This thesis examines the apparent paradox between the introduction of new technology into the classroom and studies that have reported that they have had little effect on learning (Cuban, 1986; 2001; 2003; Selwyn, 2014; 2015; 2016a; 2016b). If this is the case, then it raises the question of why. Central to this thesis is the apparent distance between expectations of technology in teaching and learning and the current practices of teachers and young people. The context for this enquiry is a special school in the UK that is designated as an IT Showcase School. Following an examination of the literature, the thesis provides an account of the history of the Gutenberg press as a means of identifying how technology might change social and educational practices. Given the length of time it takes for major technological change to take effect, any study of the impact of new technology needs to be placed in a historical context. Of particular note, is that with respect to the Church the role of both the priesthood and the laity changed as a result of the Gutenberg press. The dissemination of knowledge through the books produced by the technology of the Press enabled the traditional authority of the Church to be challenged. This analysis is used as a guide to examining the current social and educational practices of young people and teachers to try to elicit whether any parallels can be drawn between the history of the Gutenberg and current uses of new technology. The historical analysis lays the ground for a study of the views of teachers and students to assess the ways new technology is being used by them. The views of young people and teachers are garnered through focus groups, a collaborative IT tool, and open-ended questionnaires. It is found that the traditional role of the teacher is being challenged as are the ways young people communicate outside the classroom. The teachers raised a series of issues that were barriers to the innovative use of technology, while the students drew a strong distinction between the uses of technology outside school and inside, which may also deter innovative technologies for learning. This thesis concludes with a set of practical implications for how we might improve the incorporation of technology in the learning process, more effectively.

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of the CAI program in teaching rules, scoring procedures, and terminology associated with the game of tennis in the school environment, as compared with the traditional approach (TA) to teaching. A comparison of the attitudes of students toward each instructional unit was measured by an attitude questionnaire. / Data were collected from ten tennis lesson periods during five-weeks in Spring 1992. Twenty eight fifth grade students (fourteen boys; fourteen girls) from university school served as subjects for this study. They were stratified by gender, divided into two groups (CAI & TA), and tested before and after the instructional unit. / The study followed a descriptive design with two evaluation instruments, pre-and-post tests and the attitude questionnaire. Analysis was a 2 x 2 (groups x tests) one way analysis of variance to test differences in scores between groups of subjects. An independent groups t-test was conducted to determine if learning occurred over the course of the instructional unit. / The results showed that fifth grade students can learn effectively by both methods. Although groups were similar with the CAI group being more varied and had somewhat higher on initial scores, there was found no significant difference between the groups at the beginning of instruction. The pretest to posttest analysis revealed that indeed learning takes place in both methods of teaching, with CAI again scoring higher and being more dispersed. These results indicate that students can be taught through the use of multiple effective teaching techniques. / Since this computer program was found effective in this study, it suggests that (a) teachers can be provided with more time to concentrate on motor skill development of students, (b) showed that CAI is a way to individualize instruction, and (c) CAI can maximize teaching effectiveness. / Therefore, it is of utmost importance to provide teachers with opportunities to build new teaching strategies which incorporate the use of computers and advanced technologies. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2289. / Major Professor: Beverly Yerg. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The purpose of the study was to investigate how theories-in-action develop in collaboration with open-ended learning environments (OELEs). The study examined the processes, intentions, and actions used by learners to build and/or evolve theories-in-action while using an OELE. OELEs provide technological resources for concretely manipulating and exploring concepts. The study qualitatively examined how the organization of learner actions within the system gave rise to new understanding that regulated the development of a theory-in-action. / Four seventh-grade students were drawn from a general science class and were studied as separate cases. The OELE was the ErgoMotion level III interactive videodisc (mechanical physics), which combines computer-generated graphics, computer simulations, video and print-based materials. The primary techniques for collecting data included think-aloud protocols, observations, and interviews. / The design of the study was naturalistic and descriptive. The analysis took a micro- and macro-approach to understanding the interplay between goal-oriented action and the changing modes of representation that underlie them. The results indicated that learners perceived information from the system, derived interpretations to explain observations, and used system features to test an interpretation. They refined interpretations, using an implicit or intuitive theory-in-action as the basis for further evaluation. Learners also, however, were prone to perceiving information subjectively and forming inaccurate interpretations. As intentions shifted from goals to means, learners collected data that could be used to confirm or refute their theory. / The study indicated that learners began building and formalizing theories-in-action. They did not, however, use data from the system to evaluate the limitations of their personally-derived theories; instead, they assimilated new data into an existing theory, ignored inconsistent data, or derived an independent theory to explain the contradictory evidence. This study indicated the development of powerful theories-in-action that were used to interpret system events and were highly resistant to change. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-07, Section: A, page: 2648. / Major Professor: Michael J. Hannafin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

Today, many students in higher education are considered digital natives - savvier and more experienced with technology than students in the past. In teacher preparation programs, teacher education students are commonly expected to demonstrate achievement of program goals and objectives and national teaching standards in a "portfolio." Gaining in popularity, the electronic portfolio delivers meaningful rich data in an electronic format. Much of the research on electronic portfolios has centered in higher education and has been primarily focused on the delivery of portfolios from the perspective of faculty and on the role of the portfolio in assessment from an administrative perspective. With limited research on the student voice in the process of the creation and implementation of electronic portfolio, this research studied the perceptions of the electronic portfolio from the end-user, recent graduates in teacher education. Using a qualitative framework, recent graduates from a teacher preparation program were interviewed regarding their electronic portfolio experience. Qualitative data were collected via structured interviews on the process, preparation, and utilization of the electronic portfolio during the teacher education program. Additionally, the electronic portfolios of those interviewed provided document analysis. Several themes emerged that centered on the repetitive narrative of the narrative rationale statements, the utilitarian purposes of the portfolio, the impact of the portfolio assessment on portfolio changes, and the reflective nature of portfolio construction. The implications of this research extend to the use of electronic portfolios in higher education across disciplines and into K-12 education.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Instructional Systems Technology, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-03, Section: A, page: 0909. Adviser: Thomas Schwen. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed March 21, 2007)".

Thesis (M.S. in Education)--Shenandoah University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

During the 2001-02 academic year, I investigated the impact of information technology on community college faculty at a large, multi-campus community college district in the southwest. My purpose of this study was to determine how technological innovation on their campuses was affecting the working conditions of faculty since these conditions ultimately affect the ability of faculty to provide effective instruction for their students. Using a grounded theory and phenomenological approach, I analyzed data collected through interviewing faculty in three community colleges, examining email communication and online documents from four colleges and the college district, and attending two technology conferences for employees in the college district. While a number of studies have been conducted in recent years on technology's impact on labor, few of these studies have addressed the impact of technology in higher education, with fewer still examining the effects of technology on community college personnel, despite the rapid proliferation of technology on community college campuses. Therefore, drawing on research conducted in business and industry as well as in higher education settings, I sought to ascertain whether technological innovations enskill or deskill faculty (Vallas, 1993), or promote managerial extension of power (Rhoades, 1998), whether each college or the college district rewards or penalizes faculty for their eagerness or reluctance to adopt new technologies (Rogers, 1983), and whether the technologies purchased by community colleges impact faculty working conditions by altering the environments in which the technologies are used (Winner, 1986). The most salient findings of this study included the offsetting advantages and disadvantages to technology usage which result in detriments and benefits to the work of faculty increasing simultaneously, and the impact on the work environment of the technologies themselves due to their intrinsic characteristics. The conclusions are both striking and powerful enough to warrant further investigation into the ramifications of technology proliferation within the community college sector in order to determine whether the anticipated benefits of technological innovation to community college education do, in fact, outweigh the problems connected to technology.

As the role of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) rapidly expands in the educational and training efforts of all types of organizations, the need for well-designed, learner-centered CAI continues to grow. The CAI design principles and methodology proposed herein provide systems designers with a framework for designing effective, learner-centered CAI systems that support learning with information technologies. Implementing the framework should lead to CAI that better supports learners in the development of their mental schemas, and ultimately, in achieving their learning objectives. The primary goals of this research are two-fold. First, derive a theoretically and empirically-based set of CAI design principles directed at purposefully exploiting the unique capabilities of information technology to help learners develop their mental schemas. Second, codify a methodology for implementing these principles in the systems analysis and design process. Both goals are accomplished as follows. First, a literature review was undertaken to uncover features important for designing CAI to improve learning. Concurrently, the design features and functionality of several existing CAI were reviewed. A field study of one distinctive CAI was conducted to investigate and substantiate its effectiveness. Results indicated that learners using the CAI improved their achievement significantly more than learners who did not use the CAI. Moreover, learners attributed their improved performance to using the CAI. Based on the literature review, review of existing CAI, and the results of the field study, a set of principles and a methodology for designing CAI were derived. The design principles and methodology focus the CAI design process on supporting learners' development of their mental schemas. Finally, we designed, developed and implemented a prototype web based, multimedia training system in accordance with the proposed CAI design principles. As a partial instantiation of the proposed principles and methodology, this prototype CAI provides a proof-of-concept. The design and effectiveness of the prototype CAI has been tested in a series of experiments. The corroborating evidence from these studies indicates that the prototype CAI is well-designed, usable, and an effective training tool. The demonstrated success of the prototype provides evidence of the merits of the proposed principles and methodology.

It is important to improve our understanding of the connection between distributed learning behavior and corresponding university institutional intellectual property policy at the organizational and national level. This study utilizes a mixed methods approach by first employing 2 methods of analysis, a quantitative examination of distributed learning activity at a faculty member- and institutional-level using two National Center of Education Statistics data sets: the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty and Integrated Postsecondary Education Survey, and a qualitative analysis of institutional intellectual property policies that address distributed learning types of products and activities to determine how ownership and control issues are being addressed. The results produced from the quantitative analysis were used to construct 4 institutional types descriptive of distributed learning (i.e., email, website use, distance education) activity concentration by institutional characteristics (i.e., Carnegie classification, control, enrollment, expenditures per student) to then conduct a qualitative study of 46 U.S. institutional intellectual property copyright policies. Policies were selected and analyzed according to four categories. The first category is ownership and control of products developed by faculty members (the restriction or control of the products of faculty's activities, and the claims on the proceeds of those activities, and shares of royalties allocated to creators). The second category addresses the issue of product disaggregation (ownership and control according to the type of product, the extent to which distributed learning products or activities specifically addressed). The third category has to do with the actual scope of the policy (extent to which policies address employees involved in the production process, work time/course of employment, resources, and university units involved). The last category is exemplary distributed learning policy (extent to which exemplary distributed learning policies address activities or products differently from the others).

<p> Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) is an innovative educational approach that is becoming increasingly popular among researchers and practitioners in technologically advanced countries in the West, but is largely unknown or ignored in the instruction of Foreign Languages (FL) in Japanese higher education. This is problematic because more interest in research and implementation among faculty in Japan would likely contribute to the development of DGBL and improve the quality of FL education. The purpose of the present study was to better understand the lack of interest in DGBL in Japan by employing Everett Rogers' Innovation Diffusion Theory to explore the perceptions of relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability of DGBL among FL faculty in Japanese higher education. A concurrent mixed-methods approach was employed to collect data through an online self-completion questionnaire and asynchronous email interviews. The results indicate that while most faculty members believe that DGBL would have a beneficial impact on learner motivation, they are unconvinced that it offers real learning outcomes. Further, participants were divided as to whether the approach would be compatible with course learning objectives, and many regarded it as suitable primarily as supplemental learning material. Faculty members with a research interest in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) expressed a willingness to try the approach, but at the same time pointed out that there were few opportunities to do so.</p>