Virtual Laboratory to Improve Learning in Modern Classroom

The aim of this project was to make children's activities on digital devices visible, in order to be understood, which could then assist educators to extend these activities, thus potentially increasing children's learning. The purpose of the study was to explore the children's activities as they used a range of digital technologies. The research was framed by two research questions: a) 'what activities do children engage in around digital devices within an early childhood classroom?' and b) 'how do these activities relate to elements of Vygotsky's theorisation about young children's play?' By examining these questions the study, which will inform early childhood education practices through four implications in learning with and through technologies in early childhood settings. Historically, the research literature in early childhood technologies has focused on educators' use of technological devices with a focus on using desktop computers. Researchers exploring digital technology in early childhood education have called for further investigation into the role digital technology plays in the current context. This includes thinking beyond how educators use technologies in the classroom to the implications for children's play, learning and development; and what this might mean for pedagogy and curriculum. This study used a single site, case study approach where the researcher, who was also the educator, along with the children, documented the use of two iPadsREPLACE1, two digital cameras, a FlipREPLACE1 camera and a computer within the kindergarten classroom. Sociocultural theory framed the research, in particular Vygotsky's views on children's play, learning and development. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used for analysing the data collected and the results were then discussed in detail.;The study resulted in four main findings which were: 1) digital devices are supportive cultural tools for fostering social interactions; 2) time is needed to explore the technology; 3) digital devices assist leading activity; and 4) children shift from recording artefacts to recording imaginative episodes. These findings formed the basis of four implications for educators which included: 1) educators need to provide children with the time and knowledge to appropriately use ICT and extend their learning; 2) educators need to plan, provide for and encourage social interactions between children using digital technologies; 3) educators need to develop children's skills as mentors for each other in their ICT use; and 4) educators need to consider and provide apps that encourage imaginative play. This investigation identified the necessity for further research around children's need for time to explore digital devices to assist them in moving from explorative to imaginative behaviours

This study was intended to understand and explain Indian tertiary education students’ perceptions about using the Internet for their learning. The aim of this research is to examine the impact of Internet use on Indian tertiary education students’ learning. The study explores the role of the Internet in teacher education students’ learning and how students report the Internet to be useful for their studies. The purpose is to investigate whether better and increased Internet access links to better educational opportunities. The investigation is informed by the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) theory of Bijker and Pinch (1986), which is used to explore the perceptions of the students about Internet use in their learning. The theory of SCOT suggests humans’ perceptions are based on interactions and usage patterns of a particular technology, hence, in this study, Indian tertiary education students’ perceptions about their Internet interactions and usage patterns are explored. In order to identify and interpret the different meanings of the Internet for male and female students, the relationship between gender and the use of the Internet is also investigated. An embedded mixed methods study was conducted involving semi-structured interviews (five females and five males) and a survey (N= 1000) of Bachelor of Education students from eighteen different educational institutions in India. My personal narrative data was also used parallel to interview and survey data. The four components of the SCOT (interpretative flexibility, relevant social group, wider context and technological framework) were utilised to analyse data, and present and discuss the overall findings. The interview data and personal narrative data were analysed using content analysis where the patterns of themes guided by SCOT were compared and contrasted within and between cases. Statistical descriptive and comparative analyses were employed to analyse the survey data. Of significance, this study showed that the participants perceived the Internet to be an online learning tool because it enabled them to access learning materials digitally. Particularly, the interpretative flexibility theme showed that the students’ perceptions about the Internet use for their learning were based on their Internet usage patterns. The relevant social group theme highlighted that the poor Internet quality (including lack of Internet access, slow Internet speed and weak Internet signal quality) impacted on students’ Internet use for learning. The wider context theme showed that the social beliefs (e.g., parental and teachers’ negative attitude towards the Internet use stopped students from using the Internet), economic factors (e.g., high cost of the Internet), political factors (e.g., lack of provisions of the digital devices and appropriate electricity supply) and socio-economic background (e.g., educational and family background) also impacted adversely on students’ Internet use for their learning. On the basis of relevant social group analysis and wider context analysis, the technological framework was utilised to provide some practical suggestions to improve the provision of the Internet resources into Indian tertiary education institutions in order to promote tertiary education students’ learning through the implementation of new practices of the Internet in the Indian learning context.

Background: digital technology plays an important role in higher education institutions. Objective: this study investigates how students and instructors are using digital tools, for what purposes they use digital technology and to what extent digital technologies adopted in higher education. Methodology: structural equation modeling was used; triangulation approaches, data have been collected from the students (n=168), instructors (n=64) using a survey questionnaires and an in-depth interviews with students, instructors. Data was analyzed using SPSS v26. Result: Based on the data analysis more than 88.09% of students use digital tools for non-academic purposes (for entertainment), like playing games, online chatting with their friends, watching videos (movies), telegram, face book for personal or social use. However, digital tools have a great impact on student academic achievement especially for students who score in GPA are greater than 3.5. Conclusion: higher education students have access to digital tools like the internet, desktop computers (1:6), laptops (4.16%) and mobile devices (97.61%). However, 88.09% of learners use educational technology for enjoyment purposes. The digital competency of instructors and students are very low. (74.21% of instructors do not use digital tools in the Classroom).

A new remote laboratory system for learning hardware design and experiment of digital circuit has been developed. It employs shared resources and an e-learning system based on the top-down method specializing in the logic circuit design and featuring a quick acquisition of the hardware-description-language-based design skill. The wide use of the Internet motivated us to develop seamless remote and actual hardware laboratories for hardware design laboratory course, and for students to learn the digital circuit design by themselves. The proposed remote laboratory utilizes actual hardware and actual measurement tools in a time-sharing fashion. The combinatorial use of FPGA/PC connected test hardware and PC-based measurement equipments has made it possible to develop a remote multi-user and time-sharing hardware experiment system. As all students are equipped with high-performance Laptop PCs, CPU intensive development tasks can be performed by each student's client PC in a rich-client environment. The prototype the remote-laboratory and self e-learning system are under-construction, and will be used for the third grade CS students from year 2005

Learning is a process that involves educators, students, teaching materials, learning resources, learning media, and methods. The conventional method, whose main source of knowledge is only from educators, is considered to be less effective if it is the only source of knowledge transfer to students. The boring learning process, the media used in Digital Electronics courses is a simulator, the features presented in the simulator are less interesting. So it was appointed a research study on the development of the IoT Remote Lab learning tool with Blended Learning Digital Electronics Subjects in accordance with the Industrial Revolution era 4.0. This study aims to determine the stages and feasibility of developing the IoT Remote Lab learning tool with a valid, practical, and effective Blended Learning method in the Department of Electronics Education Faculty of Engineering Universitas Negeri Makassar (FT-UNM). The research method used by Research and Development (R&D) with the 4D development model (1), (2) planning, (3) development, and (4) distribution. The results of this study indicate that the Remote Lab IoT learning tool with the Blended Learning method has a very valid category to use. Got a response from students who said it was very practical in its use and the results of student test scores after implementation had increased. It was concluded that the data stated that the Remote Lab IoT learning device with the Blended Learning method that had been developed was declared valid/feasible to use as well as practical and efficient in its use.

Digital Technology Use in US Community-Dwelling Seniors With and Without Homebound Status

Virtual earthquake engineering laboratory with physics-based degrading materials on parallel computers

The graphic communication art has played a vital role in the multimedia communications due to the highly impact of the digital developments in the communication arts. This study used ”The Production and Publish of Graphic Communication arts e-Book” as an example to demonstrate how to digitize graphic communications content and make the digital content into an e-book for publishing online. Its value-added applications in digital learning are obvious. Due to the digital content of Graphic Communication domain in the e-book form has not been designed and developed in Taiwan or other countries. This research was, therefore, to prepare digital content for the graphic communication arts and its related knowledge and skills in a multimedia e-book fashion. The project is actually a continuous study of the primary author's previous NSC-granted research ”The Establishment of Standard Operation Process in Digital Content Production and Publishing of E-books (NSC 93-2422-H-144-002-EC3).” The graphic communication curriculum in this e-book was composed by five domains of “Photography, Design, Printing, Publishing, and Printing Management”, and demonstrated using text, computer-generated images, scanned and hand-drawing graphs, photography, 2D/3D animations, audio, and videos. It is believed that this digital learning model will reach the purpose of outreach education in Graphic Communications by making the learning more interesting and effective. This study was also funded by National Science Council (NSC 93-2422-H-144-002-EC3) and was an academy-industry cooperation research project. To accomplish the rich and vivid contents, four research methods were used, including documentary analysis, field study, focus group meeting, and in-depth interviews of experts in the field of graphic communication arts. The e-book marketing strategy and distribution channel, e-book editor, reader downloading method, digital right management (DRM) technology, e-book standard and specifications, availability of e-Book readers were very carefully evaluated via the collaboration between this research team and the industry sector before selecting a particular e-book production and multi-dimensional marketing system. With the considerations of learning-on-demand, print-on-demand, publish-on-demand, and purchase-on-demand, this e-book is designed for users such as students, faculty, researchers, and industry workforce in the area of graphic communications arts to learn anytime and anywhere in a multimedia fashion through rich and vivid contents. If readers are interested in reading this complete e-book, which could be shown in this article, please contact the primary author via e-mail at t0308@mail.ntua.edu.tw.

Social work with children and youth in vulnerable positions has traditionally been associated with face-to-face meetings and a reflective, trustworthy social worker. Digital efforts to make social work more efficient have changed the ways in which social work is conducted, and face-to-face work is now increasingly mediated by a screen or other digital communication devices. This article conceptualises social work as situated in relational and dynamic spaces, and uses Rosa’s concept of acceleration in society, combined with an ethical-body perspective, to offer insight into how social work takes place in digital spaces. We understand ‘technology’ as grounded in Science and Technology Studies (STS) in which technology itself has agency, and technology use is understood as a complex dynamic involving functionality, use and competences as well as the social situations in which technology is incorporated. Empirically, the article draws on examples from the research project ‘The digitally competent social worker’, in which fieldwork was conducted in twelve Danish municipalities. The article concludes that although positive outcomes occur when social workers use digital communication devices, the continuous development of digital technology requires them to be continuously trained in how to work professionally with digital devices, so that they can identify and reflect on the deficits of the various technologies deployed. Further, the accelerating speed of social work promised by digital technologies risks squeezing out ‘reflection’ in favour of an automated, non-critical reflex due to reduced case complexity and curtailed spaces for legal discretion, both of which are exacerbated by digital devices.

We are now living in digital age. Almost all activities are carried out using digital technology devices. Various information and knowledge are saved in digital devices. Therefore, anyone who lives in the present and the future should have adequate digital literacy. This study aims to determine the level of digital literacy, future time perspective, and the self-confidence of prospective vocational school graduates in entering the job market. In addition, this study also intends to answer whether there is an influence of digital literacy and future time perspective on the self-confidence of prospective vocational school graduates entering the job market. This research revealed that the digital literacy level of prospective vocational school graduates is at a moderate level, the future time perspective is at a good level, and the level of self-confidence entering the job market is at a good level. Mediated by a future time perspective, digital literacy indirectly affects the self-confidence of prospective vocational school graduates in entering the job market. There is no significant relationship between digital literacy and confidence in entering the job market. Thus, digital literacy--future time perspective--self-confidence in entering the job market is a pathway used to prepare prospective vocational school graduates to enter the job market. Vocational schools are directed to develop real programs to increase students' digital literacy to encourage the growth of self-confidence of prospective vocational school graduates in entering the job market.

The objective of this study is to test the learning model of blended learning by using social media as the learning tool to improve students’ participation and motivation in English subject . The study helps to solve problem of learning time restrictiveness by wielding students’ familiarity with internet technology used outside the classroom. The study implemented quasi-experiment to collect the data by using test and questionnaire. The respondents were students Elementary School Teacher Study Program of University of PGRI Yogyakarta. There were 70 students who were divided into two classes. A class was conducted as control group, while the other one was the experimental group. In the control group, English subject was taught by implementing conventional class model. The students in the experimental group were taught by blended learning which were the combination of classical and online models through social media. Social media used in this study were ones which supported learning process as sharing audio, video, as well as other online media. The writer chose Facebook as the media learning because all respondents used such kind of social media. The integration of social media as the effort to improve students’ participation and motivation remain successful . The general discussion is on the implementation of e-learning platform in learning process. According to survey, students were interested more in using social media compared with e-learning platform. The result of the study prove d that English learning process by using blended learning method with social media help ed students’ participation and motivation. The posttest result of the experiment class was better than the control class.

In the contemporary world, applications and tools of digital technology have become part of our daily lives. The technology and tools influence and helps us to improve and excel in education, science, social science, communication, business, personal management and many others. In particular, the digital technology has made phenomenal changes in the way we learn and educate others. The influence and the changes this technology has brought to the community is visible very clearly in every walk of life. Our focus in this article is on the revolutionary changes that has been brought by the digital technology has made in the field of education. Digital devices have become essential elements in the education system, particularly in Saudi Arabia, which have drastically changed students’ habits. As an example of a very simple use of this technology, today’s students often use digital technology to assist them in schoolwork as well as for surfing internet for research. This article focuses on issues concerning digital technology and its effects on the Saudi Arabian community college system, and concentrates on efficacy, efficiency, and effectiveness of digital technology in the higher educational system. In this paper we shall analyze and report the results of a questionnaire administered to 500 students of Qasim University and Suleiman AlRajhi Colleges of Saudi Arabia. We shall also report our recommendations based on our study.

Examining Play Among Young Children in Single-age and Multi-age Preschool Classroom Settings by Mia Song Youhne Dr. Nancy Sileo, Examination Committee Chair Associate Professor of Special Education University of Nevada, Las Vegas Advocates for multi-age classrooms claim multi-age groupings benefit children (Brynes, Shuster, & Jones, 1994). Currently, there is a lack of research examining play among students in multi-age classrooms. If indeed there is a positive benefit of play among children, research is needed to examine these behaviors among and between young children in single-age and multi-age classrooms. The purpose of this study was to determine if young children benefit from increased play opportunities. This qualitative study utilized observations, interviews, and questionnaires to gather data from teachers, parents, and children regarding play interactions in both single-age and multi-age classrooms. The intent of this study was to provide a rationale for why multi-age programs should be developed or continued. Participants in this study included teachers and parents who completed questionnaires and children who participated in video taped observations and interviews. This study took place in a fully inclusive early childhood center. Observations of the play engagements of children were video taped in both the indoor and outdoor sandbox settings. During the five weeks of video taping, 281 play segments were recorded resulting in 1549 occurrences of play. Based on the play observations, it appeared that young children in multi-age classrooms engaged in more than one type of play more frequently than young children in single-age classrooms. Further, young children in multi-age classrooms initiated play more frequently. However, typically developing young children in multi-age classrooms did not initiate play with young children with disabilities more frequently than typically developing young children in single-age classrooms. The interviews with children indicated that young children were aware of their own play interactions. Based on the data collected from the questionnaires of teachers and parents, it appeared these two groups had similar views of the value of play and believed it to be developmentally appropriate and a critical learning process. Professionals in the field of early childhood education should consider the results of this study when designing, developing, and implementing single and multi-age programs for young children with and without disabilities. Moreover, professionals should consider the impact of play on the development of young children when designing curricula.

Computer Science Education (CSE) is one discipline that uses the growing and demanding e-learning environment to deliver the computation and technology knowledge to the learners. CSE needs practical sessions as the main part of its education process. Many Learning Management Systems (LMS) have limited resources towards virtual labs. This hinders the free and direct utilization of the software tools that are needed for CSE. As a consequence, researchers attempted to support the LMSs and develop these resources as built-in components in the LMS itself. In this direction, this paper proposes the usage of the ServiceOriented Architecture (SOA) to overcome the limitations of the LMSs towards the practical sessions of CSE. The software developer uses SOA to develop the needed resources as services and then integrates them in the LMS environment. In this paper, all experimental works are carried out on the Moodle environment since it is an open source and used at the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Oman. Key terms: CSE, Moodle, practical tools, SOA, Compiler, Virtual Resources

Online finding aids, internet search tools, and increased access to the World Wide Web have greatly changed how patrons find archival collections. Through analyzing eighteen months of access data collected via web analytics tools, this article examines how patrons discover archival materials. Contrasts are drawn between access from library catalogs and from online search engines, with the latter outweighing the former by an overwhelming margin, and argues whether archival description practices should change accordingly. The past decade brought a revolution in intellectual access to archival collections through the emergence of the online finding aid. These tools, created in a multiplicity of formats (EAD, HTML, PDF, and others), have made it possible for researchers anywhere to use an Internet connection to find materials in archives. Since archivists first introduced this genre of digital documents to support unmediated discovery, they have been accompanied by questions about their use and usability. Tools exist to measure access counts and the pathways followed to these finding aids, but to date very little has been published to show whether these tools are being used for this purpose, or what the results are if they are being used. This article will examine the experience of one repository, Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC) at the Washington State University Libraries, in collecting and analyzing data about the use of online finding aids. By 2008, MASC had well over eight hundred HTML finding aids online but no real numeric data 1 O'English: Applying Web Analytics to Online Finding Aids Published by DigitalCommons@USU, 2011 either on how often they were being accessed or on how they were found. In an effort to gather this data, MASC staff placed code from Google Analytics, a statisticsgathering Web service, on each finding aid webpage, as well as on other local gateway and digital collections pages. The intent was to explore the paths patrons follow to finding aids with the hope of improving access, as well as gaining patron-derived information that would help establish priorities for processing collections from the repository backlog and to determine which processed collections might benefit from further attention. The results of the statistical analysis provide useful data on where and how MASC users access our finding aids. Prior to the age of digital finding aids, their paper predecessors were found through various methods, which were generally predictable and well-defined, including online and analog library catalogs, published listings, and mediation by archives staff in person or by telephone. As the digital age emerged, many archives channeled substantial resources into major conversion projects, digitizing finding aids and often creating access to them through existing or new MARC records in online library catalogs. Digital search tools have become increasingly powerful and widespread, and social media have emerged as another path to online finding aids. Archivists with quantitative and qualitative data about the use of online finding aids can make better-informed decisions about the most effective ways to support discovery. The findings in this study suggest that it may again be time to change focus, shifting resources away from catalogs and toward the finding aids themselves.