As mobile technologies have increasingly become a part of personal and work environments, mobile learning is emerging as a viable alternative for training and education needs. Faced with the need for innovative and cost-efficient ways for training government employees, agencies and departments are considering the use of mobile learning. The availability of a wide range of mobile technology provides many options. Other than the Department of Defense, little is known about implementing mobile learning in United States government cabinet level agencies and departments. A concurrent, mixed methods case study was used to examine how organizations decide to use, implement and evaluate mobile learning efforts. The framework and context were established through a thorough review of recent, related research literature. A purposive sampling strategy was used with the goal of targeting participants that have the greatest potential of using or considering the use of mobile learning. Three research questions guided the study and concentrated on the influences on the decision to implement mobile learning, the approaches organizations take and the methods used to evaluate implementations. A self-administered online questionnaire, using both structured and semi-structured questions and a review of publicly available documents were used to build a picture of the evidence that described the current state of mobile learning in cabinet-level agencies and departments. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected, integrated, interpreted and compared. Connections and relationships were made between mobile technology use, mobile learning environments, mobile learning content, educators and trainers, mobile learners and mobile learning evaluations. The results revealed that cabinet-level agencies and departments have begun to make use of mobile technology to support the delivery of business service. To a lesser extent, perceptions are forming, and the role of mobile learning continues being defined, as organizations are cautiously adopting its use. Policies and guidelines are in the early stages of development. The results contribute to the growing body of work on the use of mobile learning.

This study examined the relationship between credit recovery outcomes and select causal factors. In this study, credit recovery was defined as the extent to which students successfully complete the following courses: coordinate algebra, biology, physical science, and analytic geometry. Independent variables explored in this research were student motivation, student engagement, self-regulation, blended learning models, and formative assessments. A mixed method design was used to triangulate the quantitative data with the teachers’ perceptions data collected from the qualitative data. The qualitative data examined how teachers used formative assessments to improve student learning, the perception of the effectiveness of the program, and how credit recovery helped students to graduate from high school. The quantitative data found that there was no significant relationship between the independent variables in the study and credit recovery outcomes. Additionally, the data revealed that there was no significant relationship between teacher perceptions and credit recovery outcomes. Although there was no significant relationship between the dependent and independent variables in the study, the data did indicate there was a significant relationship between gender and credit recovery outcomes. The study found there was a highly significant relationship between formative assessments and student motivation, validating what research has already demonstrated about the effectiveness of formative assessments and its potential to engage and motivate students. The research also found that there was a highly significant relationship between blended learning and student motivation, suggesting implications for how blended learning can be used to engage and motivate students in credit recovery programs.

<div>Circulation studies, as the theory of ecological spread of information, impacts public perception of knowledge-making, and digital circulation (i.e. online information sharing) impacts what people expect online knowledge-making and online education is or should be. Online education is becoming a new norm for students and universities at a time when economic pressure is pushing both to be more austere and expedient; at the same time, circulation collapses together the complex ways we communicate, making them harder to differentiate. This dissertation responds to these conditions by focusing on the labor behind circulation and Online Writing Instruction (OWI) in order to study knowledge-making online. Through focus groups with instructors, case studies, and surveys of students in online classes, this dissertation identifies strategies that benefit both teachers and students and improve Online Writing Classes. This work intersects with recent considerations of how mis- and dis-information spread online, the impact of Data Science and Information Theory on communication and knowledge-making, and how to make universities accessible to more people.</div><div><br></div><div>Chapter 1 overviews the history of Distance Education (DE) and Online Education (OE) as well as the relevant disciplinary distinctions OWI makes for itself. Chapter 1 also identifies theoretical and practical challenges OE finds for itself and overviews recent shifts in OE student populations. Chapter 2 contextualizes the challenges OE and OWI face in a larger ecology of Information Theory, Rhetoric and Composition theory and practice, Technical Communication theory and practice, and Neoliberal economics, positing ecological links between modern data science, digital circulation, and economics. In doing so, Chapter 2 offers a rhetorical interpretation of the DIKW pyramid and definitions of data, information, knowledge, and wisdom (D, I, W, and W respectively) for rhetorical practitioners. Chapter 3 follows up on Chapter 2’s arguments to respond with research on teacher and student labor in online classes with methods for such inquiry, through focus groups, case studies, and surveys. Chapter 4 presents data from all stages of that inquiry, and Chapter 5 connects together observations from the data with theory from Chapters 1 and 2 to draw more concrete conclusions.</div><div><br></div>

[pt] O avanço das tecnologias para a comunicação favoreceu a transposição da aula presencial para o ambiente virtual, criando facilidades de acesso à educação. Um desafio da educação a distância é o de encontrar estratégias que tornem os alunos autônomos e coconstrutores do conhecimento. Neste trabalho, buscamos examinar como a gestão das possibilidades da tecnologia pode contribuir ou não para o alcance desse objetivo. À luz de uma abordagem sociointeracional, analisamos a interação tutor-aluno num curso oferecido a profissionais da área pública. Os resultados apontam para a influência da mediação tecnológica no desempenho dos papéis atribuídos ao tutor, a manutenção de um modelo de gerenciamento da interação, centrado no professor e sem a troca entre colegas. / [en] The advance of communication technologies has favored the change from classroom learning to the virtual environment, creating facilities for the access to education. One of the challenges of distance learning is to find strategies which can turn students into autonomous co-constructors of knowledge. In this paper we examine how the management of technology can contribute – or not – to the accomplishment of this goal. From a socio-interactive perspective, we analyzed the tutor-student interaction in a course given to professionals from the public sector. The results point to the influence of technological mediation in the roles attributed to the tutor, the maintenance of an interaction management model, centered on the teacher and without interchange among classmates.

Distance education is being used increasingly for both pre and in-service teacher education in both developed and developing countries (Robinson & Latchem, 2003; Kwapong, 2007; Perraton, 2010). In Rwanda, the Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) introduced its first distance education programme in 2001 with the aim of upgrading the qualifications of under-qualified high school teachers, including those who teach English, using printed materials as the main teaching/learning resource. This study has aimed to investigate the role of the 2010 version of these materials in addressing the professional needs of high school English teachers. It was centrally informed by theories of the sociologist of education, Basil Bernstein (1996, 1999), about curriculum and of the sociocultural psychologist, Lev Vygotsky (1978), on mediation, by Shulman’s (1986, 1987) work on pedagogic content knowledge and by literature on English language teaching, on language teacher education and on distance education materials design. The investigation involved textual analysis of a selection of KIE’s distance education materials for English teaching and focused on the content selected for these materials and on the mediation of this content on the page. After this analysis, one section of these was re-designed by the researcher. Nine teacher-learners enrolled in the programme for English teaching were interviewed to determine their responses to both the KIE materials and to the redesigned section. The findings suggest that Kigali Institute of Education’s distance education materials for English do not adequately address the academic and professional needs of high school English teachers for four main reasons. Firstly, the content selected for the materials does not respond sufficiently to the interests and needs of foreign language teachers of English. Secondly, it is not externally aligned to the curriculum at the level that these teachers are supposed to teach. Thirdly, the mediation of this content does not adequately support the development of subject and pedagogic content knowledge and skills of teacher-learners and encourages surface rather than deep learning (Biggs, 1987). Lastly, with the exception of sections on some literary genres, the materials list useful ideas and language teaching approaches and methods but consistently fail to explain to the teacher-learners how to teach different aspects of language. These findings suggest that these materials do not adequately assist teacher-learners to develop pedagogic content knowledge (Shulman, 1987) for the teaching of English. The limitations identified may result from a lack of knowledge, skills and experience in distance education materials and graphic design among the KIE materials designing team and from inadequate resource provision (including time) by the institution and suggest that there is a need for changes to the KIE distance education materials designing process.

International and local guidelines for designing distance education materials advise designers to use feedback from students in the redesign of their materials. This study is a response to the researcher’s failed attempt to elicit critical feedback from some of her students. It therefore sets out to devise a framework for a critical pedagogic analysis of distance learning materials designed for South African teacher education programmes. It draws on theorisations of pedagogy, principally from the work of the sociologist of education Basil Bernstein and the applied linguist Suresh Canagarajah, theorisations of mediation, originating in the work of Lev Vygotsky, and theorisations of subjectivity. It also draws on international and local conceptualisations of a knowledge base for teacher education. In the analysis of the selection and organisation of knowledge on the page, the study draws on Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics and the field of social semiotics to uncover the positions constructed for readers as students and as teachers in each multimodal design. A pedagogic analysis of distance education materials for pre-service or in-service teachers responds to a series of questions: What elements of a knowledge base for teacher education do designers foreground and background? What is the orientation of the materials to the relationship between knowledge and practice? How is knowledge mediated through in-text activities, pedagogic episodes and scaffolded readings? What roles do linguistic and visual design choices play in the mediation of knowledge? A critical pedagogic analysis interrogates the subject positions that the multimodal designs constitute for ideal readers as students and as teachers. In the study, all of these questions frame a detailed analysis of three sets of materials designed for South African teacher education programmes and, finally, a critical reflection on materials for which the researcher was the principal designer. The study concludes that a critical pedagogic analysis affords designers and evaluators the critical distance needed for evaluating the mediation of knowledge(s) and the constitution of readers’ subjectivities in teacher education materials. As an alternative (or in some circumstances, as an addition) to reader feedback it has the potential to inform redesigning for the original local context(s) of use or reversioning for use in broader regional or global contexts.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of using learner self-assessment and multifaceted instructional strategies on student achievement and retention in online mathematics classes. The study used a quasi-experimental design. The study sample consisted of 35 students who were enrolled during the fall term 2010 in online Precalculus or Trigonometry classes at Palm Beach State College. Both treatment and comparison groups were taught by the researcher. Since the subjects in the study were not randomly assigned, the design was one of nonequivalent groups where the treatment group was compared to a similar group from the previous year. To limit researcher bias, the course exams were the same for both treatment and comparison groups. Five hypotheses were developed to examine the relationships between preferred learning strategies, the use of online tools, and achievement and retention. The five hypotheses were investigated with the following procedures respectively: ANOVA, linear regression, Pearson correlations, t-test and chi-square, and linear regression analysis with dichotomously coded variables. The findings indicated that the ATLAS groups did not show a preference for online tools, except for ebook. In addition, the use of most tools predicts achievement. The ebook is the only tool that is not significantly related to all the other tools. Achievement was not significantly different among treatment and comparison groups, but retention was. Retention for the treatment group surpassed retention for the comparison group by 15%. Results also pointed out that the ATLAS groups moderate the relationship between some of the online tools predicting achievement. / by Ana M. Porro. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Acompanha 1 CD-ROM / Orientador: Sueli Liberatti Javaroni / Banca: Ana Paula dos Santos Malheiros / Banca: Marcelo de Carvalho Borba / Banca: José Ronaldo Melo / Banca: Helber Rangel Formiga Leite de Almeida / Resumo: Esta pesquisa investigou as potencialidades que a produção e o uso de vídeos matemáticos propiciam aos licenciandos ao estudarem matemática em um curso na modalidade a distância. Para a realização desta pesquisa utilizei como cenário de investigação três disciplinas que compõem o Estágio Curricular Supervisionado. Esses licenciandos são estudantes de um Curso de Licenciatura em Matemática na modalidade a distância da Universidade Federal de Alagoas. A abordagem qualitativa foi adotada e como procedimentos metodológicos utilizei a observação participante no ambiente virtual de aprendizagem Moodle, que era o ambiente natural das disciplinas; a aplicação de entrevistas com os professores responsáveis pelas disciplinas de Estágio Curricular Supervisionado e com o Coordenador do curso; a aplicação de um questionário aos cursantes das disciplinas investigadas e um questionário para os demais professores que atuam nesse curso. Ainda como um procedimento adotado na produção dos dados, solicitei aos estudantes que fizessem um vídeo de conteúdo matemático, como trabalho final das disciplinas, os quais compõem os dados desta pesquisa. Para organizar e sistematizar todo o material produzido no cenário de investigação utilizei a Teoria Fundamentada nos Dados. O construto seres-humanos-com-mídias, o saber docente dos licenciandos e as relações entre o aprendizado da Matemática Acadêmica e Escolar foram utilizados para analisar os dados produzidos. A partir desta investigação posso inferir ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: This research investigated the potentialities that the production and the use of mathematical videos allow to the Mathematics Teaching students when they study mathematics in a distance online pre service teacher education program. For the accomplishment of this research I used like investigation scene three subjects of Supervised Curricular Internship. These Mathematics Teaching students, are students in a distance online pre service teacher education program, from the Alagoas Federal University. The qualitative approach was adopted and as methodological procedures I used participant observation in the online learning environment Moodle, was the natural environment of the subjects; the application of interviews with the teachers responsible for the subjects of Supervised Curricular Internship and with course Coordinator; the application of a questionnaire to the students of the disciplines investigated and a questionnaire for the other teachers who work in this course. Still as a procedure adopted in the production of the data, I asked the students to make a video of mathematical content, as the closure work of the subject, which make up the data of this research. In order to organize and systematize all the material produced in the research scene I used the Grounded Theory. The human-with-media construct, the teaching knowledge of the Mathematics pre-service teaches and the relations between the learning of Academic and School Mathematics were used to analyze the data produ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Doutor

As pessoas têm diferentes preferências no aprender, que acabam se refletindo nas suas diversas características acadêmicas e profissionais. Há muito tempo se procura uma resposta para a pergunta: \"por que nas mesmas condições de ambiente e forma de ensino, dois estudantes de mesmo nível intelectual, possuem níveis de aprendizagem diferentes?\". Parte da resposta pode ser encontrada nos estilos de aprendizagem, os diferentes modos pelos quais as pessoas percebem e processam as informações. Entender os diferentes estilos de aprendizagem é um passo importante para favorecer a individualidade, tirar proveito das habilidades e também identificar os modos menos preferidos de aprender. Esse autoconhecimento é fundamental ao tratamos do ensino a distância (EaD), que requer que os próprios alunos se organizem e otimizem seu próprio aprendizado. A partir do momento em que conhecem suas preferências, os estudantes têm a possibilidade de dirigir sua aprendizagem nessa direção. Por outro lado, o professor também tem subsídios para planejar atividades e disponibilizar recursos que atendam a uma variedade maior de alunos, diminuindo assim a taxa de desistência e mantendo a motivação, uma vez que a mesma também está intimamente ligada com o nível de comunicação e interação na sala virtual. Assim, o objetivo deste projeto é mapear os estilos de aprendizagem de estudantes matriculados em um curso de licenciatura em Computação na modalidade EaD e analisar a influência desse construto na interação desses estudantes no fórum. Para a coleta dos estilos de aprendizagem dos 36 alunos foram usados os instrumentos desenvolvidos por Felder e Soloman (1991) e o de Keirsey e Bates (1984), ambos traduzidos para o português. Os resultados identificam uma distribuição dos estilos de aprendizagem bem característica para alunos de um curso de licenciatura em Computação a distância. Além disso, as correlações entre esses estilos de aprendizagem e a interação na sala virtual na ferramenta fórum demonstram que os alunos ativos (FELDER; SOLOMAN, 1991) foram os que possuíram níveis de maior interação e de forma oposta, os racionais (KEIRSEY; BATES, 1984) estavam entre os que menos participaram das discussões. Verificou-se também uma predominância de indivíduos ativos dentre os que responderam aos tópicos de forma objetiva (critério de interação C1), assim como uma tendência de indivíduos dessa dimensão relacionarem mais os assuntos discutidos (critério de interação C2). Dessa forma, os resultados confirmam que o modo como os alunos interagem no fórum tem relação com seus estilos de aprendizagem, os quais podem auxiliar na proposição de atividades que motivem e incrementem a participação na sala virtual. / People have different preferences in learning, that reflect in their several professional and academic characteristics. Long ago it is looking for an answer to the question: \"why, in the same conditions of environment and education form, two students of same intellectual level, have different learning levels?\". Part of the reply can be found in the learning styles, the different ways for which people perceive and process the informations. Understanding the different learning styles is an important step to favor the individuality, to make good use of the abilities and also identify the ways less preferred to learn. This self-knowledge is fundamental when we are dealing with the long-distance education, which request that the own students organize themselves and optimize their own learning. From the moment when they know their preferences, the students have the possibility to direct their learning in this direction. On the other hand, the teacher also has subsidies to plan activities and to arrange resources for a bigger variety of students, thus diminishing the desistance rate and keeping the motivation, a time that this one is also deeply connected to the level of communication and interaction in the virtual room. Thus, the objective of this project is to map the learning styles of the students registered in a computer science course in long-distance education, and to analyze the influence in these students\' interaction in the forum. For the collection of the learning styles of the 36 students, it had been used the tools developed by Felder and Soloman (1991) and the Keirsey and Bates\' (1984), both translated into portuguese. The results identify a distribution of the learning styles well characterized for students of a long-distance bachelor course in Computer Science. Moreover, the connections between these learning styles and the interaction in the virtual room in the forum tool show that the active students (FELDER; SOLOMAN, 1991) were who had the levels of bigger interaction and, in contrast, the thinkers students (KEIRSEY; BATES, 1984) were among the ones that had less participated in the debates. It was also verified a predominance of active individuals between who had answered to the topics objectively (interaction criterion C1), as well as a trend of individuals of this dimension relate more the argued subjects (interaction criterion C2). This way, the results confirm that the way as the students interact in the forum has a relation with their learning styles, which can assist in the proposal activities that motivate and develop the participation in the tools of the virtual classroom.

As dificuldades de aprendizagem sobre estatística e suas aplicações simplesmente em razão da matemática envolvida, principalmente, pelos alunos dos cursos de humanas, fazem dela um desafio para o professor que a ministra e também para o aluno que aprende. Assim, esta tese busca mostrar o quanto à elaboração e o desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta de avaliação tipo teste em um ambiente virtual pode contribuir como apoio ao ensino presencial do estudo de ferramentas estatísticas multivariadas para os alunos de graduação em Administração da FEARP/USP, matriculados na disciplina Estatística Aplicada à Administração II. Este trabalho faz parte do projeto virtual denominado LaViE, que é um ambiente virtual de ensino-aprendizagem de estatística, e que está fundamentado em três dimensões: Pedagogia Virtual, Tecnologia da Comunicação e Processo de Validação. Para a criação dessa ferramenta de avaliação tipo teste online foi necessário, primeiramente, a elaboração de um protocolo para desenvolvimento e implementação desse sistema no LaViE. A metodologia, então, foi baseada em três etapas: 1) elaboração do protocolo fundamentado na pesquisa exploratória de pedagogia virtual com base na teoria sobre processo de ensino-aprendizagem para o desenvolvimento de um conjunto de regras e passos que balizasse a criação de questões testes on-line com níveis diferentes de ?adaptação? pelo aluno para cada módulo apresentado na disciplina em questão. Neste caso, foram criados três níveis de adaptação: básico (I), intermediário (II) e avançado (III); 2) implementação dessa ferramenta de avaliação no LaViE (teste seu conhecimento), com o desenvolvimento das questões baseadas nos assuntos sobre análise estatística multivariada e; 3) avaliação quantitativa da opinião dos alunos (usuários) quanto à usabilidade do sistema ?teste seu conhecimento? desenvolvido. Esses dados foram coletados quando essa disciplina foi ministrada, porém em dois períodos diferentes; no segundo semestre de 2005 como projeto-piloto, e no segundo semestre de 2006. Dessa forma, pôde ser feita uma análise comparativa da opinião dos alunos sobre o sistema em dois momentos diferentes. Para esse levantamento foram utilizados dois questionários aplicados diretamente aos alunos em sala de aula momentos antes da avaliação presencial da disciplina e um outro logo após essa avaliação presencial. Essas três etapas finalizadas deram condição de existência de uma ferramenta que faz parte de uma das três dimensões citadas do LaViE ? Processo de Validação. / The mathematical knowledge involved in the process of learning statistics and its applications, brings about difficulties to the Humanities department students, thus making it a challenge not only to those who teach it but also to the ones who learn it. Therefore, this work aims at showing the contribution the elaboration and development of a tool such as an online evaluation test can give, as a support to the presencial teaching of the study of multivariate statistical resources, to the FEARP/USP Business Management undergraduate students, registered in Applied Statistics to Business Management II. This study is part of a virtual project named LaViE which is a virtual environment of teaching-learning of Statistics based on three dimensions: Virtual Pedagogy, Communication Technology and Validation Process. For the development and implementation of the online evaluation test in the LaViE project, a protocol was elaborated. The methodology involved is based on three phases: 1) protocol production built on the virtual pedagogy exploratory research founded on the theory concerning the teaching-learning process in order to develop a set of rules and measures which support the creation of online test problems presenting different levels of adaptation for each module of the mentioned discipline. Thus, three levels of adaptation were created: basic (I), intermediate (II), and advanced (III); 2) implementation of such evaluation tool in the LaViE project (test your knowledge) by developing questions based on topics about multivariate statistical analysis; 3) quantitative evaluation of the users? opinion as to the usability of the ?test your knowledge? system. Data were collected in two distinct occasions: second semester of 2005, as a pilot project, and second semester of 2006, what enabled a comparative analysis of the system by the users at two different moments. This survey was conducted by means of two questionnaires completed in class by the students, being the first before the presencial discipline evaluation, and the second immediately after it. At the completion of the three phases previously mentioned, the Validation Process was obtained.