Evaluation of information technology in educational management for proactive development

Evaluation will be the key to effective and efficient implementation and use of information technology in education management. As hardware, software and the needs of users develop and change, such evaluation will need to be both proactive and dynamic in that it must continually provide information concerning how the systems need to be modified to allow the potential to be realized fully. Dynamic evaluation can then be used to inform the system design, training, support and documentation to ensure end-user acceptance of the systems and provide administration support and information relevant to enhanced decision-making processes. Findings from a preliminary study of the Hong Kong school administration and management system (SAMS) will be used to illustrate the problems that can occur without carefully planned and contextualized evaluation.     

The Interface Design and the Usability Testing of a Fossilization Web-Based Learning Environment

This article describes practical issues related to the design and the development of a Web-Based Learning Environment (Web-LE) for high school students. The purpose of the Fossilization Web-LE was to help students understand the process of fossilization, which is a complex phenomenon and is affected by many factors. The instructional design team faced the challenge of designing an environment that could enable its users to construct knowledge actively by manipulating the various variables of organisms, ecological systems, and physical burials. An effective user interface is essential to the enabling of students who try to explore knowledge presented in the learning environment and who, in monitoring their own learning progress, hope to avoid overwhelmingly complicated content. The analyses of both the interaction of learning activities and the design of system functions are discussed. In addition, a usability test was conducted so that the effectiveness of the interface design could be examined. The findings reveal that target users are satisfied with the usability of the Fossilization Web-LE and consider use of the user interface to be easy. At the end, several practical applications in the design of instructional software’s user interface are suggested.     

Towards more efficient student course evaluations for use at management level

In order to obtain an accreditation, the university management must implement a quality assurance system and be able to document that quality policy and procedures are followed and acted upon as appropriate. One element in this system is monitoring students’ satisfaction. In this paper, we describe a method of acquiring the necessary information to enable school managers to efficiently summarize a substantial amount of information to detect issues of concern. The collection of information is performed in a systematic and consistent manner. It allows rapid feedback to students and staff, and is an integrated component of the quality assurance system. As successive evaluations are completed, school performance can be monitored, facilitating the development of strategies for continuous quality improvement. Finally, the context in which the evaluation is implemented as well as benefits and drawbacks are discussed.     

校区规模影响下网络教学平台系统的优化实践

文章以优化网络教学平台及其搭建环境为切入点,针对跨校区校园网需求,强调需要制定全校统一的信息标准、建立集中的用户管理和认证入口,通过改善平台系统的管理应用方式和资源开发途径,采用因素提取和应用类比的方法,提出适用于一校多区的网络教学平台功能体系结构和系统管理策略,一定程度上解决了教务信息和教育教学资源异构平台的有效共享。并结合实践案例,分析了我校网络教学平台系统的优化对策及发展特点。     

试析印度普及高中教育的难点问题

印度自独立以来高中教育得到了长足的发展。但要普及高中教育却还存在很多问题：教育发展不平衡；基础教育质量低劣；高中入学率太低；考试制度改革不成功；印度语言的多样性；高中学校设施简陋、师资缺乏和高中教育分流的不成功。印度政府采取了很多措施努力实现高中教育的普及。     

The Extent and Character of System-Wide Student Testing in the United States

In this article I review, summarize, and compare studies of the extent of standardized testing in our nation's schools from the early 1980s and from the early 1990s. All show the amount of system-wide (i.e., statewide or district-wide) testing to be less than 2 days per year per student. Methodological issues, including several different ways to count tests, are discussed in some detail. The main focus is on the extent and character of testing results of a General Accounting Office survey of statewide and district-wide tests. The extent-of-testing estimates are roughly updated to 1995 with information from the annual Council of Chief State School Officers and the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory study of state tests.     

高职院校教育信息系统的实现

介绍了高职院校教育信息系统的一般构成,论述了校园网络与管理信息系统的关系,给出了构建校园网的设计技术原则和组网方案。简述了使用数据库技术开发C/S结构应用支持系统的方法并对教育信息系统的核心部分——应用支持系统构成做了说明,以及提出了校园网络与管理信息系统的安全性维护策略。     

Performance assessment in review: new directions for assessing student understanding

This chapter briefly reviews each of the preceding chapters and then outlines a set of issues that confront the development and use of performance assessments in school settings. For performance assessments to be useful, the following issues need to be kept in the forefront: conceptual clarity in the link between instruction, assessment, and reporting; support from the measurement community to assist teachers in using and interpreting results for instructional and student decision making; fairness across raters, tasks, administration, scoring procedures, and student subgroups; and cost-feasibility given current high monetary, time, and human-resource costs for development and use.     

Schooling as a Knowledge System: Lessons from Cramim Experimental School

This article describes an experiment utilizing a research and development strategy to design and implement an innovative school for the future. The development of Cramim Elementary School was a joint effort of researchers from Tel-Aviv University and the staff of the school. The design stage involved constructing a new theoretical framework that defined school as a knowledge system, based on the state of the art, interdisciplinary study of the nature of humans, and the nature of knowledge. A new school design emerged based on this theoretical framework and the school was opened in 1995. Action research followed for 8 years and the results indicated that the school has emerged as a learning organization and successfully integrated knowledge technologies into the learning processes of both students and teachers. Differentiated teaching strategy resulted in a significant increase in achievements (+11% in maths, literacy, and science; +10% in literacy in kindergarten; persistence of higher achievement in junior high schools). The greatest beneficiaries were low-achieving students. As the school is a highly complex system, individual variables contributing to the increased effectiveness could not be isolated. The article's conclusion is that experimental schools are a productive strategy to bring about changes, but unless these schools are part and parcel of the culture of the mainstream education system culture, they are destined to remain isolated cases.     

The Destination of Three Paths: Improved Student,Faculty and Staff,and System Learning

Piecemeal change to improve schooling is an approach that at its worst does more harm than good, and at its best is limited to creating pockets of good within school districts. When it comes to improving schooling in a district, however, creating pockets of good isn't good enough. Whole school systems need to be improved.

This article focuses on helping educators learn how to transform entire school systems to create unparalleled opportunities to improve student, faculty and staff, and system learning, and presents a set of principles to help change leaders in school systems navigate large-scale, district-wide change to create these multiple learning opportunities.     

基于Web的异构数据库的局部数据集成

阐述了利用Web服务中间层实现异构数据库局部数据访问的设计和实现方法,介绍了数据集成的几种策略。用户在使用共享系统进行数据查询时,首先要得到的是所面对的全局数据库的信息资源目录（IRD）,了解在共享系统中存在哪些类型的数据信息以供查询,因此,系统根据各异构数据库管理员对本部门数据库共享信息的定义,来为用户动态生成信息资源目录。通过Web形式进行操作,极大的方便了各部门管理员用户对本部门共享数据的管理,保证了本部门数据库数据在整个共享系统中的安全性。     

对南京城市职业学院办学定位与特色专业体系建设的系统思考

办学定位与特色专业体系建设是高职院校服务地方社会经济发展的一个重要体现,同时也是决定人才培养质量的关键与办学特色和水平的重要标志。文章从南京城市未来产业发展规划、现代服务业高速发展对各类职业岗位人才的需求、高职教育专业建设与发展的基本规律、学院发展形成的专业优势和依托南京市现代服务业的大中型骨干企业进行办学等五个方面系统地探讨了学院未来发展中的办学定位与特色专业群选择等重要问题,以期能在南京城市职业学院面向未来的专业发展格局和办学定位等重要方面供顶层设计和决策做参考。     

Education and national development in Asia: trends and issues

This chapter examines how the convergence of four trends that have dominated the education landscape over the last three decades is giving rise to six issues that will largely define the educational landscape of the next. Reconciling the simultaneous but conflicting pressures to contain costs, raise school quality, further decentralize management, and incorporate technology represents the central challenge.     

The Predictive Validity of Interim Assessment Scores Based on the Full-Information Bifactor Model for the Prediction of End-of-Grade Test Performance

Interim tests are a central component of district-wide assessment systems, yet their technical quality to guide decisions (e.g., instructional) has been repeatedly questioned. In response, the study purpose was to investigate the validity of a series of English Language Arts (ELA) interim assessments in terms of dimensionality and prediction of summative test performance, based on Grade 6 student data (N = 4,651) from a larger, urban district. Factor analytic results supported modeling the interim test data in terms of a bifactor model (Gibbons & Hedeker, 1992), with items reporting moderate to high relationships to the primary dimension (i.e., ELA) and varying estimates on the secondary domains. Hierarchical multiple linear regression results indicated that primary ELA scores were the strongest predictors of summative test performance, with subscale scores not improving predictive accuracy. Findings address issues pertaining to investigating the technical quality of test data widely used in district-wide assessment systems.     

Emily's Song: A Case Study of Egocentric Speech

Learning to be a competent language user may be the most complex task human beings undertake, yet the one most taken for granted. This paper examines a song spontaneously created and sung by a 44-month-old child. The song, an element of bath-time play, weaves a chapter in her ongoing self-narrative, disclosing not only her sense of herself as a developing person, but also revealing her struggle with this development. Examination of the relation of the structure and functions of the song demonstrates that it is a variation of egocentric speech clearly connected to her thinking and not merely a tuneful accompaniment to her imaginative play. Early childhood educators and care-givers often witness similar episodes of language use among children engrossed in play in school settings. Observation of the form and content of such language use can provide the early childhood teacher or caregiver with information about a child's language development, sense of self, and readiness for formal and informal literacy experiences, which presume a developing facility and competence in thinking through language.     

Learner profile stability and change over time: the impact of the explicit strategy instruction program “learning light”

Abstract

This study examined the stability and change in secondary school students’ learner profiles after receiving an explicit strategy instruction (ESI) to foster their text-learning strategy use. A randomized quasi-experimental repeated measures design was set up with one experimental condition – receiving an eight-lesson-teacher delivered instructional treatment – and one control condition. Four learner profiles (i.e., integrated strategy users, information organizers, mental learners, and limited strategy users) were corroborated at three measurement occasions in a sample of 444 students. Cluster movement analysis identified positive changes in students’ learner profiles over time. Both short- and long-term results were promising.     

高等中医药院校智慧教学环境建设研究

该文认为,伴随着大数据时代与信息化社会的高速发展,不断构建与完善智慧教学环境建设已成为学校发展战略的重要内容.目前教学环境建设中主要表现为多媒体设备智能化集成度不高.交互教学手段不足、教与学资源体系分散、教室及设备设施维护管理困难等问题依然存在,特别是中医药院校教学特点没有充分体现.在研究学校信息化发展的背景下,分析智...     

Prospects for the future: the use of participatory action research to study educational disadvantage

Of all the varieties of educational disadvantage, issues involving students who are homeless, or who move frequently because of poverty, are perhaps some of the most difficult for public school educators in the US to address. Using a pragmatic mixed methods design, this study evaluates the efficacy of participatory action research (PAR): (1) as a mechanism to engage educators in issues of disadvantage, (2) as professional development, (3) as a means of encouraging the increase in three domains of educational practice. Resulting from an extensive review of the literature concerned with the complex nature of homeless education, the three domains measured were: access to services, welcoming school culture, and flexible instructional strategy. Qualitative information was collected throughout the study from interviews, focus groups, and reflective practises. Data were open and selectively coded using Atlas/ti software and results were triangulated, when possible, with survey data. Findings confirm that this use of PAR methodology is outstanding in advancing the engagement of educators in issues of disadvantage. Further, as professional development, it is successful in increasing their professionalism, involvement, and knowledge about the complex issues related to homeless and highly mobile students. A range of outcomes and new localized educational practises will be discussed in relation to the size of the locality from which they developed. Implications for new attributes in international educational leadership result from this study. The paper concludes with a discussion as to the potential use of PAR to study educational disadvantage in Ireland.     

Training school administrators to use information systems: A review of research

Much attention and research has been focused on administrator preparation and school information systems as separate topics. However, very little attention has been focused on training school leaders to use these systems as decision making tools. While research findings signify the importance of this training, scarcely any research has been focused on the effectiveness of training models or other training issues. Therefore, to provide a foundation for further study, the purpose of this chapter is to summarize the extant research on training administrators to use information systems.