Electronic networking in initial teacher education: is a virtual faculty of education possible?

This article is a report of the use of an electronic network by trainee teachers in a `school-based' initial teacher education course to facilitate discussion between participants. A rational for incorporating computer conferencing, drawing on teachers' knowledge and how this might be acquired, is presented. The potential of electronic networks for sharing ideas about teaching, and encouraging `reflective practice', is examined. Features of one application of electronic working are briefly described, and data are reported on the extent to which the potential of the medium was realised with the trainee teachers in a specific case. Deeply held concerns about computer conferencing by these trainees indicates that participation in a `virtual community' cannot be assumed when computer conferencing is introduced into initial teacher education courses.     

Will virtual education initiatives succeed?

The use of information technology to enhance teaching and learning processes has been practiced for a number of years now. However, the rapid growth in the use of the Internet has led to a new dimension in interactive and collaborative learning anytime and anyplace dynamically. With the explosion of “virtual education initiatives”, the question of the feasibility and success criteria for such projects quickly arises. To address the question in an organized way, we propose a project assessment based on critical success factors. Hence, in this article, we draw on a widely recognized critical success factor framework. We (slightly) adjust the framework to fit the special characteristics of virtual education initiatives, and apply to one case study, namely the virtual education initiative at the Faculty of Business at the City University of Hong Kong. The results suggest that the past success of the case is due to the adherence to the large majority of critical success factors. However, it also outlines some areas of concern. The paper concludes with a discussion on the strength and limitations of virtual learning environment as well as future directions. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Do we need formal education in visualization?

The following three reasons are sufficient to answer this question in the affirmative: careless mapping from data to pictures may lead to erroneous interpretation; a substantial amount of knowledge is necessary to generate images depicting complex information in a way that prevents erroneous interpretation; and decision making is increasingly based on visual representations. The organization and content of the core topics of visualization were finalized at a 1997 workshop at the Colorado School of Mines. These comprise the following eight themes: introduction to visualization; the data; the user and the task; mapping process; the representations; interaction issues; concepts of the visualization process; and systems and tools. The needs of educators and students vary too widely to bring one curriculum into focus. Instead, the eight themes recommended can be expanded into a curriculum, or compressed into several subtopics of a high-performance computing or computer graphics course. The themes can stand as separate modules, taught in a different order from that suggested. While my collaborators and I strongly recommend covering each of the core topics, we also encourage educators to expand individual themes to encompass the particular objectives of their students     

Developing classroom‐focused research in technology education

Abstract

During the last 10 years, curriculum documents in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, and New Zealand have emphasized the importance of students’ developing technological literacy. In utilizing research findings to consider future curriculum needs, there is the danger that the field may come to be understood in light of the research undertaken, not in light of what needs to be done. Past research has tended to focus on curriculum issues and the defining of the subject. If technology education is to advance as a curriculum area of worth and as a focus of research, then much more of our research effort must be on student and teacher learning in technology. This paper argues that classroom‐based research must become the focus of research over the next 10 years. While there is published research on what students do when involved in technological activities, we still lack significant research on students’ learning in technology and on ways in which this learning can be enhanced. Teacher and student conceptualization of technology is a complex issue and requires an understanding of the many factors that influence it. Classroom culture and student expectations appear to influence strongly the way in which students carry out their technological activities. Student learning in technology can be enhanced by effective formative interactions occurring between teacher and student and between student and student. Part of technology assessment should provide evidence of progression in learning, about which we currently know very little. This paper describes some fruitful areas of classroom‐based research that could inform technology curriculum development.     

Learning by doing： Software project management course education

One of the key factors influencing project success or failure is project management. Unfortunately, effective management of software projects is not in practice. To meet the requirements of enterprises, majors in computer in more and more universities offer software project management course. However, as Reif and Marti put it, ＂successful software project management, like programming, is not a skill that students will master from a single course of instruction＂. In this work, we present a teaching mode based on project-driven for software project management course, and describe it from the aspects of training objectives, teaching implementation, the student＇s job, and assessment mechanism, and finally provide a summary and analysis of the characteristics of this teaching mode as well as the effect of the curriculum practice.     

Software project management education —experiences of training full-time professionals

The experiences gained from planning and implementing two evolutionary steps in a systematic training programme for young software project managers from a group of companies are presented, and the impacts of the programme on the growth of the participating companies in terms of turnover and number of staff are discussed. The basic ideas of planning were adopted from research carried out into curriculum design for systems analysts and continuing education for software engineers. In our experience the core topics of the courses should be taken from traditional software project management together with courses in leadership and the fundamentalsof software business and marketing. The course modules should be very short together with personal exercises that are closely tied to the day-to-day work of the participants. Commitment of the company to the training scheme can be ensured by using a careful analysis of its software process maturity when selecting the exercises.     

Virtual reality systems enhance students’ achievements in engineering education

ABSTRACT

Virtual reality (VR) is being used for many applications, ranging from medicine to space and from entertainment to training. In this research paper, VR is applied in engineering education, the scope being to compare three major VR systems with the traditional education approach when we do not use any VR system (No-VR). The Corner Cave System (CCS) is compared with the Head Mounted Display (HMD) system. Both of these systems are using a tracking system to reflect the user movements in the virtual environment. The CCS uses only three coordinates: x-, y- and z-axis. The HMD system has six degrees of freedom, the x-, y- and z-axis, as well as the roll, pitch and yaw. Those two systems are also compared with HMD, as a standalone device (HMD-SA) without the tracking system where it has only roll, pitch and yaw. The objective of the study was to evaluate the impact of VR systems on the students’ achievements in engineering colleges. The research examined the effect of the four different methods and compared the scores of the students after each test. The experiments were ran over 48 students. Those systems show incredible results.     

LectureLounge – experience education beyond the borders of the classroom

Capturing presentations (lectures, seminars, etc.) on video is on the brink of becoming a normal event in educational environments. However, a breakthrough has yet to occur. Why is this so? First, it seems that capturing purely video is not enough to capture the whole educational experience [4]. Second, while equipment is relatively cheap, the amount and quality of manual work needed to operate capturing and publication systems is very high, and thus so are the costs. Third, systems that support the capturing process by including additional metadata tend to be intrusive on the presenter’s way of working.We would like to introduce LectureLounge [3], a presentation capturing, management, and publication system that shows that it does not have to be this way.     

The computer science education crisis: fact or illusion?

Some contemporary or relatively recent articles, studied together, seem to suggest that computer science education is in a state of crisis. But, is it? This article examines the arguments. My preliminary findings are that if you examine the arguments from a positivist stance, you may well infer that there is a crisis, but if you view them from a constructivist perspective, the crisis becomes an illusion. The article concludes by setting a research question, the outcome of which may establish more conclusively if the crisis is indeed true or illusory.     

A new environment for education? The computer in the home

This paper derives from an interdisciplinary research project which is studying the engagement of young people with different aspects of techno-popular culture. The focus is on the young person and the significance of digital technologies in their lives as a whole. Drawing on cultural studies research we are investigating the ways in which the contexts for computer use are structured by the different discourses present within the family, and the ways in which these discourses may provide a framing context for children’s interactions with digital technology. Drawing on socio-cultural research we take the view that learning is learning to do something with a cultural or cognitive tool. Our analysis of data from case studies of 16 families shows that the context of home computer use amongst young people is far from a simple and uniform phenomenon and is structured by the different discourses present within the family. What young people learn through interaction with computers is thus as much framed by the context of use as by the affordance of the technology.     

What have examinations got to do with computers in education?

Abstract   Courseware, i.e. computer based learning materials, usually includes some self-assessment for formative assessment. Insufficient attention has been paid, however, to the link between formal assessment and use of courseware: teachers and learners focus on examination syllabuses. Examinations bodies can use only the simplest forms of ICT-based assessment (objective or multiple choice tests) until learners are familiar with newer styles. This problem can be addressed on several fronts: with new ICT styles of tests, by developing websites supporting learners and teachers, by conducting field trials using computers under examination conditions and by commissioning new types of examination questions built around online interactive simulations.     

Applying “Design Thinking” in the context of media management education

“Design Thinking” – a cross-disciplinary and user centered method – is an approach towards the discovery of solutions and sparks innovative thinking in many ways. It also can be argued, that designers put themselves in the place of the user rather than co-creating with the consumer. Innovation is one of the current keywords across many industries, and many attempt to find new solutions to daily problems. Design Thinking as method allows to understand user needs and understand their principle problems in daily life. The design process uses intensive collaboration in cross-disciplinary settings and is divided into the exploration of the problem space and the solution space to achieve new ways of solving existing problems. Design Thinking has to integrate into the innovation process and into organizational structures right from the beginning. It constitutes a complement to classical analytical processes for problems that require lateral, not linear thinking. This article reviews the practical application of this energetic methodology in the academic context and presents some hands-on examples. The course series has been established by the Entertainment and Media Management Lab. (EMMi Lab.) at the Tampere University of Technology (TUT) and was held in cooperation with students from the University of Tampere (UTA), and the Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK). One course has been held in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal, Germany. This article describes how to train students especially with strong technical background and analytical mind-sets in the development of innovations in the field of media, foster creative thinking, and achieve problem solutions beyond the current state of the art. We present the basic curriculum, course structure, goals & objectives, applied methods, settings, and theoretical aspects of Design Thinking. Our experience and reflections on conducting the courses concludes this article. The article shall be an introductory guide for anyone who intends to organize a similar course in the university context.     

Professional development and teacher education—Have we got it right?

The paper draws on the experiences of the author over the last six years as a national co-ordinator with the Microelectronics Education Programme with special responsibility for computer based learning. Many strategies have been tried including traditional courses, distance learning, the “cascade” model, school-based in-service and resource-based training packs. The use of the new information technologies by teachers in classrooms is still a fairly rare phenomenon in spite of a massive effort on the part of the national government, local education authorities, the computer manufacturers, the software publishers and many other agencies. The significant shortfall in take-up with particular reference to areas of the curriculum such as mathematics and science will be examined.Lessons must be learned from the past six years and applied to our future plans for teacher education. It is not enough to give 12 microcomputers to a school, together with a batch of subsidised software and a one day course for some teachers—if they can be spared by the system. We need a more coherent approach on a scale which could well eclipse all that we have achieved in the past. The paper concludes with some future strategies which will focus on the child, the teacher and the class.     

Student data mining solution–knowledge management system related to higher education institutions

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are often curious whether students will be successful or not during their study. Before or during their courses the academic institutions try to estimate the percentage of successful students. But is it possible to predict the success rate of students enrolled in their courses? Are there any specific student characteristics, which can be associated with the student success rate? Is there any relevant student data available to HEIs on the basis of which they could predict the student success rate? The answers to the above research questions can generally be obtained using data mining tools. Unfortunately, data mining algorithms work best with large data sets, while student data, available to HEIs, related to courses are limited and falls into the category of small data sets. Thus, the study focuses on data mining for small student data sets and aims to answer the above research questions by comparing two different data mining tools. The conclusions of this study are very promising and will encourage HEIs to incorporate data mining tools as an important part of their higher education knowledge management systems.     

Innovations in science education: Challenging and changing teachers’ roles and beliefs

Abstract:

This qualitative case study sought to identify and explore new roles adopted by three science teachers when the context of teaching and learning science was drastically changed. The study was conducted in a school utilizing student‐centred, self‐paced learning, where traditional classrooms have been replaced by subject‐specific resource areas and seminar rooms. Students do not follow a fixed daily schedule; instead, they plan their own school day and move freely between resource areas at self‐directed, often irregular intervals, according to daily and weekly goals. Through interviews, classroom observation, and personal journals, the study explored the ways in which the teachers perceived and implemented their roles in the changed context.     

Utilizing Wiki-Systems in higher education classes: a chance for universal access?

Wikis are a website technology for mass collaborative authoring. Today, wikis are increasingly used for educational purposes. Basically, the most important asset of wikis is free and easy access for end users: everybody can contribute, comment and edit—following the principles of Universal access. Consequently, wikis are ideally suited for collaborative learning and a number of studies reported a great success of wikis in terms of active participation, collaboration, and a rapidly growing content. However, the wikis success in education was often linked either to direct incentives or even pressure. This paper strongly argues that this contradicts the original intentions of wikis and, furthermore, weakens the psycho-pedagogical impact. A study is presented which focuses on investigating the success of wikis in higher education, when students are neither enforced to contribute nor directly rewarded similar to the principles of Wikipedia. Amazingly, the results show that, in total, none of the N = 287 students created new articles or edited existing ones during a whole semester. It is concluded that the use of Wiki-Systems in educational settings is much more complicated, and it needs more time to develop a kind of “give-and-take” generation.     

Technology in the classroom: Burning the bridges to the gaps in gender-biased education?

This review introduces the concepts of gender bias and technology in education. It discusses the interaction between the two in the educational setting and the effects this interaction may have on teachers, students and materials used in the classroom. It is argued that areas in the educational setting that have been focused on as materials and practices that are biased have also been translated into the use of educational technology that is biased. This review makes the point that biases that have been pointed out and studied within the educational system have not been solved by the use of technology (as some had hoped). In fact, the biases have simply been converted into a new form and may have actually served to undo some the bias-eliminating practices that had been starting to take place in classrooms. Implications and suggestions for change are discussed.     

The development of computer‐based tools to support ergonomics in design education and practice

Abstract

Ergonomics is not always used effectively by practising designers, and is still seen as limiting their creativity. Reasons for this include: ergonomics information is not presented in a readily assimilated form to designers during their design education and later design activities; design decisions relating to ergonomics issues are not addressed and discussed systematically by all members of the design team during concept design; the user centred approach that ergonomics encourages in design is not always included as part of the education of future designers.

With computers being used more widely in design and design education, they could be used to deliver ergonomics information and help structure discussion of ergonomics issues amongst the design team from the earliest stages of design. This paper describes findings relating to the use of ergonomics in automotive design, and proposes two tools which could enhance the use of ergonomics in design education and in current and future design practice.     

Sustainability education based on NetLogo modeling environment： Taking climate change simulation as an example

Sustainable development becomes more and more important in China, and sustainability education should be paid more attention to correspondingly. The concept of sustainability and necessity of sustainability education were introduced and analyzed respectively in the paper. As a technical tool of implementing sustainability education, NetLogo modeling environment was discussed in detail, including its features, functions and advantages. To present NetLogo＇s power in sustainability education, the example of climate change simulation was elaborated and operated. The simulation results show that NetLogo brings reasonable and interesting and vivid education.