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Discussion Forum
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Present a potential research topic that would be useful in providing solutions to an education issue.
- What is the problem that you want to investigate in ICT education?
- Why do you want to do that?
- How will you do plan to do it?
Zhao Meng
I choose the topic “ what are the main factors causing the failure of distance learning of university?”.
The reason that I choose this topic is that recently one of my friends who majors in Korean complains about the bad effect of her program’s distance learning, so it reminds me to think about what makes the unsuccessfulness of some distance learning in mainland China, through researching this topic to deal with the vulnerabilities of distance learning.
In my research, I assume the failure of distance learning has already existed in Chinese university, and the process of research is to find out the factors of causing failure. It doesn’t matter whether the distance learning in my case is successful or not, the main purpose is to find the common weakness and the most predominant factors to ameliorate the already successful distance learning and to amend the already failed distance learning.
My plan is to use questionnaire and interview to collect both quantitate data and qualitative data.
Limiting the researching students at 60, which is not too small either too big. Dividing them into two groups evenly. The two groups will be taught with the same content by different teachers separately, and the intelligence and academic performance of two group members is assumed to be in the same level.
Interview questions:
(1) Are you confident to give this distance learning course?
(2) How long have you prepared this courses?
(3) What is your goal of giving this courses?
Questionnaire 1:
(1) Have you ever attended distance learning courses before?
(2) Are you clear about how to perform the function when taking distance -learning courses?
2. After the class, interview the teachers again and give Questionnaire 2 to students.
Interview questions:
(1) How is your feeling after taking this course?
(2) Are you satisfied with the students’ response on class?
Questionnaire 2:
A. In the view of hardware, which one you think should be improved?
(1)Web Link(since some poor web link causes the incompleteness of class)
(2)Condition of electric devices(computers, headphones,etc.)
(3)Experience of teacher(Full-experienced or non-experienced of distance learning technology)
(4)Learning Environment(Should the university provide common space for DL learning or let students learn separately in personal space.)
B. In the view of software, which one you think should be improved?
(1)Digital literacy of students and staffs
(2)Pre-instruction before attending DL courses
(3)Class design(If it is interesting or attractive )
(4)The running fluency of the video tools and other apps used in class.
(5)Teacher’s feedback after class
C. What did you learn from this class?
After collecting the data, compare the outcome of Group1 to Group 2 and find out the dominant factors of causing the failure of DL learning in university.
I choose the topic “ what are the main factors causing the failure of distance learning of university?”.
The reason that I choose this topic is that recently one of my friends who majors in Korean complains about the bad effect of her program’s distance learning, so it reminds me to think about what makes the unsuccessfulness of some distance learning in mainland China, through researching this topic to deal with the vulnerabilities of distance learning.
In my research, I assume the failure of distance learning has already existed in Chinese university, and the process of research is to find out the factors of causing failure. It doesn’t matter whether the distance learning in my case is successful or not, the main purpose is to find the common weakness and the most predominant factors to ameliorate the already successful distance learning and to amend the already failed distance learning.
My plan is to use questionnaire and interview to collect both quantitate data and qualitative data.
Limiting the researching students at 60, which is not too small either too big. Dividing them into two groups evenly. The two groups will be taught with the same content by different teachers separately, and the intelligence and academic performance of two group members is assumed to be in the same level.
- Before the class, I will give an interview to teachers through Internet, and give Questionnaire 1 to students to answer.
Interview questions:
(1) Are you confident to give this distance learning course?
(2) How long have you prepared this courses?
(3) What is your goal of giving this courses?
Questionnaire 1:
(1) Have you ever attended distance learning courses before?
(2) Are you clear about how to perform the function when taking distance -learning courses?
2. After the class, interview the teachers again and give Questionnaire 2 to students.
Interview questions:
(1) How is your feeling after taking this course?
(2) Are you satisfied with the students’ response on class?
Questionnaire 2:
A. In the view of hardware, which one you think should be improved?
(1)Web Link(since some poor web link causes the incompleteness of class)
(2)Condition of electric devices(computers, headphones,etc.)
(3)Experience of teacher(Full-experienced or non-experienced of distance learning technology)
(4)Learning Environment(Should the university provide common space for DL learning or let students learn separately in personal space.)
B. In the view of software, which one you think should be improved?
(1)Digital literacy of students and staffs
(2)Pre-instruction before attending DL courses
(3)Class design(If it is interesting or attractive )
(4)The running fluency of the video tools and other apps used in class.
(5)Teacher’s feedback after class
C. What did you learn from this class?
After collecting the data, compare the outcome of Group1 to Group 2 and find out the dominant factors of causing the failure of DL learning in university.
Wang Zhen
What is the problem that you want to investigate in ICT education?
The situation and requirements of different age group learners apply ICT in education
Why do you want to do that?
Although ICT application in education is recognized as a good way to reform education and improve the quality of teaching and learning, but, I think, different age group learners' ability of using ICT and requirements of ICT learning function are not same.Primary school students, for example, may lack of enough autonomous learning ability and the accumulation of basic knowledge, so they need more guidance and help from adults when they use ICT to study. This also requires that primary school teachers should have ability in terms of providing students suitable learning equipments and learning methods,and cultivating their interest in using ICT to learn.Secondary school students need to have more in-depth understanding for multidisciplinary knowledge, their requirement of ICT may not only to cultivate interest, but ICT can provide more resources for independent learning and cooperative learning .College students need to in-depth study in professional field and form their own knowledge system, they may hope ICT technology is suitable for the specific fields of study. The requirement of adult learners may be flexible convenient and practical.Therefore, I want to use age group as the standard to research the situation and requirements of different age group learners apply ICT in education,and give my advices to help them to use ICT better.
How will you do plan to do it?
Step1:consult literature materials to know learning objectives and learning characteristics of different age groups.
Step2: Observe different ages learners‘learning activities by using ICT to find problems
Step3:use questionnaire and interview to collect the experience and feedback of ICT learning in different age groups.
Step4:analyze the information and data collected before and give a summary of the ICT application situation in different age groups.
Step5:analyze problems(step2)and situation(step4)to give a conclution and advises.
What is the problem that you want to investigate in ICT education?
The situation and requirements of different age group learners apply ICT in education
Why do you want to do that?
Although ICT application in education is recognized as a good way to reform education and improve the quality of teaching and learning, but, I think, different age group learners' ability of using ICT and requirements of ICT learning function are not same.Primary school students, for example, may lack of enough autonomous learning ability and the accumulation of basic knowledge, so they need more guidance and help from adults when they use ICT to study. This also requires that primary school teachers should have ability in terms of providing students suitable learning equipments and learning methods,and cultivating their interest in using ICT to learn.Secondary school students need to have more in-depth understanding for multidisciplinary knowledge, their requirement of ICT may not only to cultivate interest, but ICT can provide more resources for independent learning and cooperative learning .College students need to in-depth study in professional field and form their own knowledge system, they may hope ICT technology is suitable for the specific fields of study. The requirement of adult learners may be flexible convenient and practical.Therefore, I want to use age group as the standard to research the situation and requirements of different age group learners apply ICT in education,and give my advices to help them to use ICT better.
How will you do plan to do it?
Step1:consult literature materials to know learning objectives and learning characteristics of different age groups.
Step2: Observe different ages learners‘learning activities by using ICT to find problems
Step3:use questionnaire and interview to collect the experience and feedback of ICT learning in different age groups.
Step4:analyze the information and data collected before and give a summary of the ICT application situation in different age groups.
Step5:analyze problems(step2)and situation(step4)to give a conclution and advises.
Zhu Jialing
What is it?
The research topic:
The difference of acceptable degree of ICT implement in education between digital native learners and digital immigrant learners
Why do you want to do that?
The new Millennium take the rapid development of ICT and also brings those we called “digital natives” as we discussed in session4. However, the teachers nowadays can only be included into “digital immigrant” category. So the question comes that how the digital immigrants use ICT to teach those digital natives? It seems a paradox ,so I want to do the research to know the difference between them concerning their acceptable degree on the ICT applied in education.
How will you do plan to do it?
1.Research Problem
Teachers don’t know to what degree they can apply ICT into class, which brings them a lot of inconvenience when they really want to use some applications.
2.Review the Literature
Absolutely, Literature review is necessary before we start the research.
3.Specify a Research Purpose
Learner analysis is very important when teacher design course outline or learning goals, if we can have a deeper understanding and to what degree they can accept ICT in education, it will provide teacher lots of help when they design the lessons.
4.Collect Data
interview: interview the teachers in schools to see on their class, how much ICT applications they use now ,what is the results now and if they increase or reduce the percentage of using ICT, how the results change.
survey: make questionnaires to do surveys on two kinds of people: Middle School Year 1 students(who are digital natives and can explain what they want clearly) and adult learners(who are digital immigrants)
5.Analyze and Interpret Data
6.Report and Evaluate Research
What is it?
The research topic:
The difference of acceptable degree of ICT implement in education between digital native learners and digital immigrant learners
Why do you want to do that?
The new Millennium take the rapid development of ICT and also brings those we called “digital natives” as we discussed in session4. However, the teachers nowadays can only be included into “digital immigrant” category. So the question comes that how the digital immigrants use ICT to teach those digital natives? It seems a paradox ,so I want to do the research to know the difference between them concerning their acceptable degree on the ICT applied in education.
How will you do plan to do it?
1.Research Problem
Teachers don’t know to what degree they can apply ICT into class, which brings them a lot of inconvenience when they really want to use some applications.
2.Review the Literature
Absolutely, Literature review is necessary before we start the research.
3.Specify a Research Purpose
Learner analysis is very important when teacher design course outline or learning goals, if we can have a deeper understanding and to what degree they can accept ICT in education, it will provide teacher lots of help when they design the lessons.
4.Collect Data
interview: interview the teachers in schools to see on their class, how much ICT applications they use now ,what is the results now and if they increase or reduce the percentage of using ICT, how the results change.
survey: make questionnaires to do surveys on two kinds of people: Middle School Year 1 students(who are digital natives and can explain what they want clearly) and adult learners(who are digital immigrants)
5.Analyze and Interpret Data
6.Report and Evaluate Research
Zheng Shudan
My topic: To what extent is Altschool improves students’ learning skills?
Reasons:
Altschool, as a school “come from future,” have making their sound in Silicon Valley by successfully attracting 100 million dollars financing from Zuckerberg--CEO of Facebook and Steve Job’s wife Lauren Powell Jobs. This is a typical case widely introducing ICT into school, they have more than 40 professional engineers who used to work in Google and Uber to provide technical support to teachers, the school routines like daily sign-in, examination, homework and assessment etc. are all accomplished through iPad and wearing devices. The feature of Altschool is that they don’t have the class in the traditional pattern-to sort students by ages-by analyzing the data, they put the students who have the same learning process, ability and interests into the same class. And they use monitoring system to record students’ performance believing that they can analyzing the degree of acceptance of knowledge by observing their facial expressions in class.
From the exclusive interview by Ping West, the founder of Altschool Max Ventilla said that their goal is to improve the learning skills of students to become more competitive facing challenges in the future. Here is the question: are Altschool really improve students’ learning skills? To what extent? Is Altschool taking a dominant position than traditional schools in this dimension? To add more data to the field of education technology research and give some hint to school’s development in the future, i would like to do the research.
My plan of research:
50 students are picked randomly from one American local elementary schools of different grades and different levels of scores (students who got A/B/C/D /F in their average scores), i use the other students in this traditional school as control group. Before going into Altschool, they are asked to take the test including math, science, writing and art subjects together with the control group as their initial skills before taking classes. Then two groups of students are going to learn the same subjects --science, mathematics, arts and writing. The research is going to last 4 months(one semester), in the end of the semester, students from both Altschool and the control school will be asked to take tests of the above mentioned 4 subjects, the data will be used to analyze if students in experimental group made some improvement in cognitive skill, literacy skill and creativity compared with the control group.
The result may be mainly divided into 3 types:
A)students’ skills in experimental group improve more than that in control group
B)Students’ skills in both groups have similar change.
C)Students’ skills in control group improve more than that in experimental group
References:
1.T. Neville Postlethwaite, Educational research:some basic concepts, 2005
2.Roblyer, M. D. (2005). Educational technology research that makes a difference: Series introduction. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 5(2), 192-201.