Adoption and use of technology in early education: The interplay of extrinsic barriers and teacher attitudes

The increased access to, but continued under-use of, technology in education makes it imperative to understand the barriers teachers face when integrating technology into their classrooms. While prior research suggests teachers encounter both first-order extrinsic barriers and second-order personal barriers, much of this research has focused on K-12 teachers, not early childhood educators. Applying the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology to early childhood education, the current study examines predictors of early childhood educators' access to and use of traditional technologies and newer mobile devices. Findings from 1329 teachers of 0–4-year-olds reveal that while extrinsic barriers influence access to a range of technologies, positive beliefs in children's learning from technology significantly predicted actual use of technology. Overall, the study provides new insight into factors influencing technology integration specifically for early childhood educators, a subgroup that has not been represented in much of the literature on technology integration in formal education.     

Music learning in preschool with mobile devices

Mobile and game-based learning are novel approaches characterised by the use of mobile devices and enabling learning anywhere and at any time. In this paper, we share an experience-based design and a pilot study to introduce music learning in preschool education. SAMI (Software for music learning in early childhood education) is a mobile application consisting of four games which main objectives are ear training, sound discrimination and music composition. The pilot study carried out in a real-life setting with third-year kindergarten children provides empirical data about music learning outcomes and compares an experimental group of children using SAMI with a control group which follows the traditional Montessori bells method. Our study results reveal a number of key findings for the design of preschool mobile games and the potential of using mobile technologies for music learning in early childhood.     

Educational magic toys developed with augmented reality technology for early childhood education

Shaping children's experience, enhancing their imagination and affecting their behaviors, toys have great importance. Recently, toys have gained a digital characteristic and many children have tended to use them. For this reason, educational magic toys (EMT) were developed with augmented reality technology in this study. It is called as EMT because virtual objects such as story animations, 3D objects and flash animations appear on the toys. EMT has included puzzles, flash cards and match cards to teach animals, fruits, vegetables, vehicles, objects, professions, colors, numbers and shapes for average 5–6 age children in Early Childhood Education. The aim of this study is to reveal teachers' and children's opinions on EMT, to determine children's behavioral patterns and their cognitive attainment, and the relationship between them while playing EMT. Mix method was used and the sample consisted of 30 teachers and 33 children aged 5–6 in early childhood education. As data collection tools, a survey, an observation and interview form were used. This study revealed that teachers and children liked EMT activity. In addition, children interactively played with these toys but not had high cognitive attainment. From this point, we can say that these toys can be effectively used in early childhood education. However, collaborative and interactive learning with these toys should be provided. Moreover, this study will provide an important contribution, present a new educational AR application, and fill the gap in the educational technology field.     

The Effects of Communication Modality on Outcomes of Collaborative Tasks

Collaborative learning involves students working in small groups to complete tasks related to class instruction. Collaborative learning techniques are widely used in business schools. There is research evidence to suggest that collaborative learning leads to positive outcomes. Specifically, the interaction that occurs among students in completing the group task provides both educational and social benefits. The easy availability of communication technology has changed the modality of interaction among students. This change has been furthered by an increase in the number of students who work full-time and also enroll in business schools. Such students tend to interact more using communication technologies, such as electronic mail and not necessarily face-to-face. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of these changes in communication modalities on the outcomes of group work. The results indicate that while students have a preference for using traditional face-to-face interaction, there seems to be no significant correlation between communication modality and measures of group outcomes.     

Implementing Web 2.0 technologies in higher education: A collective case study

Web 2.0 technologies are becoming more popular in the everyday lives of students. As a result, teachers and designers have begun to explore their use in formal education. This paper presents evaluation findings from a collective case study of six Web 2.0 implementations in Australian higher education. The research was undertaken as part of a larger study that sought to understand how today’s students use information and communication technologies to support their learning. Conducted across three universities, the research included a range of disciplines, class sizes and year levels. A common evaluation strategy was used in order to collect comparable data from which commonalities and differences could be identified. This paper provides an overview of the study, describes the methodology used, summarises the implementation experiences of staff and students involved and presents the key findings. The results suggest that most students had little prior experience with relevant technologies and that many struggled to see the value of using Web 2.0 technologies for learning and teaching, both of which have important implications for the design of appropriate learning tasks. While the argument can be made for improving the design through better task-technology alignment, this study also highlights inherent tensions between Web 2.0 and educational practices.     

Unpacking students' conceptualizations through haptic feedback

While it is clear that the use of computer simulations has a beneficial effect on learning when compared to instruction without computer simulations, there is still room for improvement to fully realize their benefits for learning. Haptic technologies can fulfill the educational potential of computer simulations by adding the sense of touch. Visuohaptic simulations may not only help students visualize these concepts, but they may also have the capability of enriching the learning experience and enhancing retention. To provide additional insights about how students conceptualize abstract and difficult concepts in science, this study proposes a sequencing approach. The research questions are: (1) what are undergraduate students' ways of conceptualizing electric fields through haptic feedback? And (2) what are undergraduate students' perceptions of using visuohaptic simulations for their learning of electric force concepts? Participants included nine undergraduate students who participated in a think aloud procedure. Data were analysed qualitatively using open coding followed by axial coding. The results suggest that students' conceptualized electric force concepts through embodied haptic experiences by inferring force–distance relationship, sign inference, shape of field and indirectly inferring the concept of electric potential. Students also perceived the value of using visual plus haptic simulations to help them understand and retain concepts.     

Measuring with Murray: Touchscreen technology and preschoolers' STEM learning

American students rank well below international peers in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Early exposure to STEM-related concepts is critical to later academic achievement. Given the rise of tablet-computer use in early childhood education settings, interactive technology might be one particularly fruitful way of supplementing early STEM education. Using a between-subjects experimental design, we sought to determine whether preschoolers could learn a fundamental math concept (i.e., measurement with non-standard units) from educational technology, and whether interactivity is a crucial component of learning from that technology. Participants who either played an interactive tablet-based game or viewed a non-interactive video demonstrated greater transfer of knowledge than those assigned to a control condition. Interestingly, interactivity contributed to better performance on near transfer tasks, while participants in the non-interactive condition performed better on far transfer tasks. Our findings suggest that, while preschool-aged children can learn early STEM skills from educational technology, interactivity may only further support learning in certain contexts.     

Emerging university student experiences of learning technologies across the Asia Pacific

Three hundred students across eight countries and eleven higher education institutions in the Asia Pacific Region participated in two courses on climate change and disaster management that were supported by learning technologies: a satellite-enabled video-conferencing system and a learning management system. Evaluation of the student experience across the region proved a significant challenge, particularly the way the students conceived of the links between the technologies and their studies, and the way they approached the use of the technologies in connected and sometimes disconnected ways. This study examines the results of a quantitative investigation into the student experience and identifies key aspects of the structure of the variables used to evaluate the experience as well as identifying groups of students in the sample population who reported qualitatively different experiences. Significant outcomes reveal that cohesive conceptions of the learning technologies tend to be related to more effective ways of using both the video-conferencing and learning management systems, and that both at the level of variables, and at the level of groups of students, these experiences tend to be related to relatively higher outcomes. The results have important implications for both the design and teaching of technology-mediated courses and offer ideas for courses that combine systems such as learning management and video-conferencing.     

Why using instructional technology effectively is tough

Although higher education has made great strides in using technology to improve instruction quality, certain barriers need to be overcome to achieve more immediate success. The advent of new technologies has created a requirement to bolster staff expertise to include teaching with technology. Unfortunately, the expertise of many faculty development centers has become bifurcated into those who know about computers and those who know about teaching and learning. Consequently, many instructor-supported activities promote using new technologies to teach in the same old ways. There appears to be a real divide between many faculty members' own learning experience and the type their students will need to thrive in industry.     

Learning and teaching in a synchronous collaborative environment

Despite obvious domination of asynchronous collaborative technologies, especially for virtual classrooms and distance education, the work presented in this paper is based on the assumption that some students will still prefer the experience of on-campus, face-to-face collaborative learning. For those students a new synchronous collaborative environment is created by combining an innovative methodology for 'same-time, same-place' interactive learning and the technology called Group Support Systems which is designed to provide not only communication but rather computer-mediated collaboration. This paper introduces this learning methodology and illustrates its potential to improve critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills of all students who are stimulated to participate as equal learners. It also describes how teachers are transformed from 'information delivery specialists' to guides and facilitators of learning.     

Sharing instructors experience of learning management system: A technology perspective of user satisfaction in distance learning course

The use of educational technology increased rapidly in higher education. Learning Management System (LMS) is the most popular educational technology system used in distance learning. There are only a few studies have been carried out to measure instructors satisfaction in distance learning courses, although instructors satisfaction is considered as very important for the course involvement and increasing the students interactions with the course content. Hence, this study proposed a detailed framework to measure instructors’ satisfaction of using LMS. The findings prove that perceived usefulness and service quality are taking the highest share on affecting the instructor satisfactions. This study limited to higher education’s instructors and used a questionnaire survey to collect the data. Hence, the LMS should be designed based on the needs of the instructors as well as the students, by adopting the latest technologies. In the contrary, building LMS without taking the instructors’ satisfaction into account will affect negatively the distance learning course outcomes.     

Norwegian students using digital artifacts in project-based learning

Abstract Discussion about information and communication technologies in education are often conducted at a general level. To increase understanding about new technologies and learning it is necessary to be more specific about what kinds of tools are being used and how they are related to knowledge construction by students within specific subject domains. Three Norwegian cases studies are reported so that different school cultures on how the learning environments are implemented are exposed. One important conclusion from the cross‐case analysis is the diversity among cases. What is the added value or changes that these technologies represent? Within a Norwegian context the paper shows how technology contributes to the design of new learning environments and how it might stimulate knowledge construction among students.     

Developing a hands-on activity using virtual reality to help students learn by doing

This study combined virtual reality (VR) technology, the 6E (Engage, Explore, Explain, Engineer, Enrich, and Evaluate) model, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education to develop a hands-on activity aimed at helping students to achieve “learning by doing.” The participants were 162 tenth-grade students, divided into the Experimental Group (hands-on activity using VR technology) and the Control Group (hands-on activity via lectures). Using sequential analysis, this study investigated how the hands-on activity influenced the students' behavioral patterns in learning. The results showed that all of the students' learning performances and hands-on abilities were enhanced. Moreover, the students who used VR technology achieved both significantly better learning performances and hands-on abilities, indicating that VR might be able to help the students understand abstract scientific concepts and build mental models, which they used to internalize and organize knowledge structures. Furthermore, this study discovered that the students who learned using VR technology formed a cyclical learning pattern, starting with a group discussion (G), moving on to solving problems (S) and developing a product (D), and then going back to another group discussion. However, the students who learned via lectures produced a linear learning pattern in the order of G→S→D.     

A review of technologies for sensing contact location on the surface of a display

Touchscreen interactive devices have become increasingly important in both consumer and commercial applications. This paper provides a broad overview of all touchscreen technologies in use today, organized into 13 categories with 38 variations. The 13 categories are projected capacitive, analog resistive, surface capacitive, surface acoustic wave, infrared, camera‐based optical, liquid crystal display in‐cell, bending wave, force sensing, planar scatter detection, vision‐based, electromagnetic resonance, and combinations of technologies. The information provided on each touchscreen technology includes a little history, some basic theory of operation, the most common applications, the key advantages and disadvantages, a few current issues or trends, and the author's opinion of the future outlook for the technology. Because of its dominance, this paper begins with projected capacitive; more information is provided on this technology than on any of the other touch technologies that are discussed. This paper covers only technologies that operate by contact with a display screen; this excludes technologies such as 3D gesture recognition, touch on opaque devices such as interactive whiteboards, and proximity sensing. This is not a highly technical paper; it sacrifices depth of information on any one technology for breadth of information on multiple technologies.     

The role of iPads in pre-school children's mark making development

The increased acquisition of touch-screen technologies, such as tablet computers, in both homes and schools raises important questions about their role for very young children's learning and development. Their inherent touch-based interaction offers new opportunities for mark making practices, which are linked to literacy development, through the emergent process of using marks as symbolic representation. This paper reports a comparative study of touch-based interaction using a tablet computer versus traditional physical paint and paper. Children aged 2–3 years engaged in a free finger painting activity and colouring in activity in both paper and digital environments. Video data of their interactions was used to develop a coding scheme for analyzing touch-based interaction, providing insight into how the use of fingers and hands differed in each environment, the different types and qualities of touch that were engendered, and the composition of the final paintings produced. Findings show that while the tablet computer limited the number of fingers used for interaction, its material affordances supported speed and continuity, which led to more mark making, and different ‘scales’ of mark making extending the range of mark making practices. At the same time it limited the sensory experience of physical paint and resulted in more uniform final compositions. The findings are discussed in terms of shaping young children's mark making, the implications of the use of touch screen technologies in literacy development for educational practitioners and technology design, and key future research directions.     

Digital divides? Student and staff perceptions of information and communication technologies

This paper reports qualitative findings from a study that investigated Australian university staff and students’ perceptions and use of current and emerging technologies both in their daily lives and in teaching and learning contexts. Forty-six first-year students and 31 teaching and support staff from three Australian universities took part in interviews and focus groups. This paper examines how students and staff reported on their use of new technologies in their daily lives, their stated reasons for using those technologies, and their beliefs about the benefits and limitations of using technologies as teaching and learning tools. The findings question assumptions that have been made about a “digital divide” between “digital native” students and their “digital immigrant” teachers in higher education today, suggesting we need to develop a more sophisticated understanding about the role technologies play in the lives of both students and staff. A better understanding of student and staff perspectives will allow for more informed decisions about the implementation of educational technologies in today’s higher education institutions.     

Examining the impact of off-task multi-tasking with technology on real-time classroom learning

The purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of multi-tasking with digital technologies while attempting to learn from real-time classroom lectures in a university setting. Four digitally-based multi-tasking activities (texting using a cell-phone, emailing, MSN messaging and Facebook™) were compared to 3 control groups (paper-and-pencil note-taking, word-processing note-taking and a natural use of technology condition) over three consecutive lectures. Comparisons indicated that participants in the Facebook™ and MSN conditions performed more poorly than those in the paper-and-pencil use control. Follow-up analyses were required to accommodate the substantial number of students who failed to comply with the limited use of technology specified by their assigned conditions. These analyses indicated that participants who did not use any technologies in the lectures outperformed students who used some form of technology. Consistent with the cognitive bottleneck theory of attention (Welford, 1967) and contrary to popular beliefs, attempting to attend to lectures and engage digital technologies for off-task activities can have a detrimental impact on learning.     

Improving the authentic learning experience by integrating robots into the mixed-reality environment

The main aim of the modern popular teaching method of authentic learning has been to provide students with everyday-life challenges that develop knowledge and skills through problem solving in different situations. Many emerging information technologies have been used to present authentic environment in pedagogical purpose. However, there are few studies that have been discussed the sense of authenticity and characters in scene and how students interact with the characters involved in the task. We designed a system, RoboStage, with authentic scenes by using mixed-reality technology and robot to investigate the difference in learning with either physical or virtual characters and learning behaviors and performance through the system. Robots were designed to play real interactive characters in the task. The experiment of the study conducted with 36 junior high students. The results indicated that RoboStage significantly improved the sense of authenticity of the task and also positively affected learning motivation. Learning performance was conditionally affected by RoboStage.     

Interactive augmented reality system for enhancing library instruction in elementary schools

Due to limited budgets and manpower, most elementary schools in Taiwan do not plan or provide library instruction for students. Although students can use libraries, they typically lack the knowledge needed to use library resources effectively. Consequently, students have difficulty finding the books they need and can easily become overwhelmed by the massive amount of information in libraries. Computer-assisted instruction for teaching basic library skills to large numbers of students is an appealing method. Particularly, developing augmented reality (AR) technologies for learning have garnered considerable attention in education research. Many researchers and scholars believe that integrating teaching and AR enhances student learning performance and motivation. This work develops an educational AR system based on situated learning theory, and applies innovative augmented reality interactive technology to a library’s learning environment. Student library knowledge can be enhanced via the proposed augmented reality library instruction system (ARLIS). Experimental results demonstrate that student learning performance is improved significantly by using the proposed ARLIS. Moreover, this work demonstrates that using the proposed ARLIS for library instruction results in the same learning performance as conventional librarian instruction and there is no gender difference on learning performance between the proposed ARLIS and conventional librarian instruction. Moreover, the proposed library instruction system overcomes shortcomings of personal teaching skills of librarians that may adversely affect student learning performance by conveying the same learning content to all students. Additionally, the proposed system results in better learning performance for learners with the field-dependent cognitive style than learners with the field-independent cognitive style. Further, the proposed system provides more benefits in terms of library skills of application and comprehension than conventional librarian instruction. Moreover, the learning performance of students is not affected by their gaming skills. Therefore, student gaming skills do not need to be considered when adopting the proposed system in library instruction programs.