Virtual World Classrooms

This chapter provides a comprehensive case study to demonstrate the longitudinal development of online pedagogy for higher education through a lens of interior design. The chapter presents constructivist theory as a guiding pedagogical framework for the creation of learning environments within Second Life (SL) virtual reality. Details of the rigorous process of incorporation of SL, as an enhancement to a traditional course with a laboratory component, is presented to validate the integrity of the scholarship of teaching and learning undertaken in the exemplar case study. The concluding components of the chapter review the iterative process of course outcome evaluation compared to course and accreditation standards to further demonstrate the educational value of virtual reality as an environment for learning.

Policy Coherence for Development

The elimination of school fees at Uganda's primary education level was accelerated by the 1996 first direct presidential elections. Since the inception of the universal primary education in 1996 and its actual operationalization in 1997, universal primary education is synonymous with primary education. Because school fees were eliminated before infrastructural improvements in the school system had been undertaken, the access shock created by the elimination of fees resulted in a substantial initial decrease in resources available per pupil and a large increase in the pupil-teacher ratio. The purpose of this chapter is to identify the policy incoherencies as well as research or knowledge gaps relating to Uganda's primary education. Nevertheless, what happens in other sectors outside the education sector has strong implications for the realization of the universal primary education objectives. Uganda's universal primary education policy is being undermined by policies within the education sector and policies in other sectors. As such, there is need to mainstream universal primary education into all relevant sectoral policies using the Education-In-All-Policies Approach, which would be in the nature of the Health-In-All Policies Approach as well as the Gender-In-All-Policies Approach.

Bridging Research and Game Development

Over the past 20 years, instructional designers in the Learning Games Lab at New Mexico State University have developed a design model for game development that brings researchers, educators, and game developers together throughout the design process. Using this approach, game developers and content experts (a) work collaboratively to ensure educational goals and outcomes are appropriate for the learner and the learning environment, (b) immerse themselves in both content and game design, and (c) test extensively throughout development with members of the target audience. In this chapter, the authors describe the model as it was used in development of several math games during a four-year development cycle for the Math Snacks project. They discuss the implications of this approach for the creation of other educational games or suites of games and share recommendations for expansion of the model to other developers.

Implementing a Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure to Facilitate ICT in Education

In this chapter, the authors present the methodology and the results of their effort towards the introduction of cloud services as a means to simplify the adoption of ICT in education using Free/Open Source Software. A hybrid cloud infrastructure is established in order to provide Linux and optionally MS-Windows desktop environments with the Software as a Service cloud model. Legacy and modern school PCs function as stateless devices. To achieve this, their “Sch-scripts” application performs an unattended installation of the Linux Terminal Server Project software to a school computer that also hosts centrally maintained virtual machines. Classroom management is accomplished using their “Epoptes” application. Administration is only required in the school server while the educational software is provided with the Software as a Service model either in online form or through repositories that automate software installation. Four-hundred-twenty schools have already implemented this architecture and 117 responded to the evaluation survey. The statistical analysis of these answers confirms the design principles, which include minimal cost, as well as reusability of obsolete equipment, ease of administration, centralized management, patches and educational software provisioning, classroom management, and above all, facilitation of the educational procedure.

Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Issues

This chapter discusses the results of a survey of secondary school students in Sana'a city regarding Science, Technology, and Society (STS) issues. Firstly, the chapter reviews the literature in order to seek for STS issues that should be infused into the science curriculum in Yemen. Secondly, it reports the results of the survey ranking Science, Technology, and Society issues. A valid and reliable questionnaire containing STS issues is administered to a sample of 418 students from 14 schools in Sana'a city. The results of the study reveal that the most salient issues that must be infused into the science curriculum are human health and disease, water supplies, air pollution, and energy shortages. Comparing the mean scores of males and female students, the results show significant differences in 5 themes. Implications for research and development in science education are discussed.

Conceptual Possibilities and Restraints in Educational Games

In this chapter, the authors explore arcade-style gaming and its limitations for promoting mastery in the conceptual learning domain. Arcade-style game play is primarily a function of presenting concepts to players and continually requiring them to respond with finer responses. The degree to which a concept is malleable determines how large its range is in game play. In other words, the characteristics of a concept determine its role in game play. The primary purpose of this chapter is to distinguish between two types of concepts: one that is appropriate for arcade-style gaming and another that requires a different, more involved style. Designers of games, particularly of educational games, will find guidance for selecting concepts related to their instructional content.

Policultura and Moodle

This chapter presents the research and professional development results carried out by teachers on the use of educational technologies in the classroom in the course of an experiment based on the Policultura and Moddle didactic format. The training course was designed as an integrated model of presence (laboratory) and online activities, and focuses on the use of LCMS Moodle as a resource for achieving a deeper interaction with both the institutions involved in the projects and with students (and their families) as well as for supporting and disseminating the educational activities carried out in the classroom, with an online environment that would enable the exchange, interaction, and sharing of the study content. The chapter also presents a case study carried out in a classroom taking part in the experiment showing that ICT can enhance different talents in the perspective of school inclusion.

Which Perspectives Can Drive the Analysis of Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments?

Due to its interdisciplinary nature, educational technology research is characterized by approaches, models, and methodologies that derive from a number of different research traditions, disciplines, and approaches. Thus, the numerous research studies in this sector are characterized by a wide range of paradigms and methodologies that needs some overarching notion to be framed and understood. In this chapter, specific reference has been made to the notion of perspective. On the basis of this notion, a framework has been sketched to help make explicit the interplay between perspectives and elements that characterize technology-based learning environments. Such framework has been exemplified considering two research projects carried out at the Institute of Educational Technology of the Italian National Research Council.

Moodle-Based Validators to Improve Teaching and Learning of Web Development

The challenge to prepare the graduates for working in a constantly changing environment, such as software engineering, requires an effective learning framework. This chapter presents two educational Web (PHP and JavaScript) programming validators integrated into the learning management system Moodle to improve the teaching-learning process. These applications also offer the students an appropriate explanation of the errors found and some information about the language key terms, suggest alternatives to possibly misspelled terms, and gather usage data to provide both student and teacher statistical graphics of the type of error committed. The chapter also describes the result of a qualitative analysis of its use in several telecommunications engineering courses offered at the University of Valladolid.

The Extended Body in the Teaching-Learning Process

This chapter focuses on the relationship between technology and education, starting from the consideration that the software design explicitly dedicated to the teaching-learning process is, for the most part, still anchored to a discreet information processing model. This model underestimates the role of the body and corporeality in the teaching and learning process and fails to capitalize on the potential offered by enactive interaction devices already present and widely used in schools and learning-dedicated centers. The opportunities offered by the NUIs in school contexts represent the natural consequence of an embodied and enactive approach to knowledge, valued in school contexts in which the skills of perception and the action are enhanced to foster learning.