Teacher’s use of iPads in higher education

Mobile devices (e.g. iPads or galaxy tab) are increasingly being used in educational contexts. There has been growing investment in higher education institutions in Hong Kong by the HKSAR Education Bureau in relation to educational uses of mobile technology. However, current research into educational applications of this technology is limited. This article reports results of a qualitative study that investigated how higher education teachers use iPads to facilitate their practice. The study results provide insight into both the educational affordances of iPad technology and the ways in which teachers’ personal or private theories mediate these affordances. The study outcomes contribute to theoretical understanding of higher education teacher changes through adoption of mobile technology. Furthermore, the outcomes provide a set of recommendations for applications of iPads and similar technologies in higher education and ways to support teachers to effectively adopt such technology in their practices.     

School Teachers' Continuous Professional Development in an Online Learning Community: lessons from a case study of an eTwinning Learning Event

A social revolution is occurring in the way information is shared, knowledge is generated and innovation takes place over the Internet and there is renewed interest in the social concept of ‘community’ to support online learning. This article describes action research conducted in the context of an eTwinning Learning Event (LE) that provides useful insights into how an online learning community can support the continuous professional development (CPD) of school teachers. Using the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison et al., 2000), it offers empirical evidence of how cognitive, social and teaching aspects impact competence development. It suggests that online learning communities offer an appropriate environment for teachers' intellectual and emotional reflection, characterised by trust, mutual respect and shared values centred on improving pupils' learning. It also suggests that the educational experience within such a community is significantly influenced by the tutor's design and moderation of activities aimed at fostering critical thinking. The article concludes that online learning communities offer a valuable alternative to traditional teacher training by supporting teachers to learn in the context of their everyday practice, whilst collaborating and reflecting on their experience with peers across regions and countries. Concerning the wider use of social networking for learning, it suggests that educators still have a valuable role to play in ensuring that collaboration leads to an effective educational experience.     

Education and philosophy in R. F. Holland’s Against Empiricism: A reassessment

In his 1980 book Against Empiricism: On Education, Epistemology and Value, British philosopher R. F. Holland (1923–2013) exposes the inadequacies of a philosophy of education originating from an empiricist worldview. By following Plato’s view that the issue of what qualifies as knowledge has to be understood with reference to whether it is teachable, Holland’s critique of empiricism highlights the social and communal dimensions of education. The primary objective of this paper is to offer a reassessment of Holland’s thoughts on education and value. To do so, I first discuss Holland’s use of Plato’s ideas in his article ‘Epistemology and Education’ to demonstrate that Holland’s position can offer us a fruitful way to diagnose common, prevalent educational practices. I then turn to look at Holland’s views on value and morality. To illustrate how his thoughts on education can be seen to be relevant to the contemporary world, I explore and criticize some implicit presuppositions on knowledge in the 2011 box-office hit Limitless. The conceptual dimension of Holland’s take on education is then examined alongside with some recent trends in epistemology and philosophy of education.     

Education for sustainability in higher education; Early Childhood Studies as a site for provocation,collaboration and inquiry

Fifteen years after they were created, the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have reached their expiration date. The United Nations asserts that surveys conducted in September 2015 suggested that only 4% of the UK public had heard of the MDG’s. The renewed focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer opportunities for higher education institutions (HEIs) to work alongside students to create a shared and contextualised awareness of sustainable development within Early Childhood Education. This aim is pertinent for those students studying Early Childhood Studies (ECS) degrees with the potential goal of working with babies, young children and their families. The research was situated within a paradigm of critical educational research to establish a shared understanding of sustainable development within a newly validated BA (Hons) ECS programme at a HEI in the Northwest of England. Visual provocations were used as a pedagogical intervention to present a disorientating dilemma, critical reflection on personal perspective and an examination of world views. Findings suggested that visual methodologies supported students to appreciate the ambiguity and contested limits of knowledge, and to draw upon wider sources related to moral and ethical principles and to established rights and responsibilities.     

构建“三位一体”的师范生教育技术能力培养模式研究

教师的教育技术能力是推动教育信息化的重要因素,加强师范生的教育技术能力培养是教育信息化可持续发展的基本要求。针对目前师范生的教育技术能力培养中存在问题,提出构建"现代教育技术课程学习、学科微格教学训练和教育实习"三位一体的师范生教育技术能力培养模式,通过现代教育技术课程学习、微格教学视频点播评价平台和院校协作共同体多种途径,共同提高师范生信息素养、教学技能和信息技术与学科教学整合能力,为适应基础教育信息化发展需要的师范生教育技术能力培养,提供一套行之有效的办法。     

Assessing the mess: challenges to assemblage theory and teacher education

This article examines the Deleuzian concept of ‘assemblage’ in educational research in the context of Teacher Education (TE) for the ‘continuing education’ or ‘Lifelong Learning’ sector. Drawing on Deleuze’s creative approach to analysis, it draws a portrait of practice which identifies problems and successes in specific cases of TE with wider applicability. I argue that the concept of assemblage recognises developmental practices in distinctive ways and that it challenges the centripetal views implied by other models’ elision of more specific types of convergence, each of which is analysed. This is followed by suggestions which could help provide scope for creativity in research and practice in TE, if a set of challenges can be met. I argue that a situated and dynamic epistemological model is offered by assemblage theory which recognises not just the spatial but also the temporal and political complexities of actual practice.     

Predictors of portable technology adoption intentions to support elementary children reading

Much attention has focused on technology acceptance in the classroom, with little investigation into how parents make decisions about their children’s use of portable technology to support reading development in the home. Applying the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, this study identifies predictors of parents portable technology adoption intentions to support children’s reading development in the home. Participants were parents from two elementary schools within 46 classrooms in the southeastern United States. Phase one of data collection included 120 parents who responded to a validated survey that identified predictors and behavioral intention to adopt technology. The regression model explained 64% of parents have intentions to use portable technology to develop their children’s reading skills, with social influence and attitude as the most important predictors. Surveys indicated 99% of children used portable technology to support reading in the home, therefore phase two included explanatory interviews to examine adoption predictors. Interview data specified social influence ensued from the child’s school and parent community; attitude resulted from children’s affinity to use technology. Though parents’ intentions indicated continued portable technology use, parents preferred their child read print books. Interview data also revealed parents perceived an increase in performance expectancy when their child used portable technology. This study highlights the need for teachers and school administrators to be cognizant of educational requests on home learning, influences of the broader parent community on parent intentions to adopt educational technology, and children’s enjoyment reading with portable technology.     

Conditions for Choice? The context for implementation of curricular pathways in the curriculum, 14‐19, in England and Wales

The Dearing reviews of 1993 (the National Curriculum and its assessment) and 1996 (Qualifications for 16‐19 year olds) have created the context for a renewed discussion of educational ‘flexibility’ and ‘choice’. This article seeks particularly to analyse ‘choice’ within the educational and wider social contexts and to identify how far the conditions for choice exist. It suggests three main areas of difficulty: (1) contradictions in education policy, which is a site of contestation rather than coherence at a national level, and provides therefore an unstable context for choices; (2) ambivalence in the social context, in so far as ‘autonomy’ is now both the goal of education and also a prerequisite for access to education; (3) specific characteristics of educational provision which offer limited evidence of the capacity to adapt to the kinds of support and guidance for ‘choice’ which are the pre‐requisites of any meaningful implementation of the Dearing proposals.     

Preparing Elementary Pre-Service Teachers from a Non-Traditional Student Population to Teach with Technology

This article documents the development of a two-stage curriculum intended to improve elementary teacher candidates’ understanding of technology integration. Most students in the program came from low-income districts and lacked technology experience. The first stage of the curriculum consisted of a prerequisite basic technology skills course offered by the Computer Science Department. This was then followed by an online educational technology course offered by the College of Education. The objectives of the authors in this article are twofold. The first is to describe the rationale, procedures, and design of a two-stage curriculum, as a pedagogical model for teaching elementary teacher candidates to teach with technology, with the goal of preparing a new generation of teachers who are capable and comfortable applying a broad range of advanced technologies to meet the learning needs of their students. The second objective is to share the authors' findings from the evaluation, which employed mixed methodologies, after the students completed the online educational technology course. The results showed that an online educational technology course contributed to the candidates’ development of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and improved their attitudes and beliefs on their technology integration practices.     

中国共产党领导下的高等教育自学考试40年发展与新时代改革创新思考

高等教育自学考试制度创立40年来,在完善我国高等教育体系、造就培养专门人才、服务社会经济建设、促进精神文明建设等方面作出了重要贡献。通过回顾高等教育自学考试制度的发展历程,总结其经验,分析其不足及短板,深入思考其改革发展方向和路径,提出高等教育自学考试在新时代要以习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想为指导,全面贯彻党的教育方针,落实立德树人根本任务,助力服务全民终身学习教育体系构建,加强法规制度体系、培养标准体系、综合评价体系、教育服务体系和质量保障体系建设。     

A student-centred approach: a qualitative exploration of how students experience access and success in a South African University of Technology

This article investigates students’ understanding and students’ experiences of access and success at a Higher Education Institution. There is a growing discourse around how students at Higher Education Institutions experience access and success. These discussions are imperative so that educational practices, university systems and processes as well as educational development initiatives can be tailored to meet the needs of all students. This specifically relates to issues of how students access the university, both epistemically and culturally and what their stories of success are in their path to and through the university. Qualitative research methodologies have been used for data collection and analysis. This article describes a six-month pilot study, which falls under the Siyaphumelela (‘we succeed’) student success project. In this pilot, forty-five interviews were conducted with undergraduate students. This article is underpinned by Tinto’s theory of integration. Moving away from the discourse of unprepared and underprepared students, our approach advocates that institutions prepare better for students who have not had the advantage of acquiring the necessary skills and knowledges that would assist them to be successful in their higher education journey. This study has found that the institution is already providing services which are much needed by students for their success. However, an extension of these systems needs to take place so they reach the entire student population. Our approach in this project is holistic because we understand that how students experience access, success and student centeredness is intricately linked to becoming university students.     

Refugees and online education: student perspectives on need and support in the context of (online) higher education

ABSTRACT

Online education and in particular Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are often regarded as a way to solve global educational challenges. In this article, we highlight the students’ uptake of such a ‘digital solution’. Presenting initial findings from a research project in Germany, we situate our investigation in the specific context of digital educational offers for refugees, using Kiron Open Higher Education as an example. Kiron has designed an innovative academic model, with MOOCs at its core, to ease refugees’ access into higher education. Drawing from student data of 1375 Kiron students we look at students’ actual usage of the offer and the accompanying support services as well as the difficulties refugee students face while navigating online higher education. Results show, amongst others, rather low completion rates in the online courses and point to a much more nuanced picture of how students make use of the offer – putting online education as an easy, straightforward formula to the integration of disadvantaged students into question.     

The Triumph of Religious Education for Citizenship in English Schools, 1935–1949 1

The failure of the Association for Education in Citizenship to gain official support for the secular and pedagogically progressive forms of education for citizenship that its founder members endorsed has previously been explained by the political impotence of the association's founder members and the professional conservatism of the educational establishment. However, this paper proposes that, as part of a wider cultural conservatism in England between 1935 and 1949, citizenship was recast in a Christian mould in response to foreign ‘secular’ political ideologies and that this enabled religious education to gain official endorsement as an essential form of education for citizenship.     

The convergence of gaming practices with other media forms: what potential for learning? A review of the literature

Nowhere in the current digital technology landscape is the process of ‘blurring the lines between media’ more apparent than with the uses and applications of gaming practices and technologies. Here the overlaps between new media and media interfaces are becoming significant as games technologies and practices are becoming more pervasive as commonplace social practices. This article reviews literature for evidence of these trends of convergent media forms as a starting point for a wider debate for using games technologies and practices to support learning practices. The article outlines convergences between gaming and cinema, gaming and the Internet, and gaming and emergent technologies and interfaces (e.g. mobile phones and social software). The article aims to foreground major dimensions of convergence in relation to the potential of innovations in educational practice and activities. The article concludes that variant forms of gaming are widespread. But while the converging forms of gaming with other media forms provide potential for supporting educational practices, these new forms still need to be considered in relation to clear pedagogic strategies, supported peer interactions and tutor engagement.     

Strategic Management of Educational Technology—The Importance of Leadership and Management

Through case study research critical leadership and management tasks are identified regarding the integration of educational technology in teaching at research universities. The institutions studied, regardless their different characteristics and approaches, face common difficulties in engaging’ second-wave’ faculty. Furthermore, the coordination of different support units such as edtech centres, IT support, teaching and learning labs or the libraries to offer well-rehearsed educational technology services is challenging. Strong leadership is critical to motivate faculty and to assist support units to overcome sub-cultural differences. Similarly, solid management practice is indispensable. Incentive, reward and support structures need to be adjusted to new realities and a well coordinated workflow needs to be designed.

     

Wider reading at Key Stage 3: happy accidents,bootlegging and serial readers

This paper reports a small‐scale study of wider reading at Key Stage 3 in current English classrooms in secondary schools in the south of England. Six English teachers, three of whom were relatively new to teaching, were interviewed on what they thought about wider reading. The findings indicate that because of a lack of time and absence of demand for such reading in the current English curriculum, the more experienced teachers felt ambivalent about encouraging and assessing wider reading. The less experienced teachers were uncertain about how to encourage it and whether to respond positively to students' preferred reading patterns, such as the serial reading of books by a particular author. In several of the schools concerned, it appeared that school librarians had taken over the role of encouraging wider reading, as the English teachers focused on the technical skills required by the National Literacy Strategy. Where teachers did initiate wider reading, this was sometimes against departmental practice, a semi‐illicit addition to their workload and could thus be seen almost as a form of ‘bootlegging’. In addition to wider educational effects, the lack of support for this practice has implications for students' future success in English at General Certificate of Secondary Education and Key Stage 5 (16–18) as both require students to read whole texts widely and confidently. The paper argues that it might be more productive to prepare students for this than to expect such reading to develop spontaneously as a ‘happy accident’.     

Educator Perceptions and Use of Technology in South African Schools

ABSTRACT

South African schools experience diverse access to educational technology. Further, South African educators have limited opportunities to attend educator professional development workshops focused on technology integration. These differences can have a tremendous impact on students’ educational experiences and educators’ levels of self-efficacy toward implementing technology in their school settings. To provide further support and training opportunities to educators in South African township schools, administrators are able to partner with nongovernmental organizations and institutions of higher education. This article provides an overview of South African educational contexts and how partnerships can be formed to provide educator support to integrate educational technology in township schools.     

教育技术与信息技术的对比性研究

教育技术与信息技术有各自的领域,教育技术的运用会涉及信息技术,信息技术支持教育技术的发挥,教育技术为信息技术学习创设良好的学习环境,。     

Educational Value and Models-Based Practice in Physical Education

Abstract

A models-based approach has been advocated as a means of overcoming the serious limitations of the traditional approach to physical education. One of the difficulties with this approach is that physical educators have sought to use it to achieve diverse and sometimes competing educational benefits, and these wide-ranging aspirations are rarely if ever achieved. Models-based practice offers a possible resolution to these problems by limiting the range of learning outcomes, subject matter and teaching strategies appropriate to each pedagogical model and thus the arguments that can be used for educational value. In this article, two examples are provided to support a case for educational value. This case is built on an examination of one established pedagogical model, Sport Education, which is informed by a perspective on ethics. Next, I consider Physical Literacy which, I suggest, is an existentialist philosophical perspective that could form the basis of a new pedagogical model. It is argued, in conclusion, that a models-based approach along with a reconstructed notion of educational value may offer a possible future for physical education that is well grounded in various philosophical arguments and the means to facilitate a wide range of diverse individual and social educational ‘goods’.