Educational Technologies - ODL

"Game consoles have been adopted as a learning platform in school education. However, there is a scarcity of studies examining the utility of games consoles with built-in WiFi as affordable learning platforms in universities. This paper contributes to knowledge about the capacity of the Nintendo DSi to create new learning spaces mediated and supported by DSi consoles, free Flipnote Studio software for DS and a dedicated course website. An application of the DSi is described for remote supplemental language tutorial activities linking a dispersed body of students on a year-abroad programme. It was found that the use of DSi as a mobile learning platform has great potential if it is used in combination with shared webspace, such as Hatena, by increasing students' learning motivation and eliminating fears/uncertainty about their progress."

"A number of factors can influence learning from lectures such as students' prior knowledge, their motivation, the instructional design, the lecturer and so forth. Instructional aid techniques such as preparing class notes, giving quizzes (either planned or spot quizzes) and the like can be used to maximise learning. This study uses two well-documented tools for learning from text-advance organisers and higher order questions-adapted for use with podcasts. Student evaluations of their experience of being primed for lectures with podcasts are described. The findings show that audio advance organisers and questions experienced by students have a positive influence on learning, because they help students bridge the conceptual distance between new and prior knowledge, better understand the topics in the lectures and stimulate thinking more deeply about the lecture's content and the possible applications of the subject of the lecture."

""How to" guides and software training resources support the development of the skills and confidence needed to teach in virtual classrooms using web-conferencing software. However, these sources do not often reveal the subtleties of what it is like to be a facilitator in such an environment-what it feels like, what issues might emerge and what personal challenges will be faced. This paper reports findings from a phenomenological study guided by the following question: "how do experienced teachers describe and understand their experiences in synchronous virtual classrooms?" which aimed to find out what it is like to be a teacher in a virtual classroom. The transcripts of semi-structured interviews with four experienced web-conferencing users across the UK were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. One of the themes that emerged-"facilitating in a demanding environment"-is explored in this paper to give an insight into participants' experiences and some of the challenges faced when encouraging interaction in an environment where feedback is limited. The discussion may be relevant to those developing their practice in virtual classrooms, as well as staff developers and software designers."

"This paper reflects on the use of Facebook as an online learning environment for first year design students from 2008 to 2011. Between 2008 and 2010 three student cohorts from the University of Adelaide engaged with their peers through forums hosted by Facebook, submitting work-in-progress imagery and critiquing peers' submissions. In 2011 the study expanded to include national and international collaborators with first year cohorts from Swinburne University in Australia, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore also participating, allowing students to interact with their global peers. The online forum facilitated increased peer interaction, particularly between local and international students, and improved academic performance as a result of consistent feedback from a range of sources. At the end of 2011 students from the four participating cohorts between 2008 and 2011 were invited to take part in a survey reflecting on and evaluating the learning experiences in Facebook. The results highlighted many positive outcomes regarding the online forum, and have led to the establishment of a series of recommendations for the future use of Facebook as a learning tool, outlined at the conclusion of this paper."

"Applying the Theory of Reasoned Action, this paper presents a survey instrument that measures the correlation between students' attitudes and their behavior intention to use Second Life virtual environments. One hundred and sixty-two library and information science students were introduced to Second Life virtual environments during a face-toface training session and completed a survey instrument afterward. The survey yielded a Cronbach alpha of 0.95, indicating a high reliability test score. Factor loadings for attitude and behavior intention were 76.54% and 56.02%, respectively, suggesting robust construct validity. The correlation coefficient between latent variables attitude and behavior intention was 0.54. This paper suggests approaches to motivate student intentions to use Second Life in higher education. "

"Institutions are developing online courses that contain rich multimedia, but research shows there is little difference in student achievement when these types of materials are included. However, many studies report the results of the presence, not the access, of multimedia learning objects. In addition, they do not categorize the multimedia as supplemental or required. To better understand the relationship between multimedia inclusion and student success, this study investigates student access of three categories of supplemental multimedia in an online course and uses access data as a filter for comparing student final grades. A summary of statistically significant differences in mean final grades at four levels of supplemental multimedia access is included."

"This study examined the effects of an instructor's use of video casting as a nonverbal emotional cue in synchronous discussion sessions on students' social presence, satisfaction, and learning achievement. A quasi-experimental design was used to evaluate the effect of video casting in a synchronous virtual classroom. The research setting was a 100% online master's degree program within a university located in the midwestern United States. Thirty-three students participated in the experiment. The results showed a significant positive effect of the video casting on students' feeling of instructor copresence. No significant effect of video casting was found on either students' satisfaction or learning achievement."

"The increasingly widespread use of iPads in higher education (HE) brings to the forefront questions about the contribution of these computer tablets towards teaching and learning. However, there is a noticeable gap of research on the instructional potential of iPads in HE. This paper describes the first stage of a research project on the use of iPads in undergraduate art and design disciplines, and is a collaboration between the research lab "Networked Learning Technologies in Art and Design" at Cyprus University of Technology, and the "Centre for Pedagogic Research" at Falmouth University in England. The participants from both institutions provided a student-centred perspective, and the qualitative analysis (phenomenography) revealed varied perceptions. Based on the findings of this project, the implication is that there are a number of challenges and obstacles in embedding the use of iPads in art and design education. Further research in the second stage of this collaborative research will investigate the views and motivations of art and design faculty."

"Educational technology is increasingly used in multicultural contexts and across national cultures. Educational technology users with different national and professional backgrounds may, however, exhibit different attitudes towards technology. Previous research provides isolated evidence of the relationship between learning technology acceptance and culture, and so an overall picture is missing. Therefore, this study attempts to integrate culture (sensu Hofstede) into an established technology acceptance model (ie, Venkatesh's Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, UTAUT). Examining a large sample (n = 2866) of learning technology users from Germany and Romania by means of questionnaire survey, we investigate the differences in culture and technology acceptance between sample subgroups. The collected data reveal the presence of cultural differences both between countries and between professions. In line with previous research, these differences are associated with dissimilar acceptance profiles, ie, different values of acceptance variables and of path coefficients between them. Based on the findings, this study makes headway in cross-cultural research by proposing an extended model of UTAUT-one which integrates three of Hofstede's culture dimensions. As a practical implication, national and professional culture may shape computer-based learning environments."

"This paper examines the effect of a podcasting task on the examination performance of several hundred first-year chemistry undergraduate students. Educational researchers have established that a deep approach to learning that promotes active understanding of meaning can lead to better student outcomes, higher grades and superior retention of knowledge over time. We attempted to promote such an approach by setting a task that involved student collaboration, contextualisation of content, and communication through new media, specifically creative podcasting. Examination results were used as a source of empirical evidence of changes in understanding and retention that occurred for students who completed this task. In comparing results across 2 years on similar questions related to the podcasting topics, we found a statistically significant improvement after introduction of the podcasting task on the questions related to one of the topics on which students had actively created their own podcasts ("acids & bases"), but not on the other ("oxidisation and reduction"). Improved learning outcomes in the form of better understanding and retention over time in at least one case suggest that under some circumstances creative podcasting may indeed help to promote a deep learning approach."

"This paper systematically reviews current research on using iPads in the higher education sector. Since the release of iPads by Apple in 2010, this new technology has been quickly adopted everywhere, especially by the younger generation and professionals. We were motivated to find out how iPads have been adopted for use in the higher education sector. We searched for and collected all the peer-reviewed publications in conference proceedings and scholarly journals in EBSCOhost, Scopus, Informit A+ Education, ProQuest Academic Research Library and Google Scholar, and conducted a content analysis of the full-text papers collected. The results show that the reported studies are at an early exploratory stage from both the student and staff perspectives. From the student perspective, the iPad was found to enhance the learning experience but not necessarily lead to better learning outcomes. From the staff perspective, the iPad was found to offer benefits associated with electronic information dissemination, academic administration and professional development support. A finding common to both perspectives is that while the iPad has the potential to offer benefits to the academics and students who were found to be eager adopters of this technology, it is not clear how best to align and integrate it within the academic programmes and workflows, and how best to manage it as a resource within a university's organisational setting."

"The purpose of this exploratory investigation was to share the strengths, challenges, and tensions of using Facebook in an undergraduate nursing program. The observations presented have emerged from information shared by study participants and the professional insights of the three researcher-authors who represent perspectives from nursing, education, and technology-enabled teaching and learning. The theoretical framework used to guide the study was Drexler's (2010) Networked Student as well as ideas based on work by Siemens (2010) and Downes (2012). Findings suggest that use of Facebook in professional programs such as nursing provides an opportunity for the modeling of professional behaviour by students and teachers. However, concerns about privacy, misinformation, and a lack of professionalism are also present in the discussions of Facebook in professional programs. As a learning strategy, Facebook is recommended when pedagogical benefits are anticipated and clear and transparent guidelines regarding its use have been established by the user group. It is respectfully acknowledged that there are many social media options available to students and teachers to support learning in a professional program. Facebook, however, was the focus of this study given its unique prevalence among university students at the present time. The paper is a first step in looking at how Facebook and other social media experiences may play a role in supporting learning in professional programs offered by universities."

This exploratory study seeks to examine how the use of student-written blogs support student learning through the student perspective. The blogs were introduced to provide support in four distinct areas: as a medium for facilitating learning; as a medium for interactivity; as a medium for metacognitive thought and reflection; and as a learning tool. This study was conducted over the course of one academic year with undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in a blended learning university located in the United Arab Emirates. Results indicate that for the students in this study, the use of blogs provided support in all four identified areas, as well as in additional areas not expected by the researchers. This paper provides details of the results of the data analysis, provides suggestions for classroom implementation, discusses the limitations of this research study, and proposes research questions which can guide future research studies on this topic.