Browsing by Author "Falls, Jane Ann"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Thumbnail Image
    The Design and Development of a Theory Driven Process for the Creation of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning in an Online Environment
    Black, Aprille Noe (Virginia Tech, 2009-04-02)
    Educators are struggling to meet the ever-increasing challenges of preparing students to meet the demands of a global society. The importance of collaboration and social interaction in online education has been well documented (Berge, 1998; Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989, Fulford & Zhang, 1993; Gunawardena & McIssac, 2003; Kanuka & Anderson, 1998; Kearsley & Schneiderman, 1999; Sardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). Teachers and instructional designers are struggling to change the academic environment to meet the needs of millennial learners. The purpose of this study is to develop a theory driven process for designing computer-supported collaborative learning in an online environment. A careful analysis of the process for creating collaborative online instruction is conducted and a design strategy for the process is developed. The study provides suggested guidelines for practitioners to create collaborative online instruction. The design procedures emphasize social interaction to allow learners opportunities to explore, discover, and negotiate meaning in an authentic context. Online instruction requires the coupling of multiple areas of expertise to be successful. Although the pedagogical principles are the same, the global implications of "flat world" technology require an important weaving of collaborative interaction, graphic design, and pedagogy. Technology provides the transportation for achieving a collaborative environment; and, quality pedagogical practices provide the GPS (guidance positioning system) to direct collaborative instruction to its ultimate destination–knowledge building.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Development of a Technology Mentoring Program Using Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations
    Mosley, Barbra F. (Virginia Tech, 2005-02-04)
    This developmental research used primary components of Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations theory to develop a technology mentoring program for K-12 instructional environments. This investigation utilized K-12 teachers, administrators, technology coordinators, and higher education faculty to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed technology mentoring program. Findings showed that this program would be very effective in K-12 instructional environments. The final product resulted in a step-by-step procedural guide consisting of suggestions and activities that can be used to implement a technology mentoring program.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Lessons Learned from Designing a Comprehensive Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) Tool for Support of Complex Thinking
    Richmond, Doug (Virginia Tech, 2007-05-04)
    This research study focused on learning lessons from the experience of designing a comprehensive case-based reasoning (CBR) tool for support of complex thinking skills. Theorists have historically identified, analyzed, and classified different thinking processes and skills. Thinking skills have been increasingly emphasized in national standards, state testing, curricula, teaching and learning resources, and research agendas. Complex thinking is the core of higher-order thinking. Complex thinking is engaged when different types of thinking and action converge to resolve a real-world, ill-structured issue such as solving a problem, designing an artifact, or making a decision. By integrating reasoning, memory, and learning in a model of cognition for learning from concrete problem-solving experience, CBR can be used to engage complex thinking. In similar and different ways, CBR theory and the related theories of constructivism and constructionism promote learning from concrete, ill-structured problem-solving experience. Seven factors or characteristics, and by extension, design requirements, that should be incorporated in a comprehensive CBR tool were extracted from theory. These requirements were consistent with five theory-, research-based facilitators of learning from concrete experience. Subsequent application of the Dick, Carey, and Carey model to these design requirements generated twenty-nine specifications for design of the tool. This research study was carried out using developmental research methodology and a standard development model. The design process included front-end analysis, creating a prototype of the tool, and evaluating the prototype.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Perceptions of the Relative Importance of Conditions that Facilitate Implementation
    Brown, Jeffrey A. (Virginia Tech, 2008-07-02)
    Implementation is a phase included in nearly all instructional development models, yet literature on instructional design and technology reveals little about implementation's nature and the special conditions that must be considered as users go beyond adoption (Ely, 1999). Ely (1990b; 1999) contends these conditions include dissatisfaction with the status quo, leadership, commitment, participation, resources, time, incentives and rewards, and knowledge and skills. When employing Ely's conditions as a framework for investigation, attention is shifted away from the innovation to the environment where the innovation has actually been adopted and utilized as a facilitating factor in implementation. The move to online and software-based environments in recent years is accompanied by a need for additional research to further validate Ely's conditions within this new context. This exploratory study identified and analyzed user pre and post-implementation perceptions regarding the relative importance of Ely's conditions for the successful implementation of an actual innovation, a product management system. An online survey, the Implementation Profile Instrument created by the founders of iphase.org, was adapted and utilized to capture user perceptions. Descriptive statistics and factor analyses revealed important differences with past innovations and contexts, and between pre and post implementer groups and pre and post-implementation stages.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Using a Reflective Process to Implement Electronic Portfolios
    Falls, Jane Ann (Virginia Tech, 2001-11-26)
    This case study documents the stages, procedures, and interactions between a researcher and a public school teacher during the implementation of electronic portfolios. The primary topics highlighted are: general information regarding portfolios; reflection; and issues that arose during the study. The classroom teacher in this particular study worked in Southwest Virginia at a modern vocational facility, and she had expressed a desire to master the various technologies necessary to implement electronic portfolios. The researcher was competent in these technologies; her objective was to ascertain the methods and materials, and other processes in which electronic portfolios could be implemented in a public school setting. The collaboration between the researcher and the teacher provided for an arrangement wherein the teacher often learned the technologies simultaneously, along with her students. The researcher's ongoing assistance also offered the teacher time to concentrate on the various management aspects of the project.Reflection was developed as a critical component of the process. It was instrumental for the students, the teacher, and the researcher. Students were required to write "reflections" about the artifacts they had chosen for their electronic portfolios. The researcher and the teacher would meet regularly to reflect on the project's status; methods and materials; management issues; and even to reflect on reflection itself, and the methods to take the students deeper as it pertained to their reflections on any given artifact.Three aspects of the process revealed themselves to be major components that would be inescapable considerations for any classroom teacher who wished to implement electronic portfolios: the technology; the reflective writing process; and management issues. The management issues generally pertained to time issues. This study was successful because it proved to identify the essential components of an electronic portfolio project. And, lastly the collaboration between the teacher and the researcher proved to be successful because the two major objectives of the study were achieved: the teacher mastered the technology (and the process) necessary to implement electronic portfolios; and the researcher identified, correlated, and recorded this discovery so that it might be replicated.