Abstract: With lack of student motivation, there will be a little or no real learning in the class and this directly effects student achievement and test scores. Some students are naturally motivated to learn, but many students are not motivated, they do care little about learning and need their instructors to motivate them. Thus, motivating students is part of the instructor’s job. It’s a tough task to motivate students and make them have more attention and enthusiasm. As a part of this research, a questionnaire has been distributed among a sample of 155 students out of 1502 students from Foundation Program at Qatar University. The questionnaire helped us to determine some methods to motivate the students and encourage them to study such as variety of teaching activities, encouraging students to participate during the lectures, creating intense competition between the students, using instructional technology, not using grades as a threat and respecting the students and treating them in a good manner. Accordingly, some hypotheses are tested and some recommendations are presented.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate graduate
students’ visual attention and perceptions of a Prezi presentation. Ten
postgraduate master students were presented with a Prezi presentation
at the Centre for Instructional Technology and Multimedia, Universiti
Sains Malaysia (USM). The eye movement indicators such as dwell
time, average fixation on the areas of interests, heat maps and focus
maps were abstracted to indicate the students’ visual attention.
Descriptive statistics was employed to analyze the students’
perception of the Prezi presentation in terms of text, slide design,
images, layout and overall presentation. The result revealed that the
students paid more attention to the text followed by the images and
sub heading presented through the Prezi presentation.
Abstract: The purpose of the study is to determine secondary prospective mathematics teachers- views related to using flash animations in mathematics lessons and to reveal how the sample presentations towards different mathematical concepts altered their views. This is a case study involving three secondary prospective mathematics teachers from a state university in Turkey. The data gathered from two semi-structural interviews. Findings revealed that these animations help understand mathematics meaningfully, relate mathematics and real world, visualization, and comprehend the importance of mathematics. The analysis of the data indicated that the sample presentations enhanced participants- views about using flash animations in mathematics lessons.
Abstract: This paper describes the evolution of strategies to
evaluate ePortfolios in an online Master-s of Education (M.Ed.)
degree in Instructional Technology. The ePortfolios are required as a
culminating activity for students in the program. By using Web 2.0
tools to develop the ePortfolios, students are able to showcase their
technical skills, integrate national standards, demonstrate their
professional understandings, and reflect on their individual learning.
Faculty have created assessment strategies to evaluate student
achievement of these skills. To further develop ePortfolios as a tool
promoting authentic learning, faculty are moving toward integrating
transparency as part of the evaluation process.
Abstract: The purpose of the study is to determine the primary mathematics student teachers- views related to use instructional technology tools in course of the learning process and to reveal how the sample presentations towards different mathematical concepts affect their views. This is a qualitative study involving twelve mathematics students from a public university. The data gathered from two semi-structural interviews. The first one was realized in the beginning of the study. After that the representations prepared by the researchers were showed to the participants. These representations contain animations, Geometer-s Sketchpad activities, video-clips, spreadsheets, and power-point presentations. The last interview was realized at the end of these representations. The data from the interviews and content analyses were transcribed and read and reread to explore the major themes. Findings revealed that the views of the students changed in this process and they believed that the instructional technology tools should be used in their classroom.
Abstract: The Information and Communication Technologies
(ICTs), and the Wide World Web (WWW) have fundamentally
altered the practice of teaching and learning world wide. Many
universities, organizations, colleges and schools are trying to apply
the benefits of the emerging ICT. In the early nineties the term
learning object was introduced into the instructional technology
vernacular; the idea being that educational resources could be broken
into modular components for later combination by instructors,
learners, and eventually computes into larger structures that would
support learning [1]. However in many developing countries, the use
of ICT is still in its infancy stage and the concept of learning object
is quite new. This paper outlines the learning object design
considerations for developing countries depending on learning
environment.