Teacher Technology Education for Spatial Learning in Digital Immersive Virtual Environments

The aim of this research is to deepen how teacher technology education can be designed to enhance spatial education, which is intertwined with digital education. The evolution of technology resources can actually sustain spatial learning. In the last years, the user experience has been improved by open-source, collaborative user-generated, and immersive content of synthetic learning environments. This research analyses which spatial design principles have influenced the virtual worlds of digital immersive virtual learning environments. In 3D virtual learning environments spatial interaction is really developed and may open full accessibility to further studies on digital and spatial education. In the joined field of learning and ICT, the main scope of digital technology knowledge sharing, and re-shaping, is the enhancement of digital skills based on experiences in educational activities and the re-thinking of the nature and the format of educational curriculum to implement more experiences in the digital—and, possibly, spatial—fields.

The Changing Role of the Teacher in ICT-Supported Foreign Language Instruction

This chapter aims to explore the teacher´s role in foreign language instruction (FLI) supported by information and communication technology (ICT). The recent research on the impact of ICT on the teacher´s role in FLI indicates changes in the role of the teacher. However, there has been little empirical evidence on the nature of this change in foreign language classes. To fill this research gap, a multiple-case study of three teachers and 78 students in three secondary school classes in Slovenia was conducted. This chapter presents an in-depth analysis of sections of semi-structured interviews and class observations exploring the five categories of change of the teacher role identified by Podgoršek. The findings confirm these categories in general, but they also show which sub-categories of change are hard to achieve in real school environment.

Online Informal Language Learning Among Foreign Language Teachers

Today's online world provides foreign language users and learners with a multitude of opportunities to engage in a variety of language activities. A social group that can derive major benefits from the availability of online resources in different languages is foreign language teachers. Based on an ‘emic' approach, this study involves case studies of three experienced foreign language teachers that used diaries over a period of eight weeks to report on every instance of online use of their predominant foreign language and English. Semi-structured interviews were used to obtain insight into online behaviour that was not specifically related to the eight-week period of diary-keeping. The results indicate that the online uses of the three participants, although they belong to the same social and age groups, display great variety in terms of online activities and the predominant language used to perform these activities.

Teachers' Attitudes Towards the Use of Tablets in Six EFL Classrooms

This research study intends to explore teachers' use of tablets to in six EFL classrooms. The case study covers one private primary school in Istanbul, Turkey. Through the analysis of semi-structured interviews, the aim is to find out the factors affecting EFL teachers use of tablets, their attitudes towards using these devices, and the advantages and disadvantages they see in using tablets in their teaching. The study focuses on teachers' perspective as they are by and large ignored when it comes to the introduction of new technologies in educational institutions.

Peer Learning and Peer Assessment to Enhance Participation in Online Courses

The chapter discusses the development of a peer assessment approach in an online learning community. Peer assessment is an important construct because it is connected with self-regulated learning and correlated with the use of feedback, two of the most effective issues in facilitating online learning. The aim of the research is to demonstrate the innovative value of peer assessment and peer learning in new tech through a literature review and an analysis of a practical application to show future development in this field.

ICT Adoption Among Higher Education Teachers

This chapter aims to shed light on university teachers' adoption and use of information communication technologies (ICT) at a university in its awareness/exploration stage of blended learning adoption. The goal was to identify how teachers' attitudes to innovation adoption influences the adoption of ICT for teaching/learning. An online survey showed substantial differences between first adopters and followers regarding the perceived importance of factors affecting ICT adoption (“financial support/stipend” and “the availability of online training for teachers”), and perceived usefulness of learning management system activities (quizzes, discussion boards, and assignments). Identifying first adopters and followers can assist universities in the awareness/exploration stage in recognizing the ways in which first adopters differ from followers and consequently help both groups to facilitate a strategic and optimal ICT adoption and implementation of blended learning.

Integration of Information and Communication Technology in Teaching Processes

Digital technologies have drastically changed the mindset of communities and compelled them to function smartly. It is a must for everyone to keep updated and acquire the technical know-how for sustenance. Information and communication technology (ICT) and its capability to impact teaching-learning processes have enforced the educational institutions to apply it in pre-primary education to higher education and research. Such technologies have been explored as beneficial in variety of situations. Government is also investing a smart amount of funds to support institutions for creating appropriate ICT environment. The present study attempts to explore the factors responsible for successful integration of information and communication technology in teaching-learning process. Keeping in view the explored factors emerged from the study, it suggests to the government and policymakers how to design and develop the training programs in the area of ICT incorporation in the teaching-learning process.

CLIL Approach and Educational Technologies

CLIL (content and language integrated learning) is an educational approach in which a foreign language is used for the teaching and learning of content and language. The Council of Europe has fostered it as an innovative methodology for promoting plurilingualism and raising the quality of school curricula. Furthermore, in European Commission's reports, the use of educational technologies in CLIL approach has been recommended for improving the effectiveness of language learning. In this work, a study on the integration of different activities in CLIL settings as ClassLabs is presented, underlining the significant link between CLIL and information communication technologies in the Italian context. In particular, in the promoted technology-enhanced environments, the combination of videos, online exercises, and the production of multimedia artifacts is proposed in order to make enjoyable the acquisition of cross skills. CLIL teacher profile is also introduced, specifying the different skills and competences a teacher must develop in order to be fully qualified in a CLIL ClassLab.

Use of Smartphones for Self-Regulated Foreign Language Learning Activities

Smartphones can significantly affect the development of foreign languages in two distinct ways. Firstly, online informal learning of languages may result in naturalistic foreign language acquisition while mobile assisted language learning implies the use of smartphones following a conscious decision to engage in language learning activities that would result in the improvement of one's language competence. Based on quantitative and qualitative methodology applied on a sample of undergraduate students in Slovenia, the main objective of this chapter is to explore the use of smartphones for self-regulated English language learning activities beyond the language classroom.

Pedagogy and ICT

While the principles of the personalisation of study plans are now affirmed at scientific level and in the school world and while, at the same time, a sturdy current of educationalists sees in new technologies a “tool” that must be used appropriately, reflections on the personalisation of ICT in relation to different learning styles still seem scarce, particularly with regard to its use in differentiated teaching strategies, as a means of support for students with disabilities or learning difficulties as well as in ordinary teaching. In this chapter, the authors develop a thread of reasoning conducive to exploring the use of ICT in the more general context of pedagogy and teaching to promote a development that is integrated and not exclusive or alternative to methodologies that have already been experimented by teachers in their professional roles, focussing on the concept of differentiated teaching and giving some operational proposals of integrated learning environments by way of example.