<p> School districts have spent millions on technology tools and trainings. Yet, half of teachers still feel unprepared to utilize technology in the classroom. The primary barrier to technology has shifted to teacher belief&mdash;composed of teaching philosophy, technology skills, and experience with technology. Technology-based professional development must integrate a theoretical framework which directly addresses the role of technology in order to fully support teacher technology integration. Moreover, technology-based professional development requires new models to counteract the focus on skills acquisition. The researcher used the TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge) framework&mdash; conceptualizing instruction as a blending of technology, pedagogy, and content- to support participants in evaluating their own practice. Additionally, the researcher investigated supplemental supports for professional development, modeling and mentoring, on technology integration. The researcher used the Technology Integration Assessment Rubric (TIAR), based on the TPACK framework, to measure changes in technology integration. Comparison of pretest and posttest TIAR scores found TPACK-based professional development raised TIAR scores by 0.37 (<i>SE</i> = 0.051, <i>p</i> &lt; 0.001). Analysis of the mean posttest TIAR scores for the supplemental supports showed mentoring (<i>M</i> = 2.47), modeling (<i>M</i> = 2.29), and modeling and mentoring (<i>M</i> = 2.27) scored higher than the control group (<i>M</i> = 2.17), but were not statistically significant. Based on the results, the researcher asserts the need for theory-based support for technology integration and school districts to incorporate TPACK into the core principles guiding instructional technology departments. Further research is needed regarding the evolution of diverse models for professional development.</p><p>

<p> For over forty years, researchers, policymakers, and educational leaders have promoted computer technology use within schools to enhance teaching and learning (Culp, Honey, &amp; Mandinach, 2003; U.S. Department of Education, 2010). The effective schools literature of the 1980s suggested principals should be the instructional leader of the school building; however, school principals are often tasked with other administrative and managerial responsibilities diverting their attention from instructional technology (Lashway, 2002; Fullan 2014). Filling this gap requires a school leader who understands the importance of engaging learners with the technological advances of today&rsquo;s society. Partnering with the principal, the instructional technology leader can aid to improve the school&rsquo;s learning environment by influencing individual and institutional factors to support classroom technology use (Consortium for School Networking, 2009; International Society for Technology in Education, 2011). Unlike the role of the school principal, the instructional technology leader lacks authoritative power and instead relies on the ability to manage one&rsquo;s own emotions and attitudes as well as the emotions and attitudes of others (teachers), a process explored in emotional intelligence theory. </p><p> Using a blend of portraiture and narrative design methodology, this study explored the experiences of instructional technology leaders under the lens of emotional intelligence. The following question framed this study: How do instructional technology leaders perceive their own emotional intelligence (EI) and the role EI plays in the implementation and integration of instructional technology in the schools they serve?</p><p>

<p> The iSocial 3D CVLE is an innovative design for addressing special needs at a distance that require social and active learning. This exploratory retrospective case study explored innovative methods of analyzing co-occurrences of behavior to gain insight into understanding and evaluating student performance and 3D CVLE design. Visualization techniques were employed to model student behavior within similarly structured activities. Linear mixed models revealed that student performance significantly differed across environments. In addition, environmental design attributes were identified through qualitative memos. General behavior patterns were associated with design environment attributes, warranting further study.</p><p>

The aspects of educational institutions and the systemic practice of education are the product of 2 distinct features of education. The first is the institutional practice of a chosen philosophy of education. The second is the technologies that have afforded the facilitation of information production, consumption and distribution essential processes of education. Taking advantage of major reform opportunities in educational practice, made possible by an emerging digital information system the current trend in education tends to relinquish the long tradition of philosophy of education and embraces the cultivation of a reflective and productive citizenry through education. However, by looking at the ways in which the technologies of their time constrained or enabled the imaginations of our most influential philosophers of education (Plato, Rousseau and Dewey), we will better understand how real technologies and ideal philosophies are necessarily related. With such knowledge, we may inform our educational reform alternatives with the goal of developing a democratic citizenry through education. In no way, is this dissertation meant to provide specific recommendations for educational reform though the Digital Dante case study illustrates some possible reform alternatives. Rather, it is meant to demonstrate the ways in which technology and philosophy, educational institutions and industry and K-12 and higher education are all necessary players in the goal of creating a new form of civic education.

A full-length feature film such as Pixar's Toy Story, or the award-winning educational programs such as Walking with Dinosaurs, require a production time of several years and draw on the full-time efforts of several hundred skilled employees. Digital videography and photography has equally broad impact as everyone uses photos and videos to record memories of friends, family and events. Despite a wealth of sophisticated techniques for manipulating photographs, illustrations, and motions the compelling images in educational videos and feature films are more commonly the results of artistry and of painstaking work than of intuitive tools. As a result, despite their potential to revolutionize all educational material, high quality visual aids are used infrequently because of the extensive production costs. In the MIT Computer Graphics Group, we evolve these techniques to make them more accessible to inexperienced authors: scientists, educators, storytellers, and other broad public. We present easy-to-use tools that reduce the cost of producing compelling photographs, illustrations, and motions. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

Thesis (Master of Education)--Washington State University, August 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-64).

Manipulatives of various kinds are used in elementary schools as part of the mathematics curriculum. They are recognized for their affordances for helping children understand abstract ideas by connecting them to concrete objects, but not all research about the use of manipulatives has been positive. It is sometimes difficult for children to make connections between what they are doing and the ideas the manipulatives embody. Constructionist research suggests that taking a design approach to learning that involves the learner in constructing not only ideas but also public artifacts facilitates learning particularly well. Further, it suggests that one should design a learning environment that will allow learners to leverage personal and epistemological connections rather than scripting everything that should happen. Additionally, previous research suggests that integrating math with craft and design helps learners engage with math in a personally meaningful manner. Manipulatives such as pattern tiles and quilt builder tiles are used for design in the classroom, but there is often little to no support for the analysis of designed patterns or other kinds of learning. On the other hand, computerized versions of manipulatives that provide feedback about fractions (or other math concepts) do not offer affordances for design. My goal has been to integrate the best of what computational manipulatives can offer with a design approach to help learners engage with math in a meaningful way. In this dissertation, I describe the use of a manipulative that combines affordances for design and also links and maintains connections between representations. This gave learners opportunities to see and make connections between symbolic and concrete representations while engaged in designing personally meaningful artifacts. I describe methods that made this constructionist educational experience accessible to a wide range of learners, including aspects of the socio-technical system that seemed to play greater or lesser roles at various times throughout the study. I emphasize roles of the DigiQuilt manipulative and highlight how this software builds on previous work, yet represents a new kind of manipulative one that simultaneously supports design and connecting targeted math concepts with concrete artifacts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Marshall University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Includes abstract. Document formatted into pages: contains viii,115 p. Includes bibliographical references p. 98-106.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Cleveland State University, 2009. / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Dec. 15, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-76). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center and also available in print.