Integrating Formal and Informal Learning Opportunities of Technology in Higher Education

Along with the recent developments in technology, the paradigm of learning and teaching has changed with the changing demands of society and learners. A new learner-centered paradigm enforces the changes in the roles of teacher, learner, and the environment. Learning is not restricted with a place or time. Especially with the advance of technology-based environments including www, social networks, and online learning environments, people can reach information anytime/anywhere, which brings about various experiences for informal learning. The aim of this chapter is to present a guideline for the integration of formal and informal learning opportunities of technology in higher education. As a result of the study a guideline is presented for higher education. The guideline is focused on eight issues including (1) know your students, (2) update yourself, (3) be online, (4) provide sharing opportunities, (5) provide discussion opportunities, (6) keep information alive, (7) use learning analytics, and (8) support interdisciplinarity.

Teaching and Learning 21st Century Skills for Life

The acquisition of 21st century skills through teaching and learning has become one of the greatest challenges facing education delivery in recent times. In the light of that, this chapter examines 21st century skills and how students could acquire these skills to become well integrated in the current knowledge and global economy. Further, this chapter examines the need to prepare students to acquire 21st century skills and competencies, so that they become relevant and well equipped for the current job market. Digital literacy and its importance to students are also explored as part of the relevant 21st century skills. This could be done through comprehensive restructuring of many schools' curriculum and modification of the way teachers teach and how students are assessed in educational institutions.

Role of IT Culture in Learners' Acceptance of E-Learning

This chapter sought to explore factors that influence e-learning adoption and use among students in higher education in Kenya. Based on UTAUT model, the study proposes that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions will influence intention to use e-learning. Additionally, the role of IT culture is explored. Performance expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, and IT culture were significant in predicting intention to use e-learning. Intention to use significantly predicted usage. Implications for higher education are discussed.

Computational Participation as a Portal to Collaborative STEM

This chapter explores computational participation as an integrative portal, offering a model for integration across individual disciplines, with an emphasis on the transformative potential of innovative digital practices to engage learners in collaborative science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (hereafter “STEM”) learning. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives and Dewey's experiential learning theory, computational participation in STEM is examined with respect to how learners meaningfully engage with problem-solving strategies, innovative solution design, and multiple iterations of testing. Utilizing examples of interactive digital platforms, such as Scratch and Hypothes.is, this chapter makes a case for how computational participation in STEM creates opportunities for collaborative learning in the virtual and real world, while maintaining a central focus on real world issues. Integrating computational participation in STEM, consequently, supports active, experiential learning, where STEM learners are able to develop transferable conceptual understandings, along with application of skills, such as creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.

Learning From Failure

Integrating the research and writing process is a stuck place for many students. Leveraging the collaborative conversation through feedback loops confronts stuck places that are critical to students mastering concepts in composition and information literacy. Instructors and librarians, in turn, are more clearly able to identify “stuck places” where students struggle with concepts and build learning experiences around those places. Implementing the collaborative conversation through Google Drive apps allows students, instructors, and librarians a platform to collaborate through shared editing and commenting. As a result, the process of providing feedback is less linear, shifting to an integrative, conversation-based experience. Google Drive affords stakeholders sufficient wait time to contextualize research, respond to feedback, and revise writing. Instructors and librarians are able to model the reflexive, iterative processes of inquiry, research, and writing alongside their students through implementation of the Research, Writing, and Feedback Integration Model.

Solving the Creativity Crisis

Society's serious problems require creative thinkers. Developing an effective workforce relies on cultivating our children's creativity. Unfortunately, we are suffering a creativity crisis, particularly with young children. Since 1990, early elementary students have suffered the largest decrease in creative thinking capacity. Rather than learning through play, young children are taught by rote and tested extensively. Play is indispensable for early learners; without play, students are missing an essential element of early learning that stimulates creative thinking. To promote play, elementary teachers should be trained in maker-centered teaching, a playful approach to learning that embodies the essential elements of STEM education. To truly integrate maker-centered learning, there is a critical need for effective maker-centered professional development. Maker-centered teaching provides playful learning where young children can experience STEM and learn to think more creatively. With maker-centered teaching, we can make the next generation of innovators.

MusicWorks

Musicians work with, and around, various forms of technological media and resources. In today's professional environment, musicians face multifaceted work that may include teaching, performing, marketing, promoting, recording, or composing. The musician as entrepreneurial learner becomes a key focus for authenticity within their learning. Music educators, music professionals, and musicians of all ages need to navigate key career choices along their career paths which can be supported by authentic approaches to learning. This chapter explores how enterprise pedagogy and entrepreneurial pedagogy (i.e., authentic learning experiences) provide opportunities for students to reflect on, and prepare for, the likelihood of multiple jobs and roles in their upcoming career paths. Podcasting as an authentic learning tool is explored through the development of MusicWorks, a podcast series giving voice to the multiple career paths of industry and educational leaders in music.

Inclusive Education in Science Education

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the extent to which science teachers use inclusive technologies in science classrooms. Participants for the study were 96 male and female science teachers from school districts in a midwestern state of the US. The results show that very few science teachers used technology for inclusive classrooms in science courses. In the study, one-third of teachers used and modeled either assistive or inclusive technology in science classrooms. Results indicate that science teachers need professional development due to lack of proper technology preparation, familiarity to inclusive technology. Findings in this study suggest that the extent science teachers use technology for inclusion in science classrooms needs to be addressed at teacher education levels including providing professional development courses on inclusiveness at school district levels. State standards should also discuss how inclusiveness must be addressed in the general education classrooms.

Engaging Learners

This chapter examines innovative online peer engagement collaboration across geographic regions. This chapter has two parts. Part 1 discusses the research that peer deliberations on a collaborative website leads to academically reflective engagement among student peers and students and the content. Statistically proven results are provided from the past 11 years in that their academically reflective interactions lead students to personalize, extend, and push each other to examine and re-examine academic ideas and content in these online spaces. Part 2 of this chapter provides cross disciplinary educators reasons to and ways by which to incorporate peer engagement in their face-to-face, hybrid, or online class along with a step-by step approach for educators across disciplines to implement as an innovative means to engage students in academic deliberation.

Lessons Learned

The authors focus on digital literacy and community service learning (CSL) strategies from research of Latinx undergraduate teacher candidates (TCs) engaged with technology in CSL courses. The qualitative studies have taken place in a tutorial agency and university classrooms in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, one of the most economically-strapped U.S. regions. The 60 participants were Bussert-Webb's TCs in Summer 2016 and Summer 2017 (n=28) and Lewis's TCs in Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 courses (n=32). Data sources include participant observations, surveys, focus groups, lessons, and reflections. Using social justice and New Literacies frameworks and thematic data analysis, the authors discuss four concepts that have influenced their practices: 1) risk-taking is more important than our digital expertise, 2) digital literacy connects to social justice contexts, 3) TCs engage in authentic technology experiences, and 4) technology-infused CSL is provided. Implications relate to closing a three-tier digital divide among Latinx teachers and youth.