Computers and Education Open最新文献

Large corporations active in the field of educational technology shape needs, perceptions, attitudes, expectations, and values related to technology use in education. In order to better understand how these corporations frame the role of technology in educational settings, it is crucial to critically analyze how they present and promote their products and services. Through a discourse analysis approach, this study examined the homepages of two of the major players in educational technology, namely Google for Education and Microsoft Education. Findings show that the discourse put forth by these companies positions technology as a transformative agent that can revitalize a stagnant educational system. In this picture, teachers and students are presented as incomplete and lost beings on the path towards an alarmingly indeterminate future, which can be only overcome by the technologies and services offered by these corporations. The potential of these technologies is presented as limitless, low-cost, for everyone, and available anywhere and anytime. In this deterministic “technology as a solution” framework, technology is depicted as an inevitable choice for the advancement of people and society. This study shows that, by critically approaching and analyzing corporate discourse, students, teachers, and other stakeholders can develop an outlook that cuts through marketing strategies and the hype surrounding learning technologies. In turn, this can promote reflective practices, support decision-making processes, and redefine expectations related to the role of technology in education and society.

This paper seeks to define online engagement fatigue. The need for a definition is twofold. First, the increased reliance on the internet for the full delivery of higher education courses could result in online engagement fatigue. Second, a clear definition is required for the theoretical construct of online engagement fatigue to ensure meaningful research and to advance knowledge. Thus, the challenge is to understand what online engagement fatigue is and what are its consequences for students and educators. A social constructionist approach was used to develop an emergent definition of online engagement fatigue, which was then refined through a qualitative exploration of how it is perceived by students and educators. The perceptions that students and educators hold about online engagement fatigue were collected through interviews with 18 students and ten educators. There were differences in how the students and educators perceived online engagement fatigue, with students more likely to confirm its existence and more likely to render examples of its effect. A refined definition is offered which gives a basis upon which future research can investigate this phenomenon in divergent settings.

In the digital age, social media are integrated into everyday life. To include corresponding topics of the digital world in the classroom, future teachers require specific knowledge and abilities. The extent to which these prerequisites are connected to technology, however, needs to be reevaluated in light of social media's ubiquitous nature. Through adopting the TPACK model for an exemplary topic of the digital world, constructions of space in Geography education, a self-evaluation survey instrument for pre-service teachers is compiled and validated (n = 364); social media are conceptualized as an aspect of technological knowledge. Confirmatory factor analysis confirms that the TPACK model is appropriate for the data, as fit-indices show favorable results. A transformative view of the model is supported. Correlations among all constructs exist, endorsing previous studies’ findings on the difficulties in distinguishing the TPACK knowledge constructs. Technological knowledge, noticeably, displays comparatively low correlations with the other knowledge constructs. This result is contrary to previous studies on TPACK and social media, as well as the relation of TPACK to technological knowledge. Albeit these results are not generalizable for all digital world content in pre-service teacher education, this study, by way of example, contributes to a debate on the conceptualization of technological knowledge when introducing phenomena of the digital world that are related to social media through the TPACK model. Additionally, this study advances research in the area of embedding pre-service teacher education with social media in domain-specific pedagogies.

SELFIE is a tool of the European Commission designed to support schools in developing their digital capacity. Schools across Europe have used SELFIE as a diagnostic tool. However, participating schools expressed a need for external guidance in the implementation of digital education transformation, including the exchange of expertise and inspiring practices with other educational centers. In this research we explore what are the key factors in the creation of collaborative networks between teachers. As a case study, we focus on the first steps of building a network of schools to promote digital education in Cantabria (northern Spain). With the participation of 11 schools, we conducted 22 interviews and 2 focus groups to analyze the learning environments of the teaching staff, the personal collaboration networks in the professional field, and the factors perceived as relevant in the design of the digital action plan of each school. The results showed the existence of teachers in each school who were pioneers in the digitization process and who acted as intermediaries both with the public educational administration and with teachers from other schools. During the interviews with these pioneers, we evaluated their personal networks as well as the factors they deem significant for an effective digital transformation. The results were contrasted in a public forum in which 120 teachers participated. Based on these results, we discuss how the creation of a network of key actors could contribute in developing the digital capacity of schools in the region.

The relationships between digital technologies and the realization of teaching and learning activities have received increased attention in interdisciplinary research. Knowledge of the connections between technological designs and users’ meaning making in semiotic chains is, however, still partial. Teachers’ and students’ remediation of technological designs through cognitive processing was studied in this paper to gain insights into semiotic chain configurations. Data consisting of video recordings, interviews, and observations were processed with quantitative content analysis and learning analytics strategies. The findings suggest that the technological design's visualized functions greatly affect the semiotic chain configuration when integrated with their users’ meaning making in lower-level actions. Technological designs seem to buttonize meaning making, and teaching and learning activities become technologized. Scaled cognitive processes can provide insights into differentiated meaning making according to the technologies, and perspectives on paralanguage are proposed.

Among the most important things a child can do to learn is to play. Technology, however, has created a distinct type of play for children that differs from previous forms. This raises the question of whether digital or non-digital plays are more effective learning tools. To address the question, the current study examined the impact of digital and non-digital play-based instruction on children's vocabulary learning and retention. To this aim, 40 elementary EFL learners were assigned to two groups: digital and non-digital. In the first phase of the study, after twenty sessions of intervention, the post-test was administered and two weeks later, the delayed post-test was held. Twenty sessions of another type of play-based learning took place in the second phase when the learners switched groups. We ended up administering both the post-test and the delayed post-test after a two-week break. The data were analyzed using ANCOVA and Quade's ANCOVA tests. Additionally, the learners, parents, teachers, and two observers who attended all classes were interviewed. The quantitative results revealed that, across the stages, the non-digital group outperformed the digital one. The interviews and observations lend credence to the quantitative results. The study demonstrated that the advent of technology should not make us ignore the benefits of non-digital activities and plays in language education environments.

The technological development has raised awareness for the importance of digital competence and computational thinking (CT) to understand the digital world and has resulted in revised curricula in many countries. In Finland, a new curriculum for grades 1–9 came into force in 2016 introducing digital competence (including programming) to be integrated in other subjects. Most teachers lack prior experience in programming and there is a need for suitable instructional models. This article presents a cross-curricular teaching sequence and the results from a case study conducted in four Finnish schools. Students in grades 4–6 collaboratively worked on a project combining arts, design and CT with other subjects. The results show that students demonstrated several CT abilities while working on their projects, in particular creativity, tinkering and debugging. The findings also indicate that teachers and students learned together (co-agency) and suggest that models like the teaching sequence can help and encourage teachers to integrate programming and CT in a cross-curricular manner. Still, the teachers’ knowledge, ambition level and understanding of the task at hand, as well as the organizational support appear to play a notable role when planning and carrying out projects of this kind. While CT is commonly seen as developed through programming, the teaching sequence seems to have fostered CT abilities through the project as a whole, with programming playing the role of a tool or a glue depending on the time available, and the students’ skill and ambition level.

This work was built on two strands of earlier research on the community of inquiry framework (CoI). The first strand was Biglan's seminal work on disciplinary epistemological structures and how these structures impact digital technology-enabled higher education teaching. In the other strand, some rare studies suggested that emotional issues are important to understanding higher education teaching. Nevertheless, research that links these two strands is even rarer. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the relationship between digital technology-enabled teaching in higher educational settings, the presences of the community of inquiry framework (CoI), and disciplinary epistemological structures. Survey responses from 143 teachers were analyzed through confirmatory factor analysis (SEM) and reflexive thematic analysis. Emotional presence was found to be a possible fourth element in the CoI. Disciplinary differences (coded as pure vs. applied sciences) were found to have an effect on the CoI, and that effect was particularly evident through the mediation of emotional presence. The differentiating factor was teachers’ views on the role of teaching. When guiding digital design, the recommendation is to consider such disciplinary differences specifically.

In crisis management decision-making, decision-makers have to combine (limited) situational information with their own experience. Whereas traditional, analog training of decision-making situations in crisis management costs considerable time and effort, digital serious games can be used as more accessible training environments to offer additional training moments. Another advantage is that digital games offer new didactic opportunities, such as inducing specific reflection from the trainees. This study examines the effect of self-reflection through social comparison on information usage and information literacy of players of a digital serious game for crisis management decision-making training. In an experiment, data was collected from 73 participants, 47 were eligible for further analysis, split over two conditions. Participants played two gameplay scenarios in fixed order. Participants in the experimental condition, between the two scenarios, saw a dashboard displaying their own as well as previous players’ in-game behavior up to that point. Participants in the control condition received no intervention between playing the two scenarios. Overall, participants in the experimental condition used significantly more information from more different sources, and compared to the control condition they kept taking significantly more time to decide in the second scenario. No significant between-condition differences regarding information literacy were found. Results indicate that in-game behavior can be (positively) influenced by letting players self-reflect on their own in-game behavior through social comparison. Results also suggest that the dashboard should display more specific information of players’ in-game behavior, providing guidance on what to improve, rather than simply offering a broad overview.

Researchers and instructors are turning to gamification and self-determination theory for need-supporting, student motivation for learning. Using a mixed methods approach over two school years, we examined how an elementary science teacher successfully implemented gamification in a blended learning environment to meet students’ psychological needs. Through observations and interviews, we analyzed the mechanics and dynamics within the gamification design. Next, for a deeper understanding of applied motivation theory, we examined the teacher's use of motivational and cognitive scaffolds in the design. Students participating in the gamified classroom experienced both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations but reported higher levels of autonomous motivation. Additionally, students reported high levels of the psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, stating that the classroom was need-supporting. As a case study of an authentic, teacher-designed, need-supporting elementary classroom, this study adds a unique perspective to the educational gamification literature. Importantly for gamification exploration, we describe the cognitive and social scaffolds that created the need-supporting context, which illustrate the holistic aspects of gamification where multiple mechanisms produce a gamified environment.