Evaluating the effective use of emerging technologies in education

Minocha, Shailey (2012). Evaluating the effective use of emerging technologies in education. In: IEEE International Conference on Technology for Education Conference, 16-20 Jul 2012, Hyderabad, India.

URL: http://t4e.iiit.ac.in/Pre-conference%20on%2016-07-...

Abstract

The aim of this tutorial is to present practical guidance for evaluating the effectiveness of educational initiatives involving social software and emerging technologies to support student learning and engagement. Examples of such initiatives are: inclusion of a blog in a course to encourage reflective learning, or having a wiki in a course for fostering team-working skills, or an activity in a 3D virtual world to enable students to learn through simulations, or the use of Delicious for bookmarking resources, or an App on a smartphone. ‘Evaluation’ implies investigating the usability, pedagogical effectiveness (does it meet the learning outcomes?), student experience, and impact on direct stakeholders such as educators and technical support staff (in terms of workload and support required).

Educators, practitioners and educational researchers will find this tutorial useful for learning about evaluating initiatives in a systematic manner and yet be able to choose research methods that are not very resource-intensive for themselves and for the participants (primarily students but other direct stakeholders too such as technical support staff). Through examples of social software initiatives, we will discuss a number of data collection and data analysis methods in the tutorial ranging from traditional social science research (e.g. focus groups) to user-centred research methods (e.g. observations, diary studies) and to participatory design methods (e.g. experience sampling, student panels). We will also discuss about ethical considerations of conducting research, specifically, involving social software, where the personal and professional boundaries of user profiles (or identities) sometimes get blurred.

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• Item ORO ID
• 34643
• Item Type
• Conference or Workshop Item
• Project Funding Details

• Funded Project Name	Project ID	Funding Body
  Not Set	Not Set	Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology, The Open University, UK
  Not Set	Not Set	VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad India

• Extra Information
• This pre-conference tutorial and Shailey's visit to Hyderabad, India to attend the IEEE International Conference on Technology for Education Conference was kindly supported by VNR VJIET: VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad India.
• Keywords
• blogs; educational research; emerging technologies; evaluation; research methods; Second Life; social media; social software, usability evaluations; Web 2.0; wikis
• Academic Unit or School
• Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Computing and Communications
  Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
• Research Group
• Centre for Research in Computing (CRC)
• Copyright Holders
• © 2012 Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology, The Open University, UK
• Related URLs
• • http://t4e.iiit.ac.in/programschedule.ht...(Other)
  • http://mcs.open.ac.uk/sm577/(Author Website)
  • http://uk.linkedin.com/in/shaileyminocha(Author Website)
  • http://oro.open.ac.uk/28484/(Publication)
  • http://oro.open.ac.uk/33877/(Publication)
  • http://oro.open.ac.uk/33225/(Publication)
  • http://oro.open.ac.uk/34644/(Publication)
  • http://oro.open.ac.uk/34642/(Publication)
  • http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/5164(Other)
  • http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/6182(Other)
  • http://oro.open.ac.uk/34271/
  • http://oro.open.ac.uk/29334/
• Depositing User
• Shailey Minocha