Online and blended learning requires the reconstruction of instructor and learner roles, relations, and practices in many aspects. Assessment becomes an important issue in non-traditional learning environments. Assessment literacy, i.e., understanding assessment and assessment strategies, is critical for both instructors and students in creating online and blended environments that are effective for teaching and learning. Instructors need to identify and implement assessment strategies and methods appropriate to online or blended learning. This includes an understanding of the potential of a variety of technology tools for monitoring student learning and improving their teaching effectiveness. From the students' perspective, good assessment practices can show them what is important to learn and how they should approach learning; hence, engaging them in goal-oriented and self-regulatory cognitions and behaviours. The book targets instructors, instructional designers, and educational leaders who are interested in understanding and implementing either summative or formative assessment in online and blended learning environments. This book will assist the relevant audience in the theory and practice of assessment in online and blended learning environments. Providing both a research and practice perspective, this book can help instructors make the connection between pedagogy and technology tools to maximize their teaching and student learning. Among the questions addressed in this book are: What assessment strategies can be used in online or blended learning? How can instructors design effective assessment strategies? What methods or technology tools can be used for assessment in online or blended learning? How does peer-assessment work in online or blended learning environments?

As web-enabled mobile technologies become increasingly integrated into formal learning environments, the fields of education and ICT (information and communication technology) are merging to create a new kind of classroom: CrossActionSpaces. Grounding its exploration of these co-located communication spaces in global empirical research, Digital Didactical Designs facilitates the development of teachers into collaborative designers and evaluators of technology-driven teaching and learning experiences-learning through reflective making. The Digital Didactical Design model promotes deep learning expeditions with a framework that encourages teachers and researchers to study, explore, and analyze the applied designs-in-practice. The book presents critical views of contemporary education, theories of socio-technical systems and behavior patterns, and concludes with a look into the conceptual and practical prototypes that might emerge in schools and universities in the near future.

Language teachers' competencies in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) are a crucial factor affecting their own implementation of CALL. However, there is still a concern that many language teachers are not adequately prepared to make effective use of CALL or to identify and evaluate potential CALL solutions. This can be the result of many different factors and raises the question of how to train teachers to develop their CALL knowledge and skills to a greater degree. The discussion of approaches to training language teachers in the use of technology adopted in areas of Australia, the UK and the US provides valuable insights for those already involved in this area, and inspiration for those who have some interest in carrying out this kind of training, but as yet have little or no experience. This book explores the current status of CALL teacher education and discusses issues and challenges CALL teacher educators face in their own contexts. Specifically, it looks at postgraduate CALL courses offered at different universities to find ways of improving CALL teacher training. It represents the first overview of a topic that is relevant to most postgraduate courses in Applied Linguistics or TESOL across the globe. The use of technology for language learning and teaching is increasingly common but, as is so often the case, training for teachers in how to use that technology remains limited, to a large extent by lack of expertise among trainers.

As web-enabled mobile technologies become increasingly integrated into formal learning environments, the fields of education and ICT (information and communication technology) are merging to create a new kind of classroom: CrossActionSpaces. Grounding its exploration of these co-located communication spaces in global empirical research, Digital Didactical Designs facilitates the development of teachers into collaborative designers and evaluators of technology-driven teaching and learning experiences-learning through reflective making. The Digital Didactical Design model promotes deep learning expeditions with a framework that encourages teachers and researchers to study, explore, and analyze the applied designs-in-practice. The book presents critical views of contemporary education, theories of socio-technical systems and behavior patterns, and concludes with a look into the conceptual and practical prototypes that might emerge in schools and universities in the near future.

This volume offers the latest in neuroscientific research about the teenage brain and explores what it means for the socio-emotional and intellectual development of teenagers. The book is designed to help teachers create and utilize more effective learning experiences for their adolescent students. Using ten powerful ideas that will help teachers create more effective brain compatible classrooms, the author draws the ideas from what we presently know about the teenage brain and its development, and integrates them with current ideas and theories on intelligence and learning. Each of the 10 powerful ideas includes: - case studies and numerous examples of teaching strategies and activities designed to show teachers how to translate the theory of the ten ideas into workable classroom practice - descriptions of the changing and differing roles and expectations for both teachers and students in the brain-compatible classroom - extensive explanations of the kind of learning environment we need to establish and how teachers ought to go about establishing this desired learning environment. This is an ideal resource for teachers, teacher educators, and parents of teenagers.

Mobile Learning and Mathematics provides an overview of current research on how mobile devices are supporting mathematics educators in classrooms across the globe. Through nine case studies, chapter authors investigate the use of mobile technologies over a range of grade levels and mathematical topics, while connecting chapters provide a strong foundational background in mobile learning theories, instructional design, and learner support. For current educators, Mobile Learning and Mathematics provides concrete ideas and strategies for integrating mobile learning into their mathematics instruction-for example, by sharing resources that will help implement Common Core State Standards, or by streamlining the process of selecting from the competing and often confusing technology options currently available. A cutting edge research volume, this collection also provides a springboard for educational researchers to conduct further study.

Online Teaching: Tools and Techniques to Achieve Success with Learners will provide the online teacher with essential strategies to successfully design, develop, deliver and improve their online course offerings. This book is an invaluable resource for the novice instructor, as well as the seasoned educator. The chapters of the book will take the reader from the basics of online course development and delivery to assessment and improvement after a successful semester. The authors provide proven techniques, practical tools, and real-world tips in the areas of online course formats, course organization, learning management, learning community, online collaboration, learner support, visual design, course assessment, and course analysis for improvement in a readable and engaging way.

Instructional Design for Teachers, Second Edition focuses on the instructional design (ID) process specifically for K-12 teachers. The first edition introduced a new, common-sense model of instructional design to take K-12 teachers through the ID process step by step, with a special emphasis on preparing, motivating, and encouraging new and ongoing use of ID principles. This second edition includes new material on design in gaming, cybercharters, online classrooms, and flipped classrooms, as well as special considerations for the Common Core. Each chapter contains framing questions, common errors, easy-to-use rules of thumb, clearly stated outcomes, and examples showing ID in action. The basic model and its application within constructivism and user-design will help teachers adapt from a behavioral approach to a more open, student-centered design approach. Combining basics with strategies to implement this model in the most advanced instructional approaches, this book empowers teachers and learners to use good instructional design with the most recent research-based approaches to learning. Instructional Design for Teachers shows how ID principles can impact instructional moments in positive and practical ways. The book can be used for basic ID courses and introductory curriculum courses, and is accessible to in-service as well as pre-service teachers.

This book focuses on developing an understanding of the complex interplay of forces acting on individual universities and higher education systems to enable leaders and practitioners to take purposeful and strategic action. It explores the challenging landscape of higher education and the pressures that are reshaping the university as a societal institution, describing the complex interplay of technological, sociological, political and economic forces driving change. The issues analysed are global in scope, reflecting the diversity of contexts, but also the common nature of the challenges facing institutions individually and collectively. The analysis draws on the lessons learnt and evidence from over fifty organisational case studies undertaken by the author over the past decade, exploring organisational change in higher education institutions in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, and on his engagement as president of the ACODE organisation with colleagues responsible for learning technological change in Australasia. The book helps institutions respond to technological change purposefully, in ways that build upon a clear understanding of the complex nature of the existing institution, its students and the organisational context.

In recent years there has been significant investment by policy makers in the potential of technological tools to transform learning and teaching across a range of professional practitioner groups; education, nursing and social care. There remain, however, outstanding issues concerning the ways educators and professional practitioners harness the potential of technologies to innovate and develop pedagogical practice. With so much attention focusing on technologies themselves, the complexity of what it takes for practitioners to innovate and develop their own pedagogical practice can easily be overlooked. This book promotes a teacher-centred model of professional development and practice; a model that promotes teachers as active agents as they draw upon a range of factors within a narrative ecology framework to inform their development of pedagogical tools. The combination of narrative methodologies with ecological theories offers a much more nuanced view of teachers' professional learning, and Turvey provides an innovative methodological approach to narrative research, supported by an empirical evidence base which crosses educational and socio-cultural contexts. Chapters cover: -Teachers as pedagogical toolmakers -A teacher-centred narrative ecology -Storying teachers' experiences: what can we learn? The narrative ecologies that emerge in this book suggest an incremental process of pedagogical change and development, driven by teachers at the heart of the process. This book will be key reading for postgraduate students and academics focusing on narrative methodologies and aspects of professional learning within contemporary contexts.

Parents had reasons to be alarmed about school technology. They had been warned that these abuses could influence their children's academic progress, motivation, communication, creativity, critical thinking, job preparedness, and even their safety at school. They had been told that it was linked to controversial instruction, faulty testing, inadequate textbooks, and invasive spyware. Upset by these claims, the parents had numerous questions. This book identifies their questions, the groups to which they directed them, the answers they elicited, and the educational changes they prompted.

Are other teachers using technology in their lessons? Are you letting your own students down by not harnessing the power of your students' technology knowledge in your lessons? Is your school asking you to show where you are developing ICT in your subject teaching? ICT in your subject does not mean teaching databases, spreadsheets or word processing. Having technical knowledge is no longer sufficient or indeed necessary in today's world - more important is the knowledge of how to advise and teach students to use technology efficiently and responsibly through their subject. Students faced with a 'problem' will need to hunt the internet for open source software, download apps and respond to the problem using technology as a problem solving tool. The scenarios are endless, but can be generated by the teacher - this could mean students publishing work through Amazon's Kindle or keeping a blog within a class wiki. Teachers do not need to have technical knowledge; rather they need knowledge of trends and opportunities. They then need to blend their basic subject pedagogy within these new trends to contextualise ICT skills.This book looks at pedagogical approaches to using ICT in the classroom that will help you to harness future trends, technology and software and embed them into your subject teaching. Full of practical advice, it illustrates how secondary teachers - of any discipline - can accelerate their students' learning, progress and ability within their subject whilst developing the soft ICT skills needed in the workplace and society. Including case studies and examples throughout, chapters cover: Mixing traditional teaching methods with e-learning Developing interactive students Mobile technologies Student safety online E-Portfolios and Virtual Learning Environments Using technology to extend learning beyond the classroom Ask yourself, would you be happy if your doctor did not use new technology to advance their practice? The same goes for you - your students need only a little encouragement and they are quite capable of doing all the work. This timely new book will help you structure your teaching to harness the latest developments in ICT in tandem with the students you teach.

Web-Based Instruction details how faculty members can design web-based and web-assisted instructional delivery approaches to provide students with the opportunity to learn anytime and anyplace. It stresses the paradigm shift in using technology as an alternative instructional delivery tool but recognizes that the course design and delivery method must maintain the principles of good teaching practices and academic rigor. The book examines how to win student respect and trust, provide support systems, and transition from the classroom-based approach, and it includes examples of course designs, as well as student feedback systems. James Van Keuren takes the frustration out of designing and implementing alternative instructional delivery approaches that do not rely on face-to-face contact. He also creates a step-by-step process for shifting from a teacher-centered to a more student-centered learning environment.

How can apps be used to foster learning with literacy across the curriculum? This book offers both a theoretical framework for considering app affordances and practical ways to use apps to build students disciplinary literacies and to foster a wide range of literacy practices.

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Using Apps for Learning Across the Curriculum

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• presents a wide range of different apps and also assesses their value
• features methods for and apps related to planning instruction and assessing student learning
• identifies favorite apps whose affordances are most likely to foster certain disciplinary literacies
• includes resources and apps for professional development
• provides examples of student learning in the classroom

A website (www.usingipads.pbworks.com) with resources for teaching and further reading for each chapter, a link to a blog for continuing conversations about topics in the book (appsforlearningliteracies.com), and more enhance the usefulness of the book."

The pace of technological change has made the immediate and long-term future difficult, if not impossible, to predict. Teachers are forced to imagine the world they are preparing their students to live in. In this situation creativity becomes a vital resource for enabling uncertain futures to be embraced and an important attribute for students to have both for their learning and their employability in the future. In this book, the authors argue that creativity is a social and collaborative process that can be enhanced through online and digital technologies. Filled with case studies and practical tasks, it shows teachers how they can develop an approach to teaching and learning with digital technologies that is inherently social, collaborative and creative. Including case studies and practical examples of projects and lessons throughout, the chapters cover: Learning in a networked society An examination of sharing practices and how knowledge can be shared more effectively Potential pitfalls of virtual learning environments and public social networking sites Using digital media to plan schemes of work and lessons How to facilitate meaningful collaboration and discussion through digital media Creating online environments to enable students to share their understandings and learning Bringing together key ideas about creativity, collaborative learning and ICT in the classroom, this timely book will be an invaluable resource for all teachers.

An ideal survival guide for novice teachers, Starting Strong helps new teachers gain confidence and competence to flourish and reduce stress during the first teaching year. The authors provide time-tested strategies and guidelines for designing curriculum and instruction, classroom layout suggestions for an optimal learning environment, and frameworks for establishing procedures that promote positive individual and group behavior. This invaluable handbook also offers: methods for effective assessment, samples of oral and written communication for parents and colleagues, ways to create classroom newsletters, techniques for using web sites for interactive learning and reflection questions for teachers at the end of each chapter

Technology in the Middle and Secondary Social Studies Classroom introduces pre-service teachers to the research underpinning the effective integration of technology into the social studies curriculum. Building off of established theoretical frameworks, veteran social studies teacher educator Scott Scheuerell shows how the implementation of key technologies in the classroom can help foster higher-level thinking among students. Plentiful, user-friendly examples illustrate how specific educational tools-including games, social media, flipped classrooms, and other emerging technologies-spur critical thinking and foster authentic intellectual work. A rigorous study, Technology in the Middle and Secondary Social Studies Classroom provides a comprehensive, up-to-date research framework for conceptualizing successful, technology-rich social studies classrooms.

Make the most of your human services training or practice with these electronic tools!Human Services Technology: Innovations in Practice and Education shows how technology can help practitioners, educators, organizations, and agencies to overcome obstacles, develop problem-solving skills in adults and children, and resolve fear/anxiety issues. It also illustrates how the right software can make a profound difference in the learning experience by transforming students from passive consumers to proactive information hunters. The first half of this vital book highlights well-designed, user-friendly, practice-focused software for use with children and youth, including Funny Face, Bruce?s Multimedia Story, Say No With Donny, Talking it Out, and more. These can be used in play therapy, as a child welfare aid, as an educative/preventative intervention for a variety of issues, and for problem solving in school. This half of the book continues with six chapters discussing software designed for human services professionals working with adults. These include interactive video conferencing, online support for job stress, a computer-aided art therapy program, telephone counseling, an electronically supported way to conduct staff meetings, and moreThe second half of Human Services Technology discusses software used for training counselors. These programs monitor users'understanding of the material, provide feedback, allow users to decide what direction their studies would move in, and make provision for students to determine their own pace.This vital book shows how technology can help practitioners, educators, organizations, and agencies to: deliver effective services to clients who cannot or will not come to face-to-face sessions use electronic games and simulations to develop problem-solving skills in children and adults use virtual environments and realistic stimuli to resolve issues of fear and anxiety make prevention information easily available to more people than ever before and much more!Describing and illustrating software developed and tested in the United States, Australia, Canada, Israel, Finland, and the United Kingdom, Human Services Technology: Innovations in Practice and Education is essential for every human services reference shelf!

This CHOICE award-winning author has teamed up with two national, education technology experts to write a comprehensive book on technology for classroom and online learning for educators. Everything you need to know about using educational technology such as computer networking, peripherals, security, troubleshooting and maintenance, and teaching and learning with technology are covered. The book starts by reviewing the history of technologies, and then addresses the skill sets needed by all educators who use technology as part of their classroom and online instruction. Benefits and Features of book: *A comprehensive book covering all aspects of educational technology *Each chapter objectives are aligned with the International Society for Technology in Education Standards (ISTE) *Many schematics and diagrams of technology circuits are included *Each chapter contains a comprehensive case study and exercises for practical application *Provides a blend of academic, theory and practical perspectives on how to operate, maintain, and troubleshoot technology devices *Several handy resources are included in the appendices

What ideas do children hold about the natural world? How do these ideas affect their learning of science? Young learners bring to the classroom knowledge and ideas about many aspects of the natural world constructed from their experiences of education and from outside school. These ideas contribute to subsequent learning, and research has shown that teaching of science is unlikely to be effective unless it takes learners' perspectives into account. Making Sense of Secondary Science provides a concise, accessible summary of international research into learners' ideas about science, presenting evidence-based insight into the conceptions that learners hold, before and even despite teaching. With expert summaries from across the science domains, it covers research findings from life and living processes, materials and their properties and physical processes This classic text is essential reading for all trainee secondary, elementary and primary school science teachers, as well as those researching the science curriculum and science methods, who want to deepen their understanding of how learners think and to use these insights to inform teaching strategies. It also provides a baseline for researchers wishing to investigate contemporary influences on children's ideas and to study the persistence of these conceptions. Both components of Making Sense of Secondary Science - this book and the accompanying teacher's resource file, Making Sense of Secondary Science: Support materials for teachers - were developed as a result of a collaborative project between Leeds City Council Department of Education and the Children's Learning in Science Research Group at the University of Leeds, UK.

Technology Integration and High Possibility Classrooms provides a fresh vision for education in schools based on new research from in-depth studies of technology integration in exemplary teachers' classrooms. This timely book meets the demand for more examples of effective technology integration by providing a new conceptual understanding that builds on the popular and highly influential theoretical framework of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK). Technology Integration and High Possibility Classrooms details four rich case studies set in different contexts with students ranging from age 6 to 16. Each case study articulates in very practical terms what characterizes exemplary teachers' knowledge of technology integration and how that is applied in classrooms. This highly accessible book clearly demonstrates how theory informs practice and provides new possibilities for learning in twenty-first-century schools.

The book is inspired by the third seminar in a cycle connected to the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Politecnico di Milano (July 2013). "Educating by Image. Teaching Styles vs Learning Styles" was the motto of this meeting. The contributions (coming from lectures, the poster session, interviews and round table) aim to propose an updated look at visual education, highlighting how digital tools and networks have profoundly affected the "representational styles" of the teachers and the "cognitive styles" of the learners, while at the same time reaffirming the importance of the interaction between the two groups. As Herbert Alexander Simon once said, "Learning results... only from what the student does and thinks"; therefore "the teacher can advance learning only by influencing what the student does to learn". That is no mean feat if we consider that, according to Benjamin Samuel Bloom, visual education not only involves the pure cognition, but also the affective and the psychomotor domains, not to mention the social aspects. This is why, alongside some theoretical and historical retrospectives, the contributions recommend a continuous revision of "what" and "how" could be included in the academic curricula, also in connection with secondary schools, the professional world, targeted Lifelong Learning Programmes for students and teachers. The volume includes an interview with the science journalist and writer Piero Angela.

The book describes up-to-date applications and relevant theoretical results. These applications come from various places, but the most important one, numerically speaking, is the internet based educational system ALEKS. The ALEKS system is bilingual English-Spanish and covers all of mathematics, from third grade to the end of high school, and chemistry. It is also widely used in higher education because US students are often poorly prepared when they reach the university level. The chapter by Taagepera and Arasasingham deals with the application of knowledge spaces, independent of ALEKS, to the teaching of college chemistry. The four chapters by Albert and his collaborators strive to give cognitive interpretations to the combinatoric structures obtained and used by the ALEKS system. The contribution by Eppstein is technical and develops means of searching the knowledge structure efficiently.

Designing Distributed Learning Environments with Intelligent Software Agents reports on the most recent, important advances in agent technologies for distributed learning. Several chapters will be devoted to various aspects of intelligent software agents in distributed learning, including the methodological and technical issues on where and how intelligent agents can contribute to meeting distributed learning needs today and tomorrow. It will benefit the Al (artificial intelligence) community and educational community in their research and development. It will propose some new and interesting research issues about developing distributed learning environments in the semantic Web age. In addition, the ideas presented in the book may also be applicable to other domains such as agent-supported Web services, distributed business process and resource integration, computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) and e-commerce.

Digital video use is becoming prevalent in teacher education as a tool to help improve teaching and learning and for assessing effective teaching. Timely and comprehensive, this volume brings together top scholars from multiple disciplines to provide sound theoretical frameworks, research-based support, and clear practical advice on a variety of unique approaches to using digital video in teacher education programs. Part I deals with the use of video for teacher learning. Part II focuses on the role played by those other than teachers in the effective use of digital video in teacher education programs. Part III addresses how to administer video for teacher education. Exploring the complexities of effectively and appropriately integrating digital video into teacher development at various stages, this book is a must-have resource for scholars and professionals in the field.