The Habits of Mind Necessary to Generate New Ways of Teaching in a Career of Constant Change

In this paper we explore the philosophy, pedagogy and implementation of the third year course sequence in the M.A. in Educational Technology program at Michigan State University. We discuss how “little-r” revolutions in teaching and learning, i.e., technology facilitated revolutions specific to individual classrooms and contexts, are used to introduce our students to the thinking patterns of designers and innovators. This is accomplished by an overlapping emphasis on learning by design, trans-disciplinary creative cognitive tools, innovative technology, and reflective practice. In this environment, we also transition our students from acting as consumers of educational media to being producers of educational experiences. That is, not only do the students construct new educational media, they consider the aesthetic and affective implications of technology use for teaching and learning. Finally, given the rapid evolution of educational technologies, we support students as they establish a foundational vision for the interplay of education and technology that will serve them into the future, as they, and their learners, adapt tonew and emerging digital environments.     

One-to-one laptops in K-12 classrooms: voices of students

In planning educational technology initiatives, the concerns of many stakeholders are typically taken into account, including the concerns of administrators, teachers, parents, and employers. The perspective of students are recognized as valuable, but not often queried or considered. This paper explores the opinions of K-12 students about a one-to-one laptop programme implementation through content analysis of 362 blog postings made by these students expressing their thoughts on the topic at three time points in two years. Employing a bottom-up coding strategy, this paper identified seven themes that represented students’ opinion of technology use in schools: more efficient and productive learning, tools for better writing, access to information, engagement with new media, remaining relevant in a technological world, share and learn from peers, and individualized and differentiated instruction. This study suggested that, when new technology tools are used in schools, students should not only be viewed as learners but also be considered as real writers with valuable opinions. Students also should be provided the opportunity to write for an authentic purpose and audience using diverse forms of digital media.     

Empowering Student Voice through Interactive Design and Digital Making

Over the last two decades online technology and digital media have provided space for students to participate and express their voices. This paper further explores how new digital technologies, such as humanoid robots and wearable electronics, can be used to offer additional spaces where students' voices are heard. In these spaces, young students are invited to shape the design of digital tools and artifacts through the inclusion of their unique perspectives. The authors argue that involving youth in the design and use of tools contributes not only to the creation of meaningful learning experiences but also to the future potential of youth as producers of digital learning technologies.     

关于数字媒体技术学科体系的探讨

数字媒体产业被全世界誉为朝阳产业,也是我国文化产业的重要组成部分,而数字媒体技术学科体系的建立与发展是推动数字媒体产业发展的动力之一。文章首先从技术角度对数字媒体技术学科的内涵进行了探讨,并在分析中美数字媒体技术学科研究现状的基础上,对数字媒体技术学科的研究体系进行了总结与归纳,并简要阐释了数字媒体技术学科的理论基础。     

现代教育技术媒体运用于教学设计的理论研究

现代教育技术媒体已成为各学科教学中非常重要的认知表现工具,这就迫切地需要教学者能够结合教育技术学的思想将教育媒体运用到教学当中去,使得教育媒体被充分、高效地运用,使得学生在这样的教学过程之中不断提高自己的创造性思维能力,从而达到优化教学的效果.     

Students’ confidence and perceived value for participating in cross-cultural wiki-based collaborations

An international wiki-based collaboration was integrated into a large introductory educational technology course enrolling 346 students, divided into 43 teams. Student teams participated in a 5-week project in which they created wiki chapters about the educational uses of specific Web 2.0 tools. Two to four international students, located in their home countries, participated on each team, collaborating via the evolving wiki, as well as other Web 2.0 tools. Using expectancy-value as our motivational framework, we gathered pre- and post-survey data, triangulated with focus group interview data, to examine changes in students’ confidence and perceived value for using these tools to facilitate international collaborations. Survey results showed significant changes in confidence and perceived value, while qualitative results provided insights into students’ perceptions of critical project components. We discuss students’ perceptions of project barriers as well as the strategies they implemented to achieve success.     

Personal voices in higher education: A digital storytelling experience for pre-service teachers

Digital storytelling (DST) has recently emerged as a new tool in instructional environments. DST involves the combination of media and technology with traditional storytelling to help students learn. This paper examines the use of DST in a university course and pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their learning experiences using this tool. Thirty-eight pre-service teachers participated in the study, in which DST was employed as a learning activity. In the course, the participants created personal digital stories about their careers. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used for data collection and analysis. The findings indicate that DST is very useful for learning. The pre-service teachers perceived DST as an attractive way to share ideas and feelings, and valuable for using in lessons. DST served as a practical learning tool to present the students’ personal experiences to others, and the process encouraged emotional interactions. Implications regarding these findings are discussed.     

Techno Savvy: a Web 2.0 curriculum encouraging critical thinking

This paper reports results from a case study focused on understanding student practices regarding production-oriented problem-solving with digital media. Thirty-seven students participated in an elective curriculum called, “Techno Savvy,” a nine-week course focused on student exploration of global issues, and designed around Web 2.0 tools. Socio-constructivist theory provided the theoretical lens to write and study the curriculum. Complexity in student practices using digital media tools to determine critical thinking is highlighted. Data were analyzed for patterns observed in student practices, video, artifacts, oral, and written work. Results suggest that student interaction and practices afforded by tools and content within the curriculum encourage critical thinking. This study implies a need for further classroom research linking pedagogical approaches with digital media to critical thinking and achievement.     

以学校课程创新为突破 推进创新人才的早期培育

在我国从教育大国向教育强国的转型过程中,高中阶段大力推进创新人才的早期培育成为应有之义。为此,聚焦于优秀学生的培育,借鉴世界一流名校的课程体系,形成学校自身有个性的、整体的课程框架,并付诸实施,就是教育内涵发展的一个重要课题。上海中学在对国际主流课程的实践与比较研究的基础上,注重把握中国特色与学生的优势,从2003年开始致力于构建学校课程图谱并付诸系统实施,突显了可供同类学校借鉴的、推进创新人才早期培育的五个要素：促进学生的个性化知识构成,注重学生志存高远与意志磨砺,推进学生兴趣与潜能的匹配,不断激发学生成长的飞跃期,激励学生基于专门知识领域与数字技术整合的创新。     

Impact of Hands‐On Research Experience on Students’ Learning in an Introductory Management Information System Course

Although students in Introductory Information Systems courses are taught new technology concepts, the complexity and constantly changing nature of these technologies makes it challenging to deliver the concepts effectively. Aiming to improve students’ learning experiences, this research utilized the five phases of design science methodology to develop an experiment to solve a real‐world problem, and then implemented it in an undergraduate classroom. As part of their classwork, students participated as subjects testing new information technologies to solve a real‐world problem. They were asked to complete a questionnaire and answer questions in a focus group to assess the effectiveness of the technologies tested and determine whether the experience had added to the learning they gained from the course. The results revealed that the students were able to use the new technologies effectively and provide useful feedback to the company sponsoring the study, contributing to the release of a new commercial product line. Students also reported that participating in this research project improved their satisfaction with the introductory MIS course. These results encourage educators to conduct hands‐on experience involving real‐world research projects since they provide valuable additional learning opportunities in introductory MIS courses.     

A concept map approach to developing collaborative Mindtools for context‐aware ubiquitous learning

Recent advances in mobile and wireless communication technologies have enabled various new learning approaches which situate students in environments that combine real‐world and digital‐world learning resources; moreover, students are allowed to share knowledge or experiences with others during the learning process. Although such an approach seems to be promising and innovative, researchers have indicated several problems when applying it to practical applications, in particular, the lack of proper strategies or tools to assist the students to learn collaboratively in such a learning scenario with abundant content. Students might feel interested when using the mobile devices to learn; however, without proper assistance or guidance, their learning achievements are usually disappointing. To cope with this problem, this study proposes a concept map‐oriented Mindtool for collaborative ubiquitous learning. Experimental results from a natural science course in an elementary school show that this approach not only enhances learning motivation but also improves the learning achievements of the students.     

Learning to succeed in a flat world: information and communication technologies for a new generation of business students

This article investigates the relationship of learning and its infrastructure using Web 2.0 technologies to facilitate the acquisition of skills needed to succeed in a global economy. We explore the learning phenomenon as a way to bring forward a process of continuous improvement supported by social software. We use a commonly accepted definition of learning to evaluate different learning theories, since it seems that the definition of learning itself is not a major source of difference between learning theories. Their differences are over issues of interpretation, not over definition. The theories reviewed are used in the design of a framework to assess the infrastructure against expectations of skill proficiency using Web 2.0 tools, i.e., wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, tagging, etc. which must emerge as a result of registering in an introduction to business information and communication technologies (ICT) course in a Canadian university. In this course, we use Friedman’s (The world is flat: a brief history of the twenty-first century release 3.0, Picador, New York, 2007) thesis that the “world is flat” to discuss issues of globalization and the role of ICT. Students registered in the course are usually familiar with some of the tools we introduce and use in the course. The students are members of Facebook or MySpace, regularly check YouTube, and use Wikipedia in their studies. These tools are the tools to socialize. In our course, we broaden the students’ horizons and explore the potential business benefits of such tools and empower the students to use Web 2.0 technologies within a business context.     

Situated Learning with Online Portfolios, Classroom Websites and Facebook

In this article we describe the evolution of an elective course designed specifically for undergraduate students in our pre-service teacher education program. This course is intended to prepare these undergraduate students as future teachers—helping them to make effective and creative uses of technology in learning settings. This course emphasizes learning to learn with and about technology, in the ever-changing context of educational technology. Generally speaking, we outline and describe three key goals of teaching young teachers to thoughtfully integrate technology into a real-world classroom. First, the course emphasizes learning to explore and learn proactively by engaging in learning by design activities. Second, students are given an opportunity to try a wide variety of innovative technologies through explorations of their own choosing. Finally, we attempt to leverage the power of online community building for learning by harnessing the ubiquity and convenience of tools like Facebook. We look into the future with great hope and enthusiasm that our preservice teachers will lead the way in integrating new technologies into their teaching in ways that will benefit their students, colleagues, and the greater education community.     

《世界经济》课程双语教学的调查与思考

对《世界经济》课程双语教学进行的问卷调查显示,大部分学生对双语教学持积极态度,但也发现其中存在的一些问题。双语教学的实施需要学生的充分参与,并要考虑到学生的承受能力;双语教学同时也是一个循序渐进的过程,教师要不断努力提高专业素养及外语水平,同时也需要得到教学管理部门等有关方面的支持配合。     

Selected aspects of conditions in the use of new media as an important part of the training of teachers in the Czech Republic and Poland - differences,risks and threats

The paper presents the complex problems of preparation of pedagogy students to work as teachers in the context of their readiness to use ICT in the didactic process. The complexity of this subject matter has been proved by the current, ongoing, discussion about the direction of the expected transformations of contemporary schools and the prospective teachers education system in the age of prevalent digitization. Considering the complexity of conditions, the main research problem has been formulated as follows: Conditions of what type affect the preparation of prospective teachers to use new media in learning and teaching process?. Thus, the empirical analysis conducted in the paper focuses on the following issues: the style of using new media by students, identification of students’ attitudes towards media, subjective (from the students’ point of view) assessment of how university level schools are prepared to shape modern media competences among their students and self-evaluation of media and IT competences in the group of prospective teachers. Czech and Polish students, despite being the so called digital natives, do not present homogeneous styles of using new media. They also reveal different attitudes toward applying digital solutions to the didactic process. Factors such as: low evaluation of one’s own competences or lack of evaluation in this area, lack of creative approach to the use of new media, lack of education in the area of new applications, lack of skills necessary to handle basic digital tools (e.g. interactive board, e-learning platforms) negatively affect, in most cases, the attitude toward the active use of ICT tools in future didactic work. On the basis of the gathered empirical data and inductive qualitative analysis a typology of students attitudes toward new media was developed. It consists of four categories: techno-optimist, techno-realist, techno-pessimist and techno-ignorant. The whole of analyses has the character of comparative research and involves two neighboring countries of the Visegrad Group: Poland (N?=?466) and Czech Republic (N?=?168).     

A portrait of academic life:

The process of constructing A Portrait of Academic Life web resource has included careful evidence gathering and analysis of student performance necessary to assess learning and give useful feedback to increase the students’ ability to use information effectively in education. The students, too, develop self-assessment and reflective skills as they create online research portfolios. The online resources model new technologyenhanced strategies for teaching and learning that support standards-based teacher education programs in higher institutions. Other artifacts contained in A Portrait of Academic Life include digital video vignettes of students actively completing course assignments and reflecting on the learning process, and instructor reflections on teaching strategies to improve learning outcomes. As a culminating course activity, students showcase their online research portfolios at a gallery walk. The students were tremendously excited to present the wealth of information they have so carefully collected using the powerful technology tools available for their use in the teacher education program at Towson University. The innovation and originality presented in the form of student online research portfolios offered fresh perspectives to the honored guests. Likewise, it will enormously help students and faculty to see examples of the process of transforming traditional research papers into rich, informative online research portfolios.     

《跨文化交际》教与学的认知:一项基于频率分布和因子分析的调查

本研究采用定性与定量相结合的方法,通过问卷调查英语专业二年级和四年级学生并收集数据,运用频率分布统计和因子分析对统计结果进行分析,以期考察不同年级学生对<跨文化交际>课程教与学的认知及其对相应课程标准的认同程度.研究结果表明两个年级的学生对<跨文化交际>课程标准呈现出较高的认同度,但他们的认识角度有所不同,认同的程度也有差异,二年级对课程的理解方式与课程标准更趋一致.     

国外中小学信息素养课程设置及启示

面对滚滚而来的信息化浪潮,世界上发达国家和地区都非常重视信息科学与技术对社会、教育的影响和作用,制定了以培养学生信息素养为目标的信息素养课程,以迎接挑战。国外中小学信息素养课程的设置呈现出发展性、工具性、层次性、灵活性以及整合性的特点。要提高我国中小学生的信息素养,就必须从课程目标、课程内容、课程实施以及课程评价等方面加以改进。     

From authoritative discourse to internally persuasive discourse: discursive evolution in teaching and learning the language of science

Learning science interpreted in existing theoretical frameworks often means that students are assimilated, accommodated or enculturated from the entity of the vernacular world to the entity of the scientific world. However, there are some unsolved questions as to how students can best learn purely a new language or new knowledge of science. The purpose of this study is to conduct microanalysis of moment-to-moment interactions in order to understand how science language is taught and learned in details. Informed by Bakhtin’s dialogism, the analysis indicates that learning science is a process of appropriating authoritative discourse into internally persuasive discourse. Based on our analysis and findings, we propose the framework of discursive evolution to describe the process of teaching and learning the language of science. Four different stages of discursive evolution are identified to demonstrate the discursive changes during the course of science teaching and learning discourse: (a) using deictic references to connect scientific terminologies, (b) understanding science terminologies through its derivatives, (c) communicating science practices conventionally through science terminologies, and (d) communicating science practices innovatively through mutated science terminologies. The findings suggest that science teaching and learning comprise a heterogeneous process which draws on both science and non-science language and is a constantly evolving process. Understanding teaching and learning as a heterogeneous and constantly evolving process allows us to reunite the roles of teachers and students as mutually responsible collaborators rather than science knowledge givers and consumers.