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Student perceptions of the online learning environment were measured using the Distance Education Learning Environment Survey (DELES) and focused upon six areas: instructor support, student interaction and collaboration, personal relevance, authentic learning, active learning, and student autonomy with an assessment of overall student satisfaction measured as well. This dissertation study identified areas of the learning environment online students perceive to be most important and correlated highly with overall satisfaction, which will be discussed during the session. More importantly, ways in which instructors can enhance their performance in hopes of maintain and increasing student satisfaction in these areas using social media, apps, and other technologies will be discussed.

• Julie Phillips, Globe University/Minnesota School of Business, Prior Lake, MN, USA

The quality of faculty who teach online is critical to the success of online students. Online course quality measures, such as Quality Matters, are useful for evaluating the DESIGN of an online course. However, they are less effective in assessing the quality of those who TEACH online. In this presentation, we will discuss a research and development project identifying currently nationwide practices in assessing online teaching, the creation of an online “class observation” instrument, and a formal program to recognize and reward exemplary online faculty.

This presentation is about the process, pitfalls, results and reactions we experienced with our experimental collaborative augmented reality project for mobile devices.

Our objective is to demonstrate and discuss our collaboration and our use of augmented reality to connect students to the community, engaging them outside of their comfort zone, and to use server-based content (AR) to enhance the experience of traditional museum-goers in a nontraditional way. Secondarily, we will discuss how we leveraged social networking to improve the collaborative spirit among students who not only did not know one another, but represented entirely different disciplines.

This project was developed as a joint effort between the 3D Digital Design and Photography departments; additional students came from the New Media Design and Film and Animation programs. Further contributions were made by the department of Color Science, and by the curators and historians at the Memorial Art Gallery (MAG), an art museum in Rochester, New York.

Students researched the works they saw during a curator-led tour of the MAG, and formed working partnerships during class discussions and afterward via contact through social media.

Students used existing imaging and animation software to create relevant overlays that are experienced using the Aurasma AR platform (which powers our own “skinned” application). These transformations are now part of the exhibit at the MAG, which is now promoting our work as a regular attraction for visitors to the museum.

Augmented reality is a technology that is poised to become a prominent part of our culture. Now available on all mobile platforms, there is significant opportunity to explore this technology from both the design and educational perspective. The multimedia integration course “Tangible Media / Physical Interface Design” added augmented reality to a multi-week design project building automata. At each of 3 stages students were challenged to design 1) using 3D computer modeling software, 2) design and build a physical model which integrated with a sensor or motorized component driven by the Arduino microprocessor and finally 3) develop an augmented reality animation which would be triggered by all or part of the physical automata. This paper presents the learning goals, challenges and results from this course.

Are you still searching for strategies to actively engage your students and make learning a fun experience? This panel presentation briefly introduces the Flipped Classroom model, demonstrates several useful learning technologies for engaging students, and offers tips on linking web-based teaching tools for student development of core competencies. Learning technologies covered include audience response systems (mobile iClicking, embedded quizzes) and the use of audio enhanced teaching tools (podcasts and voice-over Powerpoints). These learning technologies can facilitate the reinforcement and assessment of course content as well as establish links to attainment of course competencies. This session provides a valuable addition to the university instructor’s teaching tool-kit.

Interactivity
During this interactive session, panel members will provide short video examples from current courses. Session participants will follow a step-by-step process for creating a short interactive quiz (Quizmaker and Presenter), setting up a mobile iClicker activity, tailoring an audio/video lecture, and using a podcast for course feedback. Audience questions and participation will be integrated into the presentation as panel members explain and demonstrate the suggested use of these learning technologies.

• Anne Hewitt, Seton Hall University, New Jersey, USA
• Nalin Johri, Seton Hall University, New Jersey, USA
• Riad Twal, Seton Hall University, New Jersey, USA

This case study explores perceptions of undergraduate teacher education students, enrolled in an online course, on types of educational experiences that foster engagement in science-related courses and impact their active participation. The use of LEGOs and technology was a vehicle to implement this inquiry. Also, the case study provides information about faculty practices perceived as positive towards science teaching, student success and increased completion rates of college students majoring in STEM disciplines. Feedback from undergraduate students provided information on how to enhance the teaching of science online. Finally, the value of this case study not only facilitates better understanding on how to increase the number of pre-service teachers interested in STEM teaching but also to increase the number of qualified STEM teachers for public schools that will teach the next generation of K-12 students.

As the Kaplan University Writing Center (KUWC) proudly looks forward to celebrating a decade of service to students and faculty in the upcoming year, we also glance back and consider how the KUWC has evolved in our use of educational technologies. During this panel presentation, KUWC tutors will reflect on our use of technologies in four key areas of writing center work: asynchronous project review, synchronous writing support, outreach and community building, and resource development. Specifically, we will talk about our strategic, research-driven movement from traditional, written only paper previews to video reviews, experiences with synchronous tutoring platforms and technologies, including the current use of Adobe Connect, expanded outreach and community building through social media and blogging, and ongoing development of multi-media resources. We will situate our presentation on our careful “stewardship of technology” (Wenger, White, & Smith, 2009; Ozias & Chambers, n.d.). We expect our presentation to be informative and engaging for all writing center staff, especially tutors and administrators who are interested in adapting technologies to their writing center work, exploring synchronous tutoring opportunities, utilizing social media tools, personalizing asynchronous tutoring, and creating timely multi-media resources.

References
Ozias, M. & Chambers, E. (n.d.). Tech + social: Supporting collaborations and communities online. Retrieved from http://writingcenters.org/wpcontent/uploads/…/tech_for_writing_centers.pdf
Wenger, E., White, N., & Smith, J.D. (2009). Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities [Kindle HD version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com

The presentation reports a case-study of a blind college student, Sameera, at the College of Languages and Translation (COLT). Sameera has an iPhone, an iPad and a laptop. She has a twitter, Facebook and Whats App accounts and can use Skype. She uses MS Office (WORD, Powrpoint…etc) and the university registration system. She uses a screen reader, i.e., text-to-speech software and the iPhone Voice Over App (a screen reader). In Addition, she has a notetaker (Braille Sense) that enables her to surf the internet, take notes in class, synchronize her calendar and contacts, and read silently through the use of a refreshable Braille display. She gives her Camera voice commands to take photos and writes captions for each photo. A navigation software for the blind helps her save places and locations. She gives it voice commands and it saves them. Sameera reported that the voice software helps her communicate with people better, especially when she uses What’s App and Skype. Since she takes listening and interpreting courses in the Multimedia Language Lab at the College, Sameera indicated that no screen reading software is available in the Multimedia Language Lab at COLT like HAL or JAWS. Everything is operated by the mouse NOT voice. The instructor does not wait for her either. Although she finds Braille Sense very useful, she cannot afford buying it. She borrows it from the Center for Special Needs Students at the university. Assitive technologies used by blind students, advantages and challenges will be reported in detail.

The purpose of present study is to investigate the impacts of incorporating Edmodo as educational network, into a classroom setting on academic achievement of Biology students based on three types of conceptual level comprises of direct, simple, and complex concept. Researcher intended to seek for the reason of improvement in their achievement test for all the three types of conceptual level. A total of 140 Biology students were selected from three secondary schools which were chosen using convenient random sampling to participate in this study and were divided randomly into two groups. A mixed methods design which involved pretest-and post-test was obtained as quantitative data and follow-up with in-depth interview was obtained as qualitative data. Mann–Whitney U tests were used to analyze students’ gain scores. The results indicated that students that were instructed by the instruction with intervention performed a larger on the gain scores of all the three cognitive level; than those instructed by the conventional approaches. Five themes of reason for difference on gain score between control group and experimental group were found from interview data which encompass self-paced learning, boredom, complex conceptual understanding, interesting and motivation, extra information and ; communication and interactivity. This educational network will permeate all facets of the curriculum as new paradigm of teaching tools.