Group items tagged

This paper presents the first experimental evidence on the effects of live versus internet media of instruction. Students in a large introductory microeconomics course at a major research university were randomly assigned to live lectures versus watching these same lectures in an internet setting, where all other factors (e.g., instruction, supplemental materials) were the same. Counter to the conclusions drawn by a recent U.S. Department of Education meta-analysis of non-experimental analyses of internet instruction in higher education, we find modest evidence that live-only instruction dominates internet instruction. These results are particularly strong for Hispanic students, male students, and lower-achieving students. We also provide suggestions for future experimentation in other settings.

The authors are very misleading in their claim that this study is the first on live versus internet. There is a huge literature on this topic stretching back decades. The claims about the generalizability of the study are also very suspect.

Chris, I think the authors are claiming it is the first experimental trial where participants were randomly assigned to a treatment or control condition. They contrast their study with the DOE meta-analysis, which I don't think includes experimental studies--at least as experiments are defined within econometrics. My problem with the study is that they are aren't really comparing live vs. internet so much as live vs. recorded video. They are very careful to not take advantage of any of the potential affordances of internet mediated instruction, except broadcasting a lecture, to preserve the "purity" of their experiment. Of course, that's not a terribly interesting experiment. The more interesting experiments, which they deride as "not apples-to-apples," is to compare a traditional lecture format with an online course that takes full advantage of the affordances of the internet. These studies would confound the carefully balanced design of an apples-to-apples comparison, but no serious education technologist thinks we should just record all the lectures and post them...

Interesting look at a few sites and technologies targeted toward college students to "assist" them in learning and studying. The question is...are these actual beneficial to students or is the focus simply on making money for the companies producing these sites?

Mixing social media and academic learning may be difficult

Call for research proposals!  Connected Learning has very interesting educational, research, and design principles; this study asks from group of participants who are engaged in connected learning environments.

Mobile apps seem to enhance study habits, including classroom assignments. It also benefits the teachers.

Many studies, contradictory results, whom to believe?

iPhone app used to conduct psychology study. The ubiquitous nature of smartphones today can make conducting research studies easier.

It's been said that a wandering mind I think lead to innovation (because it allows the mind time to connect dots). Maybe a better title would have been "Distracted mind not a happy mind" ?

The best way to study languages, vocabulary, or almost anything P.S. It's fun, it's free, and you can share with friends!

#HGSET561 A great way to study languages, vocubulary, or almost anything. Attended the founder speak at MIT Bootcamp. http://quizlet.com/

A new free app called Hoot.me allows students to collaborate on Facebook to study and do homework without being distracted by status updates.

This article details the findings of a recent study of 6th, 7th and 8th graders in Arizona that found that the students that used a new math and science curriculum called Adaptive Curriculum scored higher on post-tests and assessments than students with the traditional curriculum. The new treatment teaches conceptual understanding of math through content and technology, and emphasizes real-world, informal applications of math and science. 

Ipad app that teaches fractions

I tend to agree with Professor Cuban - "IPads are marvelous tools to engage kids, but then the novelty wears off and you get into hard-core issues of teaching and learning." The real challenge is to convert the initial excitement and performance improvement into sustained progress. The key may be in leveraging the increased self-efficacy of students.

This article makes me wonder about the novelty bump you get when you try anything new. In EcoMuve, they researched the effectiveness of EcoMuve vs a new ecology classroom based activity. This tactic is measuring the effectiveness of the technology. However in these studies, if they had kids using a computer game to practice fractions, did the control group practice fractions using a classroom based activity? 15% growth is not much to get excited about.

Interesting study on how human beings interact with robots and how to make robots 'friendly' to humans.

Despite the wealth of information available on the Internet, a recent study suggests that many students lack basic research skills. According to the latest Project Information Literacy Progress Report, 84 percent of students say that when it comes to course-based research, getting started is their biggest challenge.

Maybe we don't know how smart animals and birds really are. Just like we didn't know for a long time how early babies can count.

Study with 350 children, ages 8-12, from Australia, France, Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, suggests that Robots may inspire new learning and creativity possibilities.

A pretty bold assertion - "On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction."

I believe it. Having come as close to a controlled study of this as is possible in day-to-day life (taught the same course in classrooms and online), there's definitely a different level of engagement online.

This is the .gov web site listing PDFs of all current Education policies, research,studies and initiatives.

Research study on how TV, and educational interactive video games improves the literacy of low-income, Pre-K children.

Very interesting article. "iREAD (Impact on Reading of E-Readers And Digital content) Ghana Pilot Study" Another example showing us the traditional standardized test doesnt seem to be a suitable type of assessment here. But in addition to that there are many interesting findings related to IT literacy, benefits of the teachers and increased access to learning materials. (never really thought a simple hardware such as e-reader itself will be this 'transformational' to certain countries across the world)