The purpose of this study was to investigate a class-to-class online English-Portuguese "Teletandem” program that was conceived, negotiated, and implemented cross-collaboratively between the foreign language instructors and language resource center (LRC) staff at two large state universities—one in the United States and the other in Brazil. Ten English language students in Brazil were paired with 10 Portuguese language students in the U.S. for a 10-week Skype®-based tandem language exchange (TLE) project that was jointly delivered online across an international university partnership. A qualitative case study design was used to examine the attitudes, perceptions, views, and behaviors of the teachers, students, and LRC staff who participated in the project. The objective of the study was to shed light on the factors that facilitated and hindered teletandem design, implementation and sustainability. Participant feedback was interpreted and contextualized by the researcher to provide rich descriptions of how Teletandem was optimized and how it impacted student learning. The findings suggest that Teletandem is an innovative, low-cost, high-impact language learning activity with vast pedagogical implications. As a lab supplement to traditional instruction, it enabled students at both sites to accelerate L2 development through authentic immersion and practice while making social connections with native speakers abroad. In addition, the results showed that—for many students—Teletandem heightened intercultural awareness, boosted confidence in the L2, and strengthened fluency skills while rendering a transformational learning experience.

Il lavoro mette in luce le reciproche implicazioni di due mondi, quello delle tecnologie e quello dell'educazione, rispetto a temi di interesse condiviso: l'evoluzione della Rete in termini semantici attraverso l'impiego di ontologie informatiche e i complessi rapporti tra formalismi per la rappresentazione della conoscenza e didattica. La ricostruzione storica delle relazioni tra didattica, tecnologie e sistemi di espressione e comunicazione dei saperi ci ha condotto alla ricomprensione del Semantic Web nell'archeologia delle forme di rappresentazione della conoscenza, osservate con attenzione alle loro potenzialità didattiche e in rapporto all'evoluzione della cultura occidentale. La trattazione intende provvedere un modello per la lettura delle intersezioni tra Web Ontologies e scienze dell'educazione. Con uno sguardo al panorama internazionale della ricerca educativa su questi temi, si sono isolate e descritte alcune esperienze significative di impiego dell'approccio ontologico in ambienti e sistemi per l'e-learning, per calare nella realtà delle applicazioni e degli strumenti il discorso teorico proposto. / The work highlights the mutual implications between technologies and education: the two worlds have interest in common matters such as Internet semantic evolution through the implementation of informatic ontologies and the connections we can draw between knowledge representation and didactics. The historical reconstruction of the relationships among didactics, technologies and cultural resources leads us to the Semantic Web as a stage in the knowledge representation archaeology, regarded from cultural transmission and educational mediation perspectives. The work provides an explanation model for the intersections we can see between ontologies and sciences of education. With regard to the international research panorama about these themes, we point out and describe some significant experiences, which put the theory in practice. We analyze tools and applications involving the ontological approach in the development of e-learning environments and systems.

This study investigates the impact of CALL training on in-service language teachers&rsquo / use of CALL-based activities in their classrooms and what factors influence their use of these activities in their classroom. The participants included 35 pre-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers who took an undergraduate-level elective CALL course (FLE318) offered during the 2008-2009 academic year in the Department of Foreign Language Education at Middle East Technical University and 25 of these participants who started teaching English during the Fall semester in the academic year 2009-2010 at several private and state institutions. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were applied. The journals kept by the participants during and after the training, the lesson plans of micro and macro teaching, the questionnaires given to the participants to determine their perceived computer knowledge, the interview sessions held with the participants&rsquo / on their practices showed that the training provided to the participants helped them infuse a variety of CALL-based materials and tools into their classroom practices. The analyses also indicated that the most paramount factors or issues that affect the infusion of CALL-based materials in language teaching and learning are the school environment, curriculum, and the national exams.

BACKGROUND—Over 25,000 UBC students over the age of 18 have a Facebook account. The Digital Tattoo Project’s goal is to help these and other students become aware of their rights and responsibilities as creators and consumers of digital information in their personal, academic and professional lives. PRESENTATION—This Digital Tattoo presentation was one of several presentations delivered at the Canadian e-Learning Conference Program 2009 held on June 17-19, 2009 at the University of British Columbia. For more information, please visit the Canadian e-Learning Conference Program 2009 website at: http://celc.sites.olt.ubc.ca/.

New developments in information and communications technologies have rapidly made their way into the forefront of educational concerns. With exciting possibilities for global communication, access to vast amounts of information and new approaches to teaching and learning practices, a small number of schools have integrated the technology into the school environment. However, the majority of schools are just feeling their way and this is particularly so in small rural schools which are removed from the high technology communications networks of the capital cities. This study placed open learning technology into three rural schools where the teachers had control over its use. Using qualitative multi-site case study techniques, the effect of the technology on the planning and teaching strategies of the teachers, classroom organisation and management, changes in teacher-student interactions, student motivation, curriculum enhancement and/or extension, the role of the teacher, and professional development issues was investigated. It was found that the use of the technology had a positive effect on encouraging open learning and student-centred approaches to lesson delivery. The Internet and e-mail were accepted by the teachers and the wider school community and became part of normal classroom activities. Staff development opportunities figured largely in the outcomes of this study being revealed as a necessity for teacher adoption of the innovation. The leadership role of the principals emerged as an important theoretical construct influencing the implementation of the innovation. Finally, the introduction of the technology was found to contribute to breaking down the barriers of distance that are a characteristic of rural and isolated schools. By providing teachers in rural schools with access to open learning technology that can be readily integrated into teaching activities, it is likely that lasting change in attitude to the legitimacy of information gained through the technology, and a greater level of independent student classroom activity, will occur.

Significant interest is witnessed in the context of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) mediated interventions for development and empowerment of people living in Rural India since the turn of the century. An objective evaluation of impact of such initiatives is important for enrichment of these initiatives as well as potential scaling up and replication. Despite a large number of such initiatives and their subsequent scrutiny in the literature, there is a dearth of comprehensive studies to establish the potential and scope of ICT mediated interventions on empowerment and the role of participation. The present study focuses on bridging this gap. The study is undertaken in three phases- (1) Longitudinal observation, (2) Intensive analysis of ongoing ICT mediated interventions to study stages of empowerment and their measurement and (3) Analytical modelling of the processes and outcomes of empowerment. In the first phase, a longitudinal observation using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approach was undertaken in Sirsa, Haryana over two years to explore the relevance of ICT mediation through various communication devices. In the second phase, mobile phone based interventions, involving dissemination of information, were intensively studied. Nine PRA studies were undertaken at eight locations from three states representing diverse agriculture and allied contexts. A Knowledge Gap Analysis (KGA) was undertaken in which a participant was assessed at three different stages – (a) awareness, (b) knowledge and (c) internalization. A specimen based approach based on PRA techniques was adopted, to assess their retention and internalization. A ‘Knowledge Gap Indicator (KGI)’ approach was used to assess and compare retention between people who were part of the intervention with those who did not have exposure to it. In the third phase, the process of empowerment was conceptually modeled as ‘The Participation based ICT Mediated Empowerment Cycle (PICTEC)’. The conceptual model – PICTEC was empirically tested using data obtained from seven locations from three states based on a survey using structured audio-enabled questionnaire. The structural model of PICTEC based on the factors that influence the empowerment cycle was studied using Generalized Partial Least Square (PLS) techniques. The research points to the utility of understanding empowerment through the three distinct approaches adopted in the three phases. The other main contributions include design and development of a methodology to assess empowerment at various stages using Knowledge Gap Analysis (KGA), measurement of empowerment using Knowledge Gap Indicators (KGI) and data collection approaches in the spirit of PRA techniques based on specimen based approach and audio enabled questionnaires which are amenable to rigorous analysis. The results indicate evidence for positive impact of technology mediation in achieving the overall objectives of empowerment in the rural India context. The enabling role of participation is also observed. The results show that the stages of manifestation of empowerment and the internal processes can be studied simultaneously which has positive implications for designing effective interventions. The outcome of the present study are expected to contribute to existing literature on the subject and have relevance for policy makers, managers, designers and administrators of ICT based interventions targeting empowerment.

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to investigate the effect of using Twitter by high school mathematics students learning linear equations in Algebra 1. This quasi-experimental study used ninth grade Algebra 1 classes that were learning linear equations for 18 school days. First, the nonequivalent control group design, a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, was used in this quasi-experimental study. The research hypotheses were tested using a factorial analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with the pretest on linear equations score as the covariate. The control group had three classes (n = 73) and the experimental group had three classes (n = 78). The experimental group received tweets on a daily basis as students learned linear equations. The tweets contained mathematical content, classroom logistics, or both. Lastly, the control group received the same information in class. The quantitative findings of this quasi-experimental study show that overall Twitter, content tweets, logistics tweets, and tweets containing both (content and logistics) did not have a statistically significant effect on the mean linear equations posttest score. Second, this quasi-experimental study looked at students’ performance on various subtopics throughout the unit. The ANCOVA showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the control group and the experimental groups in most of the quizzes. However, statistically significant differences were found in Quiz #2 and Quiz #4 among the logistics groups. Third, the experimental group took a 10-item survey. The purpose of survey was to understand the students’ opinion of using Twitter as they learned course content in Algebra 1. It can be concluded from the results of that survey that students had, for the most part, a positive attitude towards using Twitter as part of learning mathematics in high school. In conclusion, the use of Twitter is not likely to show an increase in students’ mean posttest linear equations score. However, the findings of the survey conducted after the study did show that the use of Twitter might be able to increase student motivation. The results of this quasi-experimental study made major contributions to the literature by investigating the effects of using Twitter in high school Algebra 1.

Gemeinsamer Workshop von Universitaetsrechenzentrum und Professur Rechnernetze und verteilte Systeme (Fakultaet fuer Informatik) der TU Chemnitz. Workshop-Thema: Infrastruktur der ¨Digitalen Universitaet¨ Der Vortrag führt in den in Entwicklung befindlichen Standard IEEE1484 ein. Die Standardisierung im Bereich computer- und netzgestützter Kurse ist Voraussetzung für Datenaustausch und Verbreitung.

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Vocational teachers need to equip their students with meaningful and relevant required workplace competencies. As a result, vocational teachers should always stay updated on their knowledge and skills regarding the development of science and technology in the world of work. More specifically, in the automotive vocational expertise domain, problem-solving abilities become the crucial skills students need to master. Hence, equipping prospective automotive vocational teachers with sustainable learning and problem-solving abilities is indispensable. In this case, the metacognition theory could facilitate students with learning-how-to-learn activities, which is an essential skill for sustainable learning and learning to teach and equip them with problem-solving abilities. Therefore, bringing the metacognition theory, supported by other relevant theories, into teaching and learning activities would be beneficial in dealing with those issues. This study aimed to design and develop a metacognition-based digital problem-solving worksheet. This digital worksheet was expected to facilitate students with learning-how-to-learn activities and equip them with problem-solving abilities effectively. There were four main research objectives and questions in this study, which were related to; 1) the practical problem that needs to be addressed, 2) the didactic design, 3) the usability, and 4) the effectiveness of the digital worksheet. Design-based research was used to answer the research questions. This is a multi-methods research design, which means many methods exist to achieve the research aim and objectives. This research design comprised six stages; analysis and exploration (stage 1), design and construction (stage 2), evaluation and reflection (stage 3), analysis and exploration (stage 4), design and construction (stage 5), and evaluation and reflection (stage 6). Stage 1 was used to explore the practical problem as the answer to the first research question. Stages 2 up to 5 were used to formulate the digital worksheet's didactic design as the answer to the second research question. Stage 6 was used to evaluate the usability and effectiveness of the digital worksheet as the answer to the third and fourth research questions, respectively. Firstly, in answering the first research question, three semi-structured interviews were used as the data collection techniques in the first research stage. The findings of this stage stated that sustainable learning, learning to teach, and problem-solving abilities became the needed competencies prospective automotive vocational teachers need to master. Additionally, the findings stated that automotive fault diagnosis learning was the highest-order thinking subject that had a practical problem on it. The quality of the instructional toolkit for this subject required to be improved since the existing toolkit was a conventional observation sheet and still allowed students to conduct trial-and-error stages. This was the practical problem that this research would address. Secondly, in answering the second research question, a focus group discussion, expert-based evaluations, user-based evaluations (formative usability evaluation), and final revisions were used in the second, third, fourth, and fifth research stages, respectively. The focus group discussion aimed to discuss the materials needed to develop the digital worksheet. Following that, expert-based evaluations and user-based evaluations were conducted to evaluate the initial digital worksheet based on the experts' and users' perspectives, respectively. Several revisions were done based on those evaluation results, and the digital worksheet's final didactic design was finally realized. The findings of the didactic design stated that the worksheet was in a digital form and used blended learning with flipped classroom strategy, so students need to have three different learning times; 1) before, 2) during, and 3) after classroom activities. Furthermore, constructivism learning theory, adult learning theory, metacognition theory, experiential learning theory, and reflection theory became the fundamental theoretical knowledge basis for developing this digital worksheet. Moreover, problem-based learning, automotive fault diagnosis procedures, and worksheet stages became the digital worksheet development's fundamental practical knowledge basis. There were seven stages that students need to do during the problem-solving learning; 1) introduction, 2) observing, 3) collecting information, 4) analyzing, 5) testing, 6) rectifying, and 7) checking all systems. There were many steps in every stage above, and many instructions and self-reflection questions in every single step. Additionally, in every step, the teachers had an opportunity to give feedback on the student's work, and the students could have discussions with other students at the end of every stage. The self-reflection questions on every instruction, the teacher's feedback on every step, and the discussion results at every stage were used to regulate the students' self-cognition. Thirdly, in answering the third and fourth research questions, a questionnaire survey and an experimental study were used as the final research stage, respectively. First, the survey of summative usability evaluation consisted of four elements: usefulness, ease of use, ease of learning, and satisfaction. The findings of this evaluation stated that the usability level and those elements' usability levels were all in very high categories. Additionally, it could be determined that the usefulness, ease of use, and ease of learning significantly influenced the students' satisfaction simultaneously and independently, except for the variable of ease of learning. Second, the effectiveness findings stated that the digital worksheet significantly effectively facilitated students' learning-how-to-learn activities and equipped them with problem-solving abilities.:ABSTRACT (EXECUTIVE SUMMARY) ABSTRAKT (ZUSAMMENFASSUNG) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND DEDICATION TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY 1.1. Introductory of the Chapter 1.2. Research Background, State of the Art, and Motivation 1.3. Research Empirical Problems and Context Justification 1.4. Research Rationale 1.5. Research Aim and Objectives 1.6. Research Questions 1.7. Research Scope and Context Limitations 1.8. Research Significance 1.9. Definitions of the Important Terms 1.10. List of the Research Project Publication 1.11. Summary of the Chapter CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introductory of the Chapter 2.2 Literature Review – Contextual Domain 2.2.1 Vocational Education 2.2.2 Education System in Indonesia 2.2.3 Vocational Education (SMK-MAK) in Indonesia 2.2.4 Problems and Challenges of Vocational Education in Indonesia 2.2.5 Vocational Teachers 2.2.6 Vocational Teacher Education 2.3 Literature Review – Theoretical and Conceptual Domain 2.3.1 Constructivism and Adult Learning Theory 2.3.2 Metacognition Theory – Metacognitive Learning Strategies (Learning-How-to-Learn) 2.3.3 Experiential Learning Theory - Reflection Theory 2.3.4 Problem-Based Learning Method – Problem-Solving Ability 2.3.5 Blended Learning Technique – Flipped Classroom Learning Strategy 2.3.6 Instructional Media and Technology – Learning Worksheet 2.3.7 Usability Evaluation in Instructional Media and Technology 2.3.8 The Research Theoretical and Conceptual Framework 2.4 Literature Review – Methodological Domain 2.4.1 Research Methodologies in Instructional Media and Technology Development 2.4.2 Design-Based Research 2.5 Research Hypotheses 2.6 Summary of the Chapter CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1. Introductory of the Chapter 3.2. Research Paradigm, Philosophy, and Research Type 3.3. Research Design, Strategies, and Methods 3.4. Research Context and Participants 3.5. Research Data Collection Techniques and the Tools 3.5.1. Stage 1 – Semi-Structured Interview and the Protocol 3.5.2. Stages 2 & 4 – Focus Group and the Protocols 3.5.3. Stage 3 – Expert-Based Evaluation and the Questionnaires 3.5.4. Stages 4 & 6 – Survey and the USE Questionnaire 3.5.5. Stage 6 – Experimental Study and the Assessment Tools 3.6. Research Data Analysis Techniques 3.6.1. Stage 1 – Semi-Structured Interview 3.6.2. Stage 2 – Focus Group Discussion 3.6.3. Stage 3 – Expert-Based Evaluation (Survey Questionnaire) 3.6.4. Stage 4 – User-Based Evaluation (Survey Questionnaire and Focus Group Interview) 3.6.5. Stage 6 – Usability Evaluation (Survey Questionnaire) 3.6.6. Stage 6 – Effectiveness Evaluation (Experimental Study) 3.7. Summary of the Chapter CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH FINDINGS 4.1. Introductory of the Chapter 4.2. Finding 1: The Practical Problem 4.2.1. Stage 1 – First Semi-Structured Interview 4.2.2. Stage 1 – Second Semi-Structured Interview 4.2.3. Stage 1 – Third Semi-Structured Interview 4.3. Finding 2: The Didactic Design 4.3.1. Stage 2 – Focus Group Discussion 4.3.2. Stage 3 – Expert-Based Evaluation 4.3.3. Stage 4 – User-Based Evaluation 4.3.4. Stage 5 – Final Revision (The Didactic Design) 4.4. Finding 3: The Usability 4.5. Finding 4: The Effectiveness 4.5.1. Stage 6 – The Effectiveness Evaluation in Facilitating Students with Leaning-How-to-Learn Activities 4.5.2. Stage 6 – The Effectiveness Evaluation in Equipping Students with Problem-Solving Abilities 4.6. Summary of the Chapter CHAPTER 5. RESEARCH DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 5.1. Introductory of the Chapter 5.2. Discussion 1 – The Practical Problem 5.3. Discussion 2 – The Didactic Design 5.4. Discussion 3 – The Usability 5.5. Discussion 4 – The Effectiveness 5.6. Overall Discussion – The Research Findings' Interpretations and Implications in Intercultural-Global Contexts and Theoretical Design Principles 5.6.1. The Research Findings' Interpretations and Implications in Intercultural-Global Contexts 5.6.2. The Research Findings' Interpretations and Implications in Theoretical Insights and Design Principles 5.7. Research Conclusion 5.8. Research Limitations and Further Research 5.9. Summary of the Chapter REFERENCES STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP APPENDICES