iPods, Internet and Apps, Oh My

This chapter explores perceptions about technology and young children and includes results of a survey answered by Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) and Early Childhood Education (ECE) professionals in relation to age appropriate technology for young children. Integration of technology into early childhood programs has two major obstacles: (a) teachers’ attitudes towards and beliefs about technology and (b) perceptions of what is developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) in their classrooms. The issue of what constitutes developmentally appropriate practice for young children in relation to technology in early childhood education classrooms is one that may influence technology use in educational environments. The framework for this chapter explores perceptions of early childhood and instructional technology practitioners and their views of what is and is not appropriate technology for young children.

Next Generation Science Assessment

The recent release of science education documents such as A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (National Research Council, 2012) marks the transition into a new generation of science education. This transition necessitates a close look at how pre-college science teachers will assess a diverse group of students in ways that are consistent with science education reform. In this chapter, the authors identify current research in science assessment and employ assessment coherence, assessment use, and assessment equity as guiding principles to address the challenges of putting science assessment research into classroom practice. To exemplify these challenges, they describe a study where a research instrument designed to measure scientific reasoning skills was translated into a high school science classroom assessment. The goal of this chapter is to stimulate conversation in the science education community (researchers, assessment developers, teacher educators, administrators, and classroom teachers) about how to put science assessment research successfully into practice and to describe what next steps need to be taken, particularly around assessing diverse student populations.

Embedded Librarianship

This case study chronicles the learning experiences of 10th grade Honors Literature/Composition students who participated in a 2009-10 learning initiative, Media 21, at Creekview High School. This program, spearheaded by school librarian Buffy Hamilton and English teacher Susan Lester, provided students a learning environment facilitated by both Hamilton and Lester in which Hamilton was “embedded” as an instructor. Media 21, rooted in connectivism, inquiry, and participatory literacy, emphasized students creating their own research “dashboards” and portals, the creation of personal learning networks to help students engage in their learning experiences, and to evaluate a diverse offering of information sources more critically.

Pre-Service Teacher Education for the Management of Actual and Virtual Classes

The development of Internet-based school networks, facilitating the creation of virtual classes, has implications for the professional education of teachers who are increasingly likely to teach both face-to-face and online. In the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, pre-service teachers are being prepared for networked school environments within which on-site and online teaching and learning are required. Teachers are provided with a structure within which to manage collaboration that includes learning circles and cybercells. Within networked school environments, virtual classes have been developed for teaching an expanding range of subjects at high school level.

Evaluating iPad Applications

Traditional classrooms based solely on textbooks and print-based reading material no longer fit ways students gain knowledge. Advances and innovations in technology are changing the way students of all ages learn. The latest innovation, smaller tablet style computers such as iPads, is further changing the way technology is used in schoolrooms. Popularity of these devices and the ability to download applications to them opens a world of uses for such devices in classrooms. The appropriate use of these devices and choice of appropriate applications for educational purposes provides a new realm of research opportunities for scholars. Educators and administrators need to feel confident capital expenditures on tablet devices will fulfill the promise of a positive impact in classrooms. This chapter explores the readability of one of the more popular applications for iPads in an attempt to discover whether reading levels of the application are appropriate for students in elementary, middle, and high school.

3D Modeling in a High School Computer Visualization Class

This semester long case study in a rural high school Introduction to Computer Visualization course focused on a detailed analysis of pedagogical approaches, the learning environment, and students’ performance outcomes. Classroom observations, student interviews, and instructor’s commentary yielded insights regarding how students learn to create virtual 3D models and what contexts for learning best support the modeling processes students’ learned in the course (tool use, tool path patterns, time management, and accuracy of the modeled structure). The social learning environment of this particular classroom, the combination of didactic, guided practice and exploratory modes of inquiry, self-selected work groupings, and peer designations of expertise that supported multiple problem solving approaches were powerful mediators of students’ learning resulting in high quality modeling products.

The iPad in the Classroom

Mobile learning devices, such as the iPad tablet, have the potential of providing unique pedagogical strategies for the K-12 classroom. One of these strategies is digital storytelling, a constructivist approach using digital tools to create and share short stories. This chapter describes three iPad implementation projects involving multimedia database and digital storytelling creation that underscore the successes and challenges of these devices and the new classroom activities they make available to educators. The results of these projects suggest that the iPad is one device that can successfully support and sustain a variety of multimedia creation and use in the classroom. Specifically, this chapter reports on research that identifies mobile pedagogical strategies on the iPad, such as mobile small and large group demonstrations, student-directed control-and-playback activities, backchannel (microblogging) conversations, Web-based research activities, and digital storytelling. As with other types of technology implementations, management and process challenges exist that should be considered. This chapter details some of the challenges that are specific to iPads and multimedia creation on these devices.

Technologizing Teaching

With the continuing shift of instructional media to digital sources occurring in classrooms around the world, the role of technology instruction in the pre-service curriculum of K-12 teachers is acquiring increasing salience. However, barriers to its inclusion continue to exist. In this chapter we focus on a model of hybridity designed to embed technology instruction into pre-service education. This model is known as the WebQuest and involves the development of a technology-driven learning activity that scaffolds the building of skills in content, pedagogy, and technology integration in pre-service teachers. We discuss data from an exploratory project conducted within a class of graduate pre-service teachers experiencing instruction in creating a WebQuest, and offer some preliminary findings. We place these results within a larger perspective of the CFTK and TPACK frameworks and their application to issues germane to pre-service teacher education.

Case Study of Game-Based Learning in a Citizenship Education K-12 Classroom

This chapter focuses on a case study that involves the incorporation of ICT in particular gaming technology into the subject area of Citizenship Education (CE), a non-traditional ICT focused subject. The case study is within the context of a K-12 classroom and it explores the processes in which a classroom teacher may have to navigate to be able to use innovative ICT within their classroom. The case highlights the main issues as relating to pedagogical and institutional considerations.

Supporting Teachers’ Instrumental Genesis with Dynamic Mathematical Software

This chapter addresses the need to prepare and support teachers of mathematics in order that they will be able to co-construct with their students classroom environments in which the Standards for Mathematical Practice as well as the content standards (CCSSM, 2010) are implemented fruitfully. Specifically, the chapter describes and illustrates design elements of learning environments with potential to positively impact pre- and in-service teachers’ knowledge of mathematics, facility with technology, and beliefs about how mathematics may be learned. The practice of using appropriate tools strategically is highlighted; however, each of the practice standards is integral to a classroom environment which supports mathematical proficiency (National Research Council, 2001). This chapter examines and illustrates the explicit and intentional instructional design features of using provocative tasks, dynamic technology scaffolding, and sustained intellectual press, which together interact in classrooms to promote the mathematical practices and habits of mind explicated in the CCSSM.