Thesis (Ph. D.)--Drexel University, 2007. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 198-209).

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2440. Adviser: Debra Bragg. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 217-222) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Instructional Systems Technology, 2006. / "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 26, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2121. Adviser: Thomas Brush.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Instructional Systems Technology, 2006. / "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 26, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2128. Adviser: Thomas A. Brush.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Education, 2006. / "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 27, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2123. Adviser: Barbara A. Bichelmeyer.

Multiple technological tools are used on a regular basis these days, e.g. PCs, laptops, iPads and smartphones. They are constantly becoming faster, reducing in size and offer more and more functions, which encourages their use anywhere and at any time. The portability and ubiquity of smartphone communications technology has encouraged educators and policy-makers around the world to incorporate it into teaching and learning. However, portability and ubiquity are not the only pedagogical affordance smartphones (and apps) offer; e.g. social interactivity, context sensitivity, connectivity and individuality are also represented (Klopfer et al., 2002). In this study, I have discussed some of these; the main thesis focus is on the pedagogical affordances of smartphone apps, especially a smartphone app (i.e. WhatsApp) to support collaborative learning (CL) amongst pre-service teachers under the Kuwait Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET). The main research question: ‘Is WhatsApp useful in enhancing collaboration amongst pre-service teachers at PAAET? If so, then how and why is it useful?’ is divided into several sub-questions on students’ perspectives of CL, amongst other relevant issues. The main study approach adopted is qualitative, including several methods (interviews, observation, focus groups, field notes, and Interactional Analysis (IA)), in order to gain insights into M-learning, mobile computer supported collaborative learning (MCSCL), CL, and participatory simulation (PS). PS involves new roles – the role of a real teacher instead of a pre-service teacher. The participants (n=65 in the first iteration, and n=59 in the second iteration) were successfully engaged in two iterations of design-based research (DBR), where their voices were crucial throughout. The use of smartphone apps (i.e. WhatsApp) by the students was evaluated, with information on student usage obtained via various channels. The data was analysed using a thematic analysis approach. The findings support the key theory that unique affordances are offered by smartphone apps (i.e. WhatsApp) for CL, enhancing learning opportunities with the support of PS activities. However, it was found that there are also challenges presented by the integration of technology into PAAET and the Kuwaiti context. These findings have important implications for both theory and practice and the integration of smartphone apps into the collaborative educational status quo. Furthermore, they should expand our understanding of the pedagogical affordances of smartphone apps for CL in a specific context (PAAET), although there are limitations to the current study and recommendations for further work are ultimately presented.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether differing composition software formats, personality, and gender affect the psychological approach that middle school students employed in their compositions. The subjects (N = 77) were seventh and eighth grade band students enrolled in a Western middle school. The subjects were administered the Murphy-Meisgeier Type Indicator for Children (MMTIC) to determine their dominant personality function. Upon the completion of the personality inventory, subjects were given a 30 minute exploratory period using the iconic and standard notation composition software formats. Two compositions were created by the subjects in subsequent class periods using Making Music, the iconic format, and Making More Music, the standard notation composition format. Upon the completion of each composition the subjects were administered the Measure of Psychological Approach toward Composition to determine which dominant psychological approach was used to create their composition. Descriptive statistics and the chi-square statistical test were used to determine the relationship between the independent variables and the psychological approaches used by the subjects. The findings of the study indicate that middle school students employ one of the four psychological approaches observed by Carbon (1986) as their dominant approach toward composition. Most often the intuitive approach was utilized by the subjects, followed by feeling, thinking, and sensing. Furthermore, the relationship between the psychological approach employed by the subjects and the computer software format used during the composition process were found to be significant This finding suggests that middle school subjects are likely to employ the same psychological approach toward composition when using either an iconic or standard notation software format. As indexed by Cramer's statistic, the strength of the relationship was .41 with a .90 level of power of as determined by the Population Fourfold Point Correlation Coefficient. Additional findings indicate that personality and gender were not related to the psychological approaches employed in the subject's compositions.

Personalization, the idea that teaching can be tailored to each students’ needs, has been a goal for the educational enterprise for at least 2,500 years (Regian, Shute, & Shute, 2013, p.2). Recently personalization has picked up speed with the advent of mobile computing, the Internet and increases in computer processing power. These changes have begun to generate more and more information about individual students that could theoretically be used to power personalized education. The following dissertation discusses a novel algorithm for processing this data to generate estimates of individual level attributes, the Inverse Bayes Filter (IBFi). A brief introduction to the use of Bayes Theorem is followed by a theoretical chapter and then two empirical chapters that describe alternately how the model is constructed, and how it performs on real student data. The theoretical chapter presents both the theory behind Inverse Bayes, including subjective probability, and then relates this theory to student performance. The first empirical chapter describes the prediction accuracy of IBFi on two proxies for students’ subjective probability, partial credit and cumulative average. This prediction performance is compared to the prediction accuracy of a modified Bayesian Knowledge Tracing model (KTPC) with IBFi performing reasonably, out-predicting the KTPC model on a per-student basis but not across all predictions. In the second empirical chapter I validate the theory behind the Inverse Bayes Filter through testing whether student certainty (or confidence) improves prediction performance. The inclusion of student certainty is shown to improve the predictive performance of the model relative to models that do not use certainty. This evidence supports the IBFi model and its underlying theory, indicating that students’ judgments about their levels of certainty in their answers contains information that can be successfully identified by the model. A final summary chapter describes the consequences of using this model for education broadly. / Human Development and Education

Skills associated with collaborative problem solving (CPS), especially in STEM-related disciplines, are increasingly regarded as essential for success in work and life. In the last decade, simulation-based games have emerged as rich environments for the situated learning of such skills, and are instrumental in the study of CPS because they provide rich data for detailed analysis of discourse and social interaction. One type of social interaction, Academically Productive Talk (APT), has been found to support collaborative activity, encourage knowledge integration, and promote academic gains for individuals. However, little is known about the relationship between APT and how groups develop complex STEM thinking. Additionally, despite evidence that students’ attitudes affect social interaction during collaborative activity, little is known about how collaborative social interaction may affect students’ attitudes. The primary goals of this study were to examine CPS discourse in order to: 1) investigate the relationship between the qualities and characteristics of how groups talk and what groups talk about; and 2) understand whether how groups talk effects a change in students’ attitudes. To meet these aims, this study paired conversation analysis with an innovative analytical methodology, Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA), to study groups’ endogenous use of APT and its relationship with substantive qualities of group discourse in the virtual simulation of professional practice in engineering, Nephrotex. This study presents empirical evidence that, (1) specific APT-style contributions were effective for introducing critical, domain-specific evidence into student discourse, and (2) more use of APT in group discourse resulted in better knowledge integration of human-centered design constraints (i.e., their client’s needs; their consultants’ interests) and data analysis. These findings varied in terms of how, when, and what type of, integration occurred. No evidence was found to suggest that students’ participation in groups that engage in more APT affects a positive change in their attitudes. A better understanding of the effects of APT in a simulation-based game environment can be used to inform the ongoing research and development of technologies capable of shaping and observing discourse as it occurs in virtual environments for learning, and that support students’ development of CPS skills.

Since bottlenecks and congestion often happen with the phenomenal growth in the use of the network, the demand for improving network delivered performance is very necessary. Deploying Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) technology to improve delivery performance has caused more and more people's attention. Content Delivery Networks employ many geographically distributed sites to improve the scalability and improves network performance by reducing the client's response time. In this thesis, we initially present the background knowledge on CDNs, which includes CDNs concept, function, methodology, components and market analysis. The thesis emphasizes analyzing, comparing and evaluating various aspects of CDNs. We divide the whole comparison and evaluation into three parts. Firstly, we analyze and compare CDNs to other methods for improving performance and congestion control. Secondly, we overview different technologies that can be used within CDNs, then compare and analyze various CDNs components and implementations. Thirdly, we select current representative CDNs companies or providers to compare and evaluate their products and services. In this thesis, we also describe some main applications of CDNs and do a case study of Cisco ECDN and Volera Velocity CDN for E-learning. Finally, we conclude this thesis by summarizing our analysis and giving recommended trends for CDNs development.