For the forty-fourth time, the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented online and onsite during the annual AECT Convention. Volume 1 contains papers dealing primarily with research and development topics. Papers dealing with…

Research has shown that students have graduated from institutions of higher learning with a lack of creativity and critical-thinking thinking skills. This mismatch in skills has resulted in a nationwide initiative in using technology in the classroom to create a learning environment that would stimulate students' creative and problem-solving…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and implementation phases of online graduate nuclear engineering courses that are part of the Graduate Nuclear Engineering Certificate program at Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech restarted its nuclear engineering program in the Fall of 2007 with 60 students, and by 2009, the enrollment had grown…

This paper reports the results of an online survey done by Global Game Jam (GGJ) participants in January 2012. This is an expansion of an earlier survey of a local game jam event and seeks to validate and extend previous studies. The objectives of this survey were collecting demographic information about the GGJ participants, understanding their…

Previous research suggests that elementary teachers vary in their enactment of science curriculum materials and may not always engage students in substantive sense making. This mixed-methods study investigates elementary teachers' use of science curriculum materials to engage students in the scientific practice of comparing and evaluating…

This paper argues that the dominant form of distance learning that is common in most e-learning systems rests on a set of learning devices and environments that may be outdated from the student's perspective, namely because it is not supportive of learner empowerment and does not facilitate the efforts of self-directed learners. For this study we…

Within the curriculum guidelines for Bavaria, we designed a hands-on educational programme for teaching sustainability with regard to agriculture, food and consumerism, partly implemented on a farm as an out-of-school learning setting. The participants were fifth graders ("N"?=?176). The research followed a quasi-experimental design and…

Design-Based Implementation Research is the process of engaging "learning scientists, policy researchers, and practitioners in a model of collaborative, iterative, and systematic research and development" designed to address persistent problems of teaching and learning. Addressing persistent problems of teaching and learning requires…

Productive adaptations at the classroom level are evidence-based curriculum adaptations that are responsive to the demands of a particular classroom context and still consistent with the core design principles and intentions of a curriculum intervention. The model of design-based implementation research (DBIR) offers insights into complexities and…

This chapter discusses frameworks and conceptual lenses that help orient design-based implementation research (DBIR) work to the types of infrastructure required for success, while contributing to theories about the processes of educational improvement. Such infrastructures can be conceived as a framework: a set of interconnected elements that…

The current study investigated perceived development of pre-service teachers in their Instructional Material Design (IMD) competencies through the course "Instructional Technology and Material Design," which is based on a technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework. A total of 22 Elementary Education pre-service…

This paper presents our recent experiences with the design of game-like applications in 3-D virtual environments as well as its impact on student motivation and learning. Therefore our paper starts with a brief analysis of the motivational aspects of videogames and virtual worlds (VWs). We then go on to explore the possible benefits of both in the…

The teaching of classical Greek dramas is integral to drama education at the University of Pretoria. In the past few years these dramas increasingly faced the danger of becoming "foreign"/irrelevant to modern day students. The introduction of performance practice to teach these dramas brought a whole new dimension to teaching and…

This qualitative multi-case study explored the perceptions and beliefs of teachers of students in Grade 9 and 10, at a high school in south-central New Jersey, who taught traditional classroom courses that incorporated technology, regarding their lived experiences delivering homebound instruction for the same curriculum. Technology used in the…

The ability to solve problems in a variety of contexts is becoming increasingly important in our rapidly changing technological society. Problem-solving is a complex process that is important for everyday life and crucial for learning physics. Although there is a great deal of effort to improve student problem solving skills throughout the…