The Israeli Ministry of Education launched the "Tomorrow 98" programme in 1994 to integrate computer-technology into the educational system. Training the teachers for this change was one of the main goals of the programme. This study examined the integration of computer-based technology of 167 ESL teachers who had participated in the course "Integrating Computers into the English Class" organised since 1994 by the Israeli Ministry of Education. This two phased study included a questionnaire sent to all the ESL teachers who participated in the course and in-depth interviews conducted with five teachers (three users and two non- users of computer technology in their teaching) and five leading figures in their schools (three computer coordinators who work in the users' schools and two school principals in whose schools the two non-users teach). The analysis of the findings shows that 70 per cent of the teachers who participated in the course integrate computer technology in their teaching. A majority of these teachers have changed their teaching methods both in the computer environment and the regular classroom. They enjoy working in the computer room more than in the normal classroom and believe that their learners feel the same. The teachers state that their main obstacles are lack of time and access. Technical problems ceased to intimidate them as they have learnt to overcome them with the aid of their learners or peers. Of the 30 per cent who do not use computers in teaching, 93 per cent use computers to prepare their lessons and worksheets. The main reason they do not integrate computers in their teaching is lack of access to computers in school. The study shows that school principals and school cultures have a distinct influence on the success or failure of computer integration in their schools. Collegial school management and supportive school culture encourage teachers to use computers in their teaching and to experiment new teaching methods. It is the hope of the researcher that this study will help teachers, principals, course developers, and other professionals working to integrate technology into instructional settings to understand the issues which accompany this process and lead it to success.

Citizen Inquiry has been proposed as an informal science learning approach to enable widespread involvement in science and empower citizens with reasoning and problem-solving skills used by scientists. It combines aspects from citizen science and inquiry-based learning, producing science learning experiences within distributed communities of interest. A central challenge for Citizen Inquiry is to involve citizens in planning and implementing their own investigations, supported and guided by online systems and tools within an inquiry environment, while collaborating with science experts and non-experts. This thesis explores how to create an active and sustainable online community for citizens to engage in scientific investigations. To this end, it investigates the design of online communities, recruitment and retaining of members, factors that engage or disengage members from the community, and whether and how members learn throughout their participation. The intervention comprises two iterations of Citizen Inquiry communities: ‘Inquiring Rock Hunters’ and ‘Weather-it’. The communities were accommodated by the nQuire platform and the nQuire-it toolkit, respectively, software designed and structured to support collaborative personally-meaningful inquiry learning. The findings of this research are explained through an analysis that compared the two design studies with previous research on citizen participation projects and online communities. Results highlight the importance of frequent project communication, multiple ways of participation, software usability, and interaction and collaboration between the members, while indicating disengagement factors such as lack of time, interest and confidence. Different categories of learning are identified (activity, on-topic and community), emphasizing the understanding of inquiry activities as part of a complete scientific process and the balance between fun and learning. The thesis concludes with design considerations for the creation of future Citizen Inquiry and other citizen participation communities.

The thesis explores the hypothesis that an analysis of a Multi-dimensional Concept Map (MDCM) provides educators and researchers with different and possibly richer and broader insights into understanding of an issue — in this case that of digital technologies in education - than written responses alone. 'Multi-dimensionality' refers to the characteristics of multimodal hand-drawn or digitally produced concept maps, namely multi-layering and (remote) multi-authoring. Forty-eight pairs of concept maps were collected, in three case studies based in England and South Africa, all focusing on gaining insights into educators' understanding of the use of digital technologies in teaching and learning. The three groups of educators were undertaking one-year courses about using computers in classrooms, underpinned by three different perspectives on learning. information transmission, constructivism and social interaction. This study of pre- and post-course concept maps aims to answer the Research Question: How does multimodal concept mapping provide insights into educators' understanding about digital technologies? Both benefits and challenges were evident in the use of the three different methods of analysis that were used. Given the relatively low numbers, a qualitative analysis of scores is revealing whereas a quantitative analysis is unreliable; 'words', where they are used, provide a useful insight; a more encompassing semiotic analysis revealed some underlying 'positions' that surprised even the map makers themselves. A key methodological finding was that in social interaction contexts, concept maps are most valuable used as scaffolds for conversations between participants within `communities of practice' to promote shared insights into professional understanding of digital technologies. The findings were influenced by the four different roles assumed by the researcher: as an objective judge of data; as a community mentor; as an active community member; and as a researcher and community member inviting other members of that community to be co-researchers. The researcher learnt, as the project progressed, that the danger of becoming too close to the 'subjects' to be objective about the data was outweighed by the richness of the insights when the map makers engaged with the researcher and with trusted colleagues in analyzing the meaning of their pairs of concept maps.

Many popular discourses describe today's young people as the 'digital generation', who are completely different from adults in their ways of thinking, working and living (Tapscott, 1998; Prensky, 2006). When it comes to teaching the 'digital generation', there have been growing concerns over the 'media generation gap' in the classroom (Green and Bigum, 1993). However, the concept of the 'digital generation' itself is questionable. It is a label used to refer to young people by outsiders, rather than a label agreed on by young people to represent themselves (Herring, 2008). Therefore, before calling young people the 'digital generation', we need to carefully explore young people's relationship with new media. In what ways and for what reasons do young people use new media? Is there really a 'media generation gap' between young people and adults, especially in a school setting? How are young people constructed, and how do they construct themselves, in terms of their generational identity? To answer these questions, data were collected using both quantitative and qualitative methods. I conducted a survey in secondary schools in Korea to find out general trends in both teachers' and students' use of media and attitudes towards the media. After analysing data collected via the survey, interview questions and activities were planned to contextualise findings from the survey, and to explore the questions of generational identification. Based on the questionnaires and in-depth interviews, this thesis argues that the 'media generation gap' is more to do with attitudes towards media rather than the types of media that different generations mostly use. In addition, based on the qualitative data, this thesis suggests that young people tend to make use of the new media to manage and perform their identities as 'youth' and 'students'. The data also show that young people consciously pick and choose the media they use according to their lifestyles and generational identities. However, their lifestyles are also affected by the technological characteristics of the new media. Therefore, 'young people' and 'new media', both socially constructed, discursively co-construct each other.

No description available.

Education systems continue to face extensive challenges stemming from the on-going technological revolution, and e-books have now become one of the most important resources for learning. The majority of university students today use e-books to perform their tasks and research. In addition to e-books, gaming technology is frequently thought of as a promising technology that can have a substantial effect on future learning. The gaming technology environment has the potential to make learning more engaging and interesting as well as to enhance learners’ knowledge, skills and experience. Based on the literature review conducted for this study as well as previous academic discussions, there are gaps in the existing literature regarding the effects of gaming technology on learning. This research thus aims to explore whether game-based learning environments have a greater effect on learners’ attitudes, higher-order thinking and cognitive load than e-book-based learning. This research investigates and clarifies effects such as the impact of gaming technology on attitudes (autonomous learning, curiosity and motivation) and cognitions (critical thinking and problem solving), evaluates the cognitive load and then compares it to the e-book impact. The study utilised mixed intervention methods with a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design to test and explore factors affecting the use of e-books and gaming technology. This approach enabled the creation of e-book and gaming technology platforms for an experiment conducted by 30 doctoral students at the University of Salford (15 in the e-book group and 15 in the gaming technology group). Several data collection methods were also used, including questionnaires, interviews and observations via the FaceReader system and the Snagit software. Statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS and Excel software, as well as the NVivo software for content analysis, in order to answer the research questions. The results show that gaming technology is an effective learning tool and that it has a more positive impact on learners’ attitudes than e-books as it enhances autonomous learning, curiosity and motivation. Moreover, gaming technology and e-books have a similar effect on cognition, critical thinking and problem-solving ability. Finally, gaming technology has a more positive impact on cognitive load than e-books.

As a prominent symbol of the free-market, liberationist approach to International Development (ID), the Self-Organised Learning Environment (Mitra, 2006) has been presented as a bona-fide revolution in primary education provision, a means by which the global poor can finally gain a legitimate foothold in modernity with nothing more than a computer and an internet connection (Tooley, 2006). Naturally, the notion of a credible, teacher-less environment characterised by a spontaneous and coherent pedagogy of enquiry is a remarkable yet, highly emotive hypothesis with potential consequences far beyond the domain of ID. Indeed, a review of the associated literature attributes a raft of learning claims to the SOLE, not to mention supplementary social and psychological benefits (Mitra 2012). On the other hand, an overtly foundational approach to SOLE research is neither supported by an empirical study of participant interaction nor a coherent definition of learning, presenting the participants as nothing more than `ghosts with a machine`. On the understanding that self-organisation can only truly exist as an emergent practice, where talk-in-interaction is presumed to reside at the heart of social order (Boden & Zimmerman, 1991), this thesis represents a detailed micro-analysis of SOLE participation among children from a marginalised community resident in Boyacá, Colombia. In direct contrast to a large-scale, etic approach to educational research founded on a priori concepts, testing, statistics and generalisation (Mitra, 2006), the learning space is reconceived as a distinctly intimate, Community of Practice (Wenger, 2000). In which case, computer-mediated activity is characterised relative to an interactional paradigm (Hutchby, 2001) and Page 3 the canonical features of mundane conversation, including; turn-taking, repair and topic management (ten Have, 1999). To begin with, it is argued that SOLE interaction can be arranged in terms of the following series of interrelated routines: Entry; Challenge; Search; Tutorial; Evaluation; Outage; Fly-Solo. As Sacks anticipated (Silverman 1998), micro-analysis reveals that participation and computer-mediated multi-activity is broadly consistent with the exigencies of context. Self-organisation then is shaped by the social realities of identity and the seemingly paradoxical features of group belonging (sharing) and individual autonomy (control) manifest in practices of opposition, assessment and insult (Goodwin & Kyratzis, 2009; Corsaro, 2005). Secondly, the SOLE organisational and learning structure is distinctly intra-personal and autocratic in nature. Thereafter, peer-to-peers relations are subject to situated distributions of epistemic authority coupled with unilateral demonstrations of the deontic equivalent. Moreover, Mitra’s idealised representation of a learning environment free from institutional/ideological interference i.e. outdoctrination, is challenged by a conspicuous, politicisation of the SOLE by the participants themselves. Thirdly, the dyad is the principle mode of operation where participants orient towards the computer as a limited resource/object rather than an active participant or product of social construction. Forthly, interaction is broadly consistent with the principal features of canonical talk where accountability is sustained through a combination of linguistic and para-linguistic activity (Atkinson & Heritage, 1984). To this effect, participant intersubjectivity is produced and sustained through mutually supportive acts of mediated coherence relative to a recognisable series of emergent procedures, namely: dispute; action-listing; effectuated repair; reciprocal exchanges; place-saving. Finally, the Page 4 detailed linguistic features of interaction point to an object-oriented, `mobilising` speech-exchange system operating directly at the interface between talk and social action. Whilst the precise flow of interaction is virtual-activity dependent, the system is consistently characterised by abbreviated forms of talk, most conspicuously; deictic reference, directives and response cries supplemented throughout by embodied gesture/metanarrative. Irrespective of these linguistic shortcuts, not to mention limitations of computer affordance i.e. ambivalence, overload and diversions, the general absence of breakdown suggests a degree of communicative competence between the participants. In which case, notions of situated learning and knowledge are not so much cognitive and mechanical in nature but distinctly social and interactional (Hutchby & Moran-Ellis, 2001) with the principal aim of CoP assimilation: learning is not so much related to the acquisition of arbitrary, content-centric knowledge, as it is about play, identity and situated competency as part of an emergent social practice within an unfamiliar mediated context In conclusion, it is argued that a liberationalist approach to ID research and education is definitively and inexorably deterministic in nature. In the absence of interactional data, Mitra is seemingly obliged to co-opt the principle symbols of an alternative, social-cultural paradigm i.e. collaboration, agency, democracy, equality, criticality, in order to add intellectual ballast to the otherwise empty claims of self-organisation i.e. a `Trojan Mouse` approach to social and educational change (Selwyn, 2011). In broader terms of development policy, the issue of authentic representation is viewed as a priority. Thereafter, the study Page 5 recommends a context-sensitive paradigm of ID research as a meaningful supplement to the prevailing logo-centric orthodoxy. Consistent with the rhetoric of post-colonialism, emphasis is shifted to a post-structural sociology (Heritage, 1984) and educational curriculum (Slattery, 2006) supported by a counter-balancing emic approach to research i.e. micro-ethnography, one that seeks to give authentic voice not only to SOLE participants but to the multitude living extreme poverty as a relentless, day-to-day reality.

Computer technology is an important tool that enhances people’s learning, improves their education and influences the development of society. There is considerable research in Western countries studying attitudes towards computers but few studies have been performed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Therefore, it is worth measuring students’ attitudes to computer use in KSA as, if students are able to develop a positive attitude towards this during their educational years, they will increase their learning and knowledge, their future work will benefit and in turn this will benefit the national economy. The aim of this study is to investigate the associations between Saudi University students’ knowledge of English, their gender, computer experience, parents’ encouragement of use computer usage, place of residence and general attitudes towards the use of computers in their daily life. The main contribution of this study is the investigation of the attitude of both teachers and students within different regions of Saudi Arabia, using a large quantitative data set triangulated with qualitative data. The results show that Saudi undergraduate students have a positive attitude toward computers, and there are no significant gender differences between male and female students in their attitudes. This study also suggests students in the capital city have a more positive attitude towards computer than students from small cities. There is also a strong relationship between attitudes towards computers and English language skills, computer experiences, parental encouragement and undergraduate students’ computer attitudes. A majority of Saudi students in the study don’t have access to computers at university, especially females. The qualitative study conducted with school teachers shows gender differences, with male teachers having a more positive attitudes towards computers, and more computer experience and skills. The evidence presented in this work suggests that the educational use of computing in KSA requires an increased availability of computers; provision of computer workshops for students and educators starting from early education; levels to higher education and encouragement of students to use computers in learning methods in order to be successful.

Whereas a reasonable body of research now exists on the use of networked learning and learning communities in higher education, less is known about their use in other sectors of education such as professional development. This research focuses on an example of an online learning community used for school teachers’ continuous professional development (CPD) – in an eTwinning Learning Event (LE). It looks at how the online community supports the development of school teachers’ competence and practice, at how social aspects contribute to the discourse and at the impact of moderation. Action research is used to follow and influence the development of the LE entitled 'Exploiting Web 2.0: eTwinning and Collaboration'. An analysis of the first LE, using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison et al., 2000) as a theoretical lens, led to changes being applied in the second LE to reinforce the cognitive, teaching and social presence. The event was lengthened to provide an opportunity for participants to apply what they were learning in the LE to their teaching practice and a final activity was added to support reflection amongst peers. Tutor moderation was reinforced at key points and informal social interaction was encouraged through the addition of a virtual staff room. Data were collected via a participant questionnaire, interviews and the coding of the messages in the discussion forums. The subsequent analysis suggests that the applied changes had a positive impact on cognitive development, social interaction and the orchestration of learning. Cognitive presence was reinforced with evidence of critical thinking emerging in the participants' discourse. Teaching presence, initially provided by the tutors, gradually emerged from the participants as they self-organised the collaboration and offered their peers mutual support. Collaboration was seen as contributing to the learning, with informal knowledge sharing and participants perceiving a sense of community. However, the community was ephemeral, lasting only for as long as it served the purpose of learning. The results suggest an emerging model for future eTwinning LEs and their online moderation by a tutor.

This research explored the factors perceived to be influential for members of staff at the University of Liverpool (UoL) to adopt and implement educational technologies. The research was based in practice and the UoL examined as a case study. The theoretical framework was based upon innovation research and informed by Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovations (DOI), and Ely’s (1999) eight conditions of implementation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with sixteen members of staff. Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts complemented an analysis of relevant UoL documentation. I did not find evidence for five categories of adopters as defined in the DOI. Instead I proposed three categories: Enthusiasts, Pragmatists and Risk Aversives. These categories were not perceived to be static but varied as a result of contextual and individual factors. Participants’ perceptions of drivers and rationales were examined using Hannan’s (2005) concept of drivers for directed, guided and individual innovations. Directed institutional drivers were generally perceived to be lacking, though some faculty, school or departmental drivers were reported. Guided drivers were not reported. However, participants perceived certain general institutional activities to be drivers. I defined these as indirect drivers. Several individual drivers were reported including a perception of benefit, general interest and career benefit. Factors perceived to enable participants to utilise educational technologies effectively were split between the support available from central services and informal developments within faculties, schools and departments. The availability of accessible colleagues, or near peers, was reported as one of the most influential factors. My findings were contrasted with the innovation-decision process of Rogers’ (2003) DOI and Ely’s (1999) eight implementation conditions. A new model focused upon the importance of context was proposed. There are implications for how the UoL supports the adoption and implementation of educational technologies. Recommendations are made and areas for further research are identified.