Research into Practice: Current Trends in Educational Technology Research: The Study of Learning Environments

Educational technology research has passed through a number of stages, focusing, in turn, on the content to be learned, the format of instructional messages, and the interaction between computers and students. The field is now concerned with the study of learning in complete, complex, and interactive learning environments. These environments allow both the simulation of experiences that students might have in the real world and also the creation of compelling experiences that cannot normally be experienced directly. Learning environments also often allow students to communicate their own ideas with the use of a variety of symbol systems. These environments are also frequently inhabited by more than one person, making learning within them a social activity where learning is distributed among both people and artifacts. Finally, these learning environments are complex. Studying how they contribute to learning therefore requires research methods other than controlled experiments. This paper reviews research on learning environments to give both an historical perspective on educational technology research and a selective view of the current state of the discipline. It concludes by identifying implications for both practice and future research.     

远程教育的时间观--从人类学的观点看

通过梳理时间概念的历史,以及借鉴教育人类学对时间问题的研究成果,可以得出这样的结论：远程教育利用其媒体技术创造了一种可以称作为“虚时间”的新的时间形态,这使得远程教育在克服时间距离方面出现了可能,但同时也在师生沟通方面增加了其他难度,     

Developing a virtual engineering management community

The paper reviews the lessons of planning and running an Engineering Management practitioner development programme in a partnership between BP and the University of Manchester. This distance-learning programme is for professional engineers in mid-career experienced in the engineering and support activities for delivering safe, compliant and reliable projects and operations worldwide. The programme concentrates on the why and how of leadership and judgement in managing the engineering of large and small projects and operational support. Two intensive residential weeks are combined with a virtual learning environment over one year. Assessed assignments between and after the residential weeks provide opportunities for individual reflective learning for each delegate through applying concepts and the lessons of case studies to their experience, current challenges and expected responsibilities. This successful partnership between a major global company and a university rich in research and teaching required a significant dedication of intellectual and leadership effort by all concerned. The rewards for both parties and most importantly for the engineers themselves are extensive.     

Re/assembling ‘innovative’ learning environments: Affective practice and its politics

Abstract

In this article, we argue that the interest being taken by governments in establishing innovative learning environments (ILEs) in schools relies on a conception of space as a largely neutral arena. In consequence, relations of space and power inherent in the infrastructural shift to ILEs tend to drop from view. Adopting an assemblage approach to investigating learning environments, and exploring ILEs as they are playing out in Australian schools, we strive to surface what drops from view. Taking ILEs to be sociomaterial assemblages, we work with empirical material and trace how they assemble and reassemble. The account is less concerned with what works in ILEs; rather, its focus is on their ‘workings’ as assemblages of relations and most particularly, affective relations. Thus, we explore two affective encounters involving school leaders, teachers and students showing the ways in which they position and are positioned within ILEs. The argument is made that the assemblage approach which is non-deterministic and relational affords new ways of understanding what ILEs are and how they work and who they work for. And, that attending to affective practice brings into view the micropolitics through which infrastructural shifts and infrastructural policy-making are made.     

基于VRML技术的虚拟装配实验方法研究

对虚拟装配技术做了简单介绍,并以实例论述了虚拟模型设计及VRML装配程序编制过程,说明利用三维设计软件和VRML技术进行虚拟装配实验,可以经济快捷地提高模型对象的真实感和互动性,具有十分重要的参考价值。     

基于虚拟现实技术的企业认知实践教学设计与仿真实验开发

机械类专业学生企业认知学习的目标和任务是使学生了解企业生产和工作环境,增加学生对机械专业工作岗位群的感性认识,并通过理论联系实际初步培养学生的工程意识、工程素质和工程实践能力,为今后进一步学好各门专业课奠定基础。而由于实习学生人数多、学生实习既耽误工作又妨碍生产,因此很多企业都不太愿意接收学生在企业实习,实习企业难找是目前大部分机械类专业面临的共性问题。本论文针对实习企业难找的问题,利用虚拟现实技术设计了以真实存在企业环境为基础的虚拟认知实践教学环境,并开发了可完成仿真实验的数字化虚拟工厂。基于虚拟现实技术的数字化工厂有效解决了学生实习企业难找的问题,为实习学生提供了不到工厂也能参观企业的各个部门及生产车间、了解生产流程、熟悉各类生产设备和工艺的平台。     

虚拟仿真技术在计算机网络实验教学中的应用

针对高校计算机专业实验教学的现状,在计算机网络实验中引入了虚拟仿真技术,并结合计算机网络课程的实验教学进行实例论证,说明了在计算机网络课程中运用虚拟仿真技术的必要性。     

The urban and the natural in education reform: the development of Hamburg Schullandheime (rural school hostels) in the 1920s

ABSTRACT

The desire to be close to nature and live in tune with it grew as industrialisation, urbanisation and the impact of technology became increasingly ubiquitous at the turn of the twentieth century. Throughout Europe, model schools were established in rural environments. These private reform schools could not solve the problems of public urban schools. Founded on the initiative of teachers and parents, the Schullandheim (rural school hostel) emerged as a new form bringing urban education and schooling close to nature after the First World War in Germany. Even if related pedagogic activities developed at that time in other countries there is no evidence for comparable institutions. Besides tracing the development of Schullandheime, the article shows how the school hostel idea was embedded in the contemporary educational discussion about the influence large cities had on youth and explores the educational and cultural differences within the school hostel movement through the use of visual material.     

体验式地质教学虚拟平台建设研究

在分析了体验式教学特征的基础上,将该模式引入到地质教学中,可利用虚拟现实技术和多媒体技术建设体验式地质教学虚拟平台。本文基于"分层化模式"思路,提出了平台体系结构,并介绍了构建网络虚拟教学平台用到的JSP、Oracle10g、Virtools等关键技术。建成后的平台能够将独立的、分散的教学、科研子系统集成起来,为用户提供了多源的教学服务。     

性格与环境 --《米德尔马契》主要人物形象分析

性格是环境的产物,环境因素在一个人的性格形成中起着决定性的作用.在乔治·艾略特的作品<米德尔马契>中,男女主人公理想破灭的过程反映出环境主导性格的关系.