Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Harnessing the power of new methods and new technologies is a key to renewing education to serve our diverse societies at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Doctoral education plays a pivotal role in the professional preparation of leaders for higher education, schools and related services. Drawing upon research and development in Europe and the USA, this paper describes a range of innovative strategies to promote intercultural competence. The transatlantic project (ILET) is building a virtual learning community. The project has confirmed our belief that communication technologies, blended with faculty collaboration and limited student travel, make potent ingredients for the preparation of the next generation of leaders of educational technology. However, the project has also dispelled any naive beliefs as to our ability to effect widespread change in our universities. A second example project within Iowa State University used complementary strategies that developed project proposals taking ILET as one example of the use of technology for international education, including a future project to measure intercultural competence over time.

Forty two teacher-training students participated in a 60 hour, year long teacher-training course that used two different distance learning approaches. Students worked in the first semester with synchronous Picture-Tel® videoconferencing, and in second semester with an asynchronous Internet based course. Their comparative satisfaction with each delivery system, and their comparative level of control of the learning process were examined. Results indicate that the interactive and asynchronous Internet Distance Learning approach contributes to a significantly higher level of satisfaction and higher level of control of the learning process than the interactive synchronous system. It is suggested that when the issue of introducing Distance Learning at the college level for teacher-training students is addressed, it is preferable to install an interactive Internet type method rather than a Picture-Tel® type system in order to best promote student satisfaction as well as student level of control of the learning situation.

Today, much of the work within technology-based learning use constructivism as a reference ‘discipline’ but few of the work done within the field discusses thoroughly, what are the basic assumptions and implications of constructivism. As a result, the technology has driven the applications, with theory only vaguely or superficially applied. Constructivism provides one theoretical approach to the use of computer-based learning systems. In this paper we discuss how constructivism adds value on technology-based learning discussion. Going through these different views will introduce how our understanding of technology based learning and the role of the learner in this process has changed during the last two decades.

In this paper we show how three-dimensional virtual reality models can be used in teaching the structures and functions of hydraulic components. This technique allowed the teacher to show exactly how a slide moved inside a valve and how it affected on the opening of flow orifices thus increasing or decreasing the flow. Students were taken on a tour inside components to examine the critical points in component behaviour. The use of virtual reality benefits the students in learning hydraulic phenomenon faster and more accurately. In this paper the techniques and use of virtual reality system in teaching and research are presented.

During the Digital Learning and MOBIlearn projects, the authors have acknowledged a new gap in defining accessibility in the context of mobile learning. This document describes this gap and seeks a broader definition of accessibility. Accessibility is discussed in terms of 1) usability, 2) a digital divide and 3) evaluation. First they describe how accessibility is traditionally understood in usability design and what issues mobility brings to accessibility. Secondly, equality issues are discussed in the context of a digital divide. Then the mobile learning evaluation framework is introduced and the implications of accessibility on evaluation are discussed. Finally, these perspectives are integrated and future research topics are proposed.

Hypertext links play an important role in tracking the relationships within and among sets of documents. In our paper we discuss two approaches to creating dynamic workflow charts with time-sensitive linking and navigation support for training time-based project management in distributed Web-based environments. A bottom-up approach is based on the XML Linking Language (XLink) and the top-down approach is based on the XML Topic Maps (XTM) 1.0 specification.

Even technically inexperienced teachers can create some of their own virtual training units with this most practical tool for everyday teaching use. Previous e-learning solutions have not as yet been able to meet the demand for self-developed tasks that suit the requirements of a particular learning group and this was the reason for this project coming into being. The tasks, as in the later final examination, are based on a number of pre-defined types such as multiple-choice tests, true/false and gap texts. The tool is suitable not only for individual exam practice by the student but also for doing automatically evaluated tests in the lesson situation. The tasks are available either on CD or in the Internet as required. Since its conception this learning system has met with a high degree of approval among teaching staff by way of its ease of application. After regular use in foreign language teaching a significant improvement in student performance has been noted.

The introduction of a new e-training technology is all very well, but the important question is: will it be successfully adopted and used? Conventional approaches to innovation suggest that adoption decisions are related mostly to the characteristics of the technology, but we will argue that the process is much more complex than this and that these approaches are too simplistic. In this paper we propose an ecological model of technological innovation, and show how it can be applied to considerations of the adoption of e-training products and methods.

The increasing attention paid to the importance of context-awareness of content has contributed to more useable e-learning websites. While existing approaches mostly cover static learner characteristics, to date it has been difficult to cover the dynamics of context. E-learning content must be delivered in the right doses, at the right moment, and in an appropriate form. Our work presents a storyboarding-based approach for specifying content-intensive websites. E-learning sites can be validated with regard to learner context. The practicability of our method is shown upon the e-learning project DaMiT. The SiteLang methodology helps overcome the limitations of existing approaches based on pre-defined, structuring of content. It allows a flexible content generation upon learner context, depending on the dynamics of the learning process.

e-Learning environments provide exciting possibilities for learning and training, but dropout rates are high and the quality of e-Learning courses is being questioned. Capturing requirements, and developing usable e-learning courses, focusing on usability and user-centred design are of high importance. Such efforts must be redefined for e-learning contexts. This paper stresses the need for usable and effective e-learning design and describes the authors’ experience in adapting methods and techniques of human-centred design implementing a learner-centred approach to the design e-Learning.