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Social Affairs is the property of Journal of Social Affairs and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Emotion detection using facial images is a technique that researchers have been using for the last two decades to try to analyze a person's emotional state given his/her image. Detection of various kinds of emotion using facial expressions of students in educational environment is useful in providing insight into the effectiveness of tutoring sessions. Robust recognition with conventional 2D cameras is still not possible under realistic conditions, ie, in the presence of variation in lighting and illumination and pose variations of the participants. This paper discusses in brief how facial expression recognition from 3D models could be achieved for applications under various educational environments. 3D Face Model dataset for various facial expressions of about 95 undergraduate students of the Department of Information Science and Engineering was collected. The new dataset produced comprise 3D models of emotions represented by five groups of facial expressions, namely: normal, happy, sad, surprised and angry, which are mainly seen among students during their college days. These data were collected using a Kinect camera, which also gives the depth map for the facial expressions. The dataset collected is a point cloud. The Kinect camera measures a large number of points on the face of the person and this output is stored as a point cloud data ( PCD) file. The point cloud thus represents the sets of points that the camera has measured. The data are stored in the PCD file format, which supports the 3D point cloud data, and which can be viewed using any point cloud library ( PCL) viewer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the practice and evaluation of a music education model, In Harmony, which utilizes new technologies and current theories of learning to mediate the music learning experience. In response to the needs of twenty-first century learners, the educational software programs Teach, Learn, Evaluate! and Impromptu served as central components of the program’s curriculum. Moreover, drawing on educational theories that value general learning skills as prerequisites to scholastic achievement, the In Harmony program provided a context in which students could improve their working memory, self-regulation, and cognitive flexibility. The model was adopted internationally in Bloomington, IN and Jaffa, Israel, and featured individual tasks administered through computer software, as well as group music composition activities. By incorporating computer technology within the program’s design, and targeting the above-mentioned learning skills, we sought to strengthen the impact of the music lessons and deepen our understanding of the mechanisms linking music education and enhanced cognitive development. Quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the children’s working memory, self-regulation, and cognitive flexibility, as well as qualitative analyses of data collected during the intervention, indicated that the In Harmony model and the educational software used successfully scaffold musical instruction, with beneficial outcomes in fostering working memory, self-regulation, and cognitive flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses research performed regarding the use of learning analytics (LA) at the University of Michigan (U-M) to enhance student performance in physics courses. Details related to the development of the student support system E²Coach, the predictions of student performances, and the results of the study are provided.

The author outlines some of the benefits of building customized educational software from open-source tools and highlights specifically two such applications devised and implemented at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon. A collaborative team from the PNCA Library and the IT Department continue to refine these projects in an iterative design approach. The article discusses the process of software evaluation that led to the decision to build software in-house and focuses on the evolution of user needs as the applications are adopted on a wider scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HaD is a support teaching tool constituted by two basic elements: a Database and a management engine. It also has three levels of access: Administrator, Professor and Student. HaD functional structure coincides with the structural levels of the educational teaching process. The tool provides bibliography related to each subject: Basic, Complementary and for Consulting, as well as its correspondent analytic syllabus. Each contents of the syllabus have three elements: Previous Knowledge, Solved and Proposed Exercises. Every contents stored in the database can be exported from and to an external storage source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contrapontos is the property of Universidade do Vale do Itajai and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines factors related to the sustainability of SimCalc Mathworlds (SCMW), a technology-infused mathematics curriculum. We surveyed middle school teachers one year after their participation in a randomized trial where they were introduced to SCMW curriculum, to identify factors related to their continued use of the materials in ways congruent with the developers' intent. Fifty-two percent of teachers surveyed sustained their use of the SCMW curriculum. Factors related to sustained use included student SES, preintervention student mathematics ability, teachers' perceived coherence and perceived utility of the intervention, and the active nature of the SCMW professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The invention and active use of PowerPoint in university classroom has transitioned academic teaching from transparencies and overhead projectors into new ages of teaching and learning. The next challenge for professionals has been the appropriate and effective use of PowerPoint and lectures as it relates to working adults where a differing school of thought exist when lecturing through 50 to 100 PowerPoint slides as an effective way to engage graduate students. Progressive professors are using new tools that offer stories that provide context, relevance, and handles, for knowledge retention for graduate students through the use of case studies, simulations, and videos, including Donald Trump's The Apprentice. This paper provides contextual examples regarding how to use real world stories with student-centered teaching and learning as a means of engaging graduate students, connecting with them, and providing opportunities for the practical application of course content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A well-edited assessment can enhance student’s learning motives. Applicability of items, which includes item content and template, plays a crucial role in authoring a good assessment. Templates in discussion contain not only conventional true & false, multiple choice, completion item and short answer but also of those interactive ones. Methods provided for answering interactive question can be click and select, drag and drop, collide, and magnetize, while operational interactive templates can include Link, Match, Classification, and Order. During the process of item authoring, dilemma often appears since not all the same interactive item template can fit into testing for different knowledge types, and different item templates also have their limitations in assessing different knowledge types. This research intends to clarify what type of interactive multimedia item template is appropriate for a certain knowledge type, and to explore how interactive multimedia item template can integrate with Bloom’s Taxonomy. The result indicates that (1) Link template is applicable for Remembering type of knowledge; (2) Match template is suitable for Understanding and Applying type of knowledge; and (3) both Link and Match template can better evaluate Analyzing type of knowledge. Furthermore, for the underachiever, testee is most suitable for Link item on Remembering, Math item on Understanding, Match item on Applying, Match and Link item on Analyzing type of knowledge. Study result is intended to provide information for teachers as to what interactive multimedia item template can best achieve the expected assessment effect. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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]

Traditional tools used in education, are increasingly more complemented with computer based Instructional software. This paper presents an interactive approach for teaching the Digital Signal Processing (DSP) course. The effect of the Instructional Software on the achievement of students in the subject of DSP is compared to the conventional teaching method. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 18: 703-708, 2010; View this article online at ; DOI 10.1002/cae.20275 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Malaysian Journal of Distance Education is the property of Universiti Sains Malaysia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, we present the design, development, implementation and evaluation of educational software “Newton-3”, aiming at the learning of Newton’s Third Law by student-teachers who are not Physics majors. We describe the theoretical issues of our teaching approach and the various software tasks that we designed in order to promote students’ understanding. Specifically, the software is designed for the teaching of gravitational and electrostatic interactions between two distant bodies at rest. It is a web-based application and runs on a simple web browser with Macromedia Flash plug-in installed. The development of software and its integration into teaching–learning sequence is based on three main characteristics: the range of contexts in which the concept of force interaction applies, in the specification of the concept, and in an appropriate teaching learning environment (IDRF). We trialled the software on two groups of 8 primary school and 8 pre-school student-teachers, for 3 teaching periods, in the School of Education of our University. The research results indicate that the implementation was effective as the majority of the teacher-students improved their own knowledge concerning the existence and representation of gravitational and electrostatic interactions. An interesting result reveals that student-teachers have difficulty in perceiving the equality of magnitudes of action and reaction forces. This problem seems to be overcome after the teaching of the Inverse square law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the development of a natural language processing (NLP) system that implements a virtual conference for German elementary school children as pedagogical agent that supports writing tasks. It states that grammatical quality of learner output was evaluated and improved using a natural language generation technology where learners can enhance their sentences. It mentions that application of parsing technology in teacher mode allowed teachers to easily encode another stories.

Two randomized control/treatment experiments tested the effectiveness of Chartworld software on enhancing mathematical knowledge of 3rd-graders. In Experiment 1, 196 children were randomly assigned to receive either Chartworld or textbook instruction on number operations. ANCOVAs indicated significant group differences in favor of Chartworld in the magnitude ofposttest performance while controlling for pretested ability (p < .05). For Experiment 2, which covered divisibility and prime numbers, the results demonstrated significantly greater gains in conceptual knowledge for Chartworld (p < .001). These experiments provide corroborating evidence that Chartworld is an effective method of instructional delivery for conceptual knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much educational software is designed from a specific pedagogical stance. How teachers conceive of the pedagogical stance underlying the design will affect how they use the technology; these conceptions may vary from teacher to teacher and from teacher to designer. There may be a conflict between the designer's pedagogical beliefs inscribed in the educational technology innovation itself, and the teacher's pedagogical beliefs, which may affect the teachers' ability or desire to use the educational technology innovation. The purpose of this study is to contribute to our understanding of this issue by examining teachers' reflections on teaching and learning robotics through the discovery learning method. Data for the study were collected at a teacher professional development workshop series and at a robotics fair. A total of 20 middle and high school teachers participated in the study. Our findings indicate that teachers' perceptions of student learning needs influence their pedagogical practice and that these perceptions and practices may be affected through teaching and learning with discovery learning-based educational technologies. Teachers developed a strategy aimed at creating and managing a pedagogically productive tension in students. They also devised two modes of learning alongside students. Implications for future research regarding technology integration are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo considera la implementación de Enciclomedia, un programa de computadora educativo que utiliza materiales audio-visuales de concierto con los libros de texto, en las escuelas de Tabasco, México. Se analiza el desarrollo y el éxito del programa usando una metodología cualitativa. Según el autor, se identifican tres elementos claves que influyeron el proceso de desarrollo y implementación del programa, incluyendo estrategias de comunicación, organización y ecología.

It is of course very difficult to accurately project important characteristics of the future state of any rapidly evolving field, and the field of authoring systems for computer-assisted instruction (CAI) is no exception. However, strong trends in evolving CAI systems of today would seem to indicate some important characteristics of the software systems underlying tomorrow's automated instructional systems. Under the premise that form follows function, this paper will explore the functional impetus of some of the most important trends extant in terms of their roots in a powerful, emerging technology of instructional design. This technology promises to complement the advancing hardware and software technologies, by supplying that sine qua non of successful instructional materials. It is inevitable that systems of the future will make (and indeed are making) significant accommodations of this vital technology as it matures, and therefore some important characteristics of tomorrow's systems can be predicated upon what is already known of this technology of instructional design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text-to-speech (TTS) software enables computers to read electronic text files aloud using phonemic voice synthesis. Reading aloud to students can provide a scaffolded experience that results in successful comprehension, and TTS software is readily available. Yet observation of classrooms indicates very little use of this tool for computer-based reading despite its record of positive research results and teacher evaluations. Successful use appears to depend on classroom organizational patterns, teacher planning for its use, and teacher commitment to monitoring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Virginia Tech College of Engineering, which has implemented a plan to use tablet personal computers (PC) in some of its classes and required incoming students to own one themselves. Faculty at the school created the requirement because they believed that tablet PCs offered the best way to make lectures interactive, to allow students to participate in class more easily, and to increase collaborative learning. The benefits of the Classroom Presenter software program are discussed.

Advocates of the case method in accounting education have provided strong arguments in favour of this classroom approach. However, a primary objection has been unanswered. Cases generate 'canned' solutions that, when passed between students, jeopardize the accountability of individual efforts and the educational value of the exercise. Although students have leveraged computer technology to exacerbate this problem, academic staff generally have not 'fought fire with fire.' This paper shows how computer technology, through the use of artificial intelligence, can restore the confidence that each student will work his/her own case solution and, therefore, will extract the intended educational value from the effort. With computer technology made to act intelligently, the case method in accounting classes should become more robust as a primary pedagogical device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a review of the web-based language test DiaLang, which provides examinations on 14 languages.

Provides guidelines for choosing software to develop multimedia educational and training applications. Classification of five levels of applications; Interactive application development through an object-oriented interfaced-based simulation exercise in the area of construction equipment.

Reviews several computer software related to educational communications and technology. Accounting Fundamentals-Crash Course by Hightext Publications Inc.; Britannica CD 2.0; CornerStone Mathematics. INSETS: Young user review.;Special note..

Examines an alternative approach to research design in educational technology through media and methods. Description of a software package system; Practical application; Criticism of R. Clark's replaceability challenge.