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This research is an exploratory study and concerns the effectiveness of specific design features in talking book software. Children need to acquire a variety of skills and strategies to become competent readers and these are commonly taught together in the context of meaningful text. Talking book software, replicating real books with additional features such as sound, has the potential to complement this approach. Common features of such software include word pronunciations, hearing sentences read aloud and page turning facilities. These features could facilitate the scaffolding of reading development. The strengths and weaknesses of commercial software were identified through a pilot study. A survey of practitioners was also conducted to investigate how such software is being used in the classroom and whether talking hooks could be improved. The outcomes of these studies together with a review of the literature were used to inform an innovative design that was implemented. In addition to common features, the implementation also included sub-syllabic word pronunciations, hints to encourage independent word identification and activities to reinforce specific reading skills. Two versions of the software were compared using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies including word recognition measures, interviews, observations and case studies. One software version incorporated commonly available features only and the other was a full implementation of the innovative design. Each version of the software was used daily for a period of four weeks by 16 children, aged 6 to 7 years, in the naturalistic environment of their classrooms. The findings of the study were complex due to variations in learner preferences and reading abilities. Nevertheless, it seems that electronic books can complement teaching approaches in infant classrooms and can positively affect both cognitive and affective learning outcomes. It is evident that children of lower reading ability can benefit from common features alone, such as word pronunciations. Those children using the enhanced software who had already acquired a limited sight vocabulary may benefit from additional features such as reinforcement activities. However, these features were not perceived as being fun by the children in this study. Rather, they were seen as educational tasks. The children who had made the greatest progress in reading development prior to the study made more use of the complex features such as hints to assist them in the decoding of unknown words. This study provided evidence to support the theories of scaffolding and the benefits that can be achieved by aiding learners in the zone of proximal development.

The department of computer science, across many schools in the US, have been seeing a constant increase in enrollments over the last decade. This particularly impacts class sizes of introductory courses, as they are usually listed as required prerequisites courses. The students in these courses typically have very little or zero prior experience with programming. In such course settings, it is not an exaggeration to state that most students in these courses spend more one-on-one time with the course teaching assistants than they do with their course instructors. This implies that the kind of individual attention provided by the TAs of such courses to their students has a very high impact on the students’ learning and the quality of the TAs would greatly impact the quality of the course and directly or indirectly also impact the student retention rate and their interest in computer science for their academic/industry careers. We wanted to take a closer look at what it is that these TAs do, and how they do it. We observed TAs from two introductory courses for almost about two semesters, and conducted a focus group meeting each with TAs and students enrolled in these course. We found that the TAs felt responsible for instilling an interest in computer science in the students, apart from helping them to learn by themselves. We also found that the students see teaching assistants as a very valuable resource, when it comes to actually applying the concepts that they learn in lecture. Our findings tells us that there is a gap between what the TAs think they need to give as help to the students and what the students tend to expect from their TAs. We also discuss the implications of our findings and possible future work. / Master of Science

Using information technology is integral living in a modern world. It lets us search for necessary information. School is the place where people obtain this competence. To pursue this objective school uses computer-based teaching programs. “Akis M” is one of the commonly used for teaching geography at school. This interactive program has thematic Lithuanian maps and database of related information. First part of this work is dedicated to examine all available handbooks intended for teaching Lithuanian geography and all available illustrations in them. Referring to Lithuanian geography syllabus and handbooks I developed visual database for teaching program “Akis M” In order to develop this visual database I chose to use landscape of Vilnius region as a basis. Landscape is made of several parts: relief, soil, weather, flora and fauna and human impact. All these parts form our environment. Second part of this work is assigned to analyze existing teaching program “Akis M2” propose new functions and new development. One of which is visual database of Vilnius region landscapes. After scrutinizing landscapes of Vilnius district visualization scheme was created. With reference to this scheme visual data was collected. All of seven landscapes in Vilnius district were visualized. Four of them, covering most of Vilnius region, are visualized with most places. Other three have less visualization places. Using “Arc View” software map of landscapes was created. This map and related... [to full text]

A Tablet PC is a portable computing device which combines a regular notebook computer with a digitizing screen that interacts with a complementary electronic pen stylus. The pen allows the user to input data by writing on or by tapping the screen. Like a regular notebook computer, the user can also perform tasks using the mouse and keyboard. A Tablet PC gives the users all the features of a regular notebook computer along with the support to recognize, process, and store electronic/digital ink, enabling a user to make and save hand-written notes or data. In institutions of teaching and learning, instructors often use computer-based materials like web pages, PowerPoint® slides, etc., to explain subject matter. The ability to annotate on presentation information using the electronic stylus of a Tablet PC has attracted the attention of the academic community to use the Tablet PC as a potential tool for increasing the effectiveness of presentations in teaching and learning. Tablet PC-based applications such as OneNote®, WindowsJournal® and Classroom Presenter have been developed to enhance note-taking in classrooms based on the fact that a pen stylus is a more natural form of input device for making notes on the computer as compared to the regular keyboard and mouse. Although tools like OneNote®, WindowsJournal® enhanced the note-taking process on the Tablet PC, they lacked the ability to allow the user to directly annotate on the lecture content. Classroom Presenter provides the ability to integrate classroom notes and the presentation material by allowing the instructors and students to annotate over the lecture material. However, all the above tools lacked the ability to allow a user to take notes over the output window of an arbitrary application like Excel, an active simulator or a movies players output. The Tablet PC based tool, WriteOn, developed at Virginia Tech, addresses this drawback. WriteOn, when deployed on the Tablet PC in a classroom environment, allows the instructor to utilize electronic ink to annotate on top of any application window visible on the Tablet PC display screen, including those that play active content like a movie or simulation. WriteOn facilitates a user to annotate over a dynamic application window by activating its virtual transparency surface called the eVellum (electronic vellum). The user can view a movie or an active simulation running in the eVellum background because of its transparent color. The user can deactivate the eVellum to make it invisible by "piercing" it if he/she wishes to access the desktop or an application window under the vellum window. WriteOn provides the instructor with the ability to broadcast a composite of the dynamic lecture content and ink annotations to the students in real-time. The term dynamic lecture contents is meant to indicate that the content being annotated need not be static words on a background, but may also be window contents that are changing in time. Using WriteOn, the students can make their own notes by writing on the eVellum enabled on top of the lecture stream window without losing visibility of the lecture. The instructor/student can save the ink annotations along with base lecture material as a movie file. The ability of WriteOn to improve classroom presentation and student note-taking as shown by initial tests, were pedagogically very useful. However, in order to deploy WriteOn on large scale in classrooms as an active and effective teaching tool of choice, several aspects of the application had to be improved. One aspect of the application that needed improvement was the user interface. The primitive Graphical User Interface (GUI) of the WriteOn tool was not easily usable by instructors and students from non-computer science backgrounds. The second aspect needing improvement was the operational performance of the application in terms of its CPU resource utilization. The WriteOn tool has shown to have operational performance issues during the screen capture process. This research therefore aims to address improvements in the GUI to make it more user friendly and increase the operational performance to the point where the user does not notice degradation of a base lecture application. Incorporation of these improvements has led us to rename the application as WriteOn1.0. WriteOn1.0 implements a picture-based GUI that comprises of two forms: a main form that appears shortly after WriteOn1.0 starts and a toolbar. The WriteOn1.0 toolbar appears in the center of the top edge of the display as soon as the user initiates a task like a screen recording session, by clicking on the appropriate menu button on the main form. The toolbar provides the user, accessibility to perform all the desired activities like annotating, screen recording, presentation broadcast, and piercing of the eVellum by a single-click of the appropriate menu icon. Tool tips that appear when the user points the mouse over a picture icon on the toolbar, explain the task that shall be performed when he/she clicks on the underlying menu icon. WriteOn1.0 introduces a window-like resizable and movable eVellum called the scalable eVellum that it activates in the area of interest specified by the user. Unlike the first implementation of the eVellum which had a fixed location and spanned the entirety of the user's desktop window, the instructor/student define the dimensions of the scalable eVellum and can choose to re-dimension, relocate and pierce through it at any point of time during a session. WriteOn1.0 also introduces the transparent mode of operation wherein the instructor/student, without having to deactivate the scalable eVellum can access any underlying window by a right-click of the mouse on the eVellum surface while the ink annotations are intact on the foreground. WriteOn1.0 addresses the operational performance issues observed during a screen capture session in WriteOn by capturing the activities only in the area of interest of the user for recording and broadcasting. By combining this scheme with a with a lossless screen capture codec called the MSU screen capture codec that has a high-compression ratio and that is optimized for speed for data compression, WriteOn1.0 greatly improves the operational CPU performance of the tool. WriteOn1.0 employs various technologies to implement its features. The improvements to operational performance are implemented by using the MSU screen codec from Moscow State University's Graphics and Media Lab. Microsoft®'s Video for Windows Framework (VfW) and WindowsMedia Player API's are used to realize the module that records the screen activities to an AVI file while DirectShow of DirectX and ConferenceXP API's are used for streaming presentations over a network. WriteOn1.0, with its features like its scalable eVellum, good operational performance and picture-based GUI is aimed at potentially making it a teaching tool of choice across classrooms and changing the method of classroom instruction of courses involving dynamic content. / Master of Science

Esta dissertação de Mestrado apresenta uma extensão do ASiA (Ambiente de Simulação Automático), para simulação de arquiteturas de computadores, denominada Módulo Arquitetura. Este módulo possibilita que o usuário utilize arquiteturas já definidas (alterando ou não os seus parâmetros) ou desenvolva o modelo de uma nova arquitetura utilizando ferramentas específicas para simulação de arquitetura de computadores. Dois exemplos ilustram a utilização do Módulo Arquitetura, destacando as vantagens de sua aplicação tanto em ensino como em pesquisa. Este trabalho apresenta ainda algumas alterações efetuadas no ASiA para torná-lo mais amigável e flexível. Uma revisão bibliográfica dos assuntos relacionados ao tema é também apresentada. / This MSc dissertation presents an extension of the ASiA (Ambiente de Simulação Automático) for computer architecture simulation, named Architecture Module. This module allows the use of previously defined architectures (with possible alteration of parameters) or new architecture models using specific tools for computer architecture simulation. Two examples show the utilization of the Architecture Module highlighting its advantages as both a teaching and a research tool. This work also presents some improvements to the ASiA with the aim of becoming more friendly and flexible. A literature review of the subjects related to the general theme is also presented.

The purpose of the study was to create guidelines regarding effective diffusion of elearningto and within developing countries. Another aim of the study was to identifychallenges and problems related to the diffusion of e-learning, as well as identifying whatcharacterizes a successful ICT diffusion project. To achieve the purpose of the study acase study was performed in Thailand, where two different schools, i.e. two cases thathad been targeted by ICT diffusion projects were studied. In combination to studying theschools, the donor side of the project were also included in the study. The study wasconducted with a qualitative research approach, and was divided into one inductive andexploratory phase, which generated a theory, and one deductive phase where the theorywas both theoretically and empirically validated. To gather the empirical material, eightsemi-structured interviews were conducted of which six included staffs from the twoschools, and two included donors that were involved in one of the studied ICT diffusionprojects. Yet another semi-structured interview was performed with a person involved inan ICT diffusion project, which helped to perform the empirical validation of thegenerated theory. With the help of the collected empirical material as well as throughexisting theories it was possible to identify numerous of challenges regarding diffusion ofe-learning to and within developing countries. The challenges were primarily connectedto language, culture, governmental, lack of computer knowledge and infrastructural. Totackle the challenges a number of characteristics regarding effective ICT diffusionprojects in developing countries were identified. These characteristics included theimportance of doing a proper investigation about the recipients, follow ups, providedright amount of computers, provided software that had been adapted and providededucation about how computers should be used. Based on the challenges andcharacteristics guidelines for effective diffusion of e-learning to and within developingcountries were designed. The knowledge about challenges and characteristics led to theidentification of two important findings. The first was that the diffusion of e-learning todeveloping countries is highly dependant on the diffusion of ICT to the schools, as anevident problem that existed was that the schools lacked the proper technicalinfrastructure to be able to support computer-aided teaching. The other finding was thatin order for the diffusion process to be effective, it is vital to provide information andeducation about the technology in advance of the implementation. These two findingslead to that the 19 created guidelines were divided into two categories; basic guidelinesfor diffusion of ICT and enabling guidelines for diffusion of e-learning. / Program: Dataekonomutbildningen

Esta dissertação de Mestrado apresenta uma extensão do ASiA (Ambiente de Simulação Automático), para simulação de arquiteturas de computadores, denominada Módulo Arquitetura. Este módulo possibilita que o usuário utilize arquiteturas já definidas (alterando ou não os seus parâmetros) ou desenvolva o modelo de uma nova arquitetura utilizando ferramentas específicas para simulação de arquitetura de computadores. Dois exemplos ilustram a utilização do Módulo Arquitetura, destacando as vantagens de sua aplicação tanto em ensino como em pesquisa. Este trabalho apresenta ainda algumas alterações efetuadas no ASiA para torná-lo mais amigável e flexível. Uma revisão bibliográfica dos assuntos relacionados ao tema é também apresentada. / This MSc dissertation presents an extension of the ASiA (Ambiente de Simulação Automático) for computer architecture simulation, named Architecture Module. This module allows the use of previously defined architectures (with possible alteration of parameters) or new architecture models using specific tools for computer architecture simulation. Two examples show the utilization of the Architecture Module highlighting its advantages as both a teaching and a research tool. This work also presents some improvements to the ASiA with the aim of becoming more friendly and flexible. A literature review of the subjects related to the general theme is also presented.