ABSTRACT
This article examines whether rising tuition fees for post-secondary education are a contributing factor in students’ labour market decisions. When labour market decisions for total number of working hours and for participation were measured, the results suggested that concerns about increased tuition fees leading to more work and compromising academic studies were unwarranted. The tuition fee effect was highly seasonal in nature. When tuition fees increased, students devoted more hours and participated more in labour market activities, but they did so only during the summer period, a time when most students are typically not involved in study activities.
RÉSUMÉ
Dans cet article, les auteurs examinent comment les facteurs d’augmenter ou de maintenir les frais de scolarité, au niveau des études post-secondaires, peuvent infl uencer les étudiants et leurs décisions en ce qui concerne le marché du travail. Elles ont mesuré les décisions des étudiants en considérant toutes les heures travaillées ainsi que le taux de participation. Les résultats indiquent qu’une augmentation de frais de scolarité ne mène ni à plus d’heures travaillées ni à plus d’études académiques compromises. L’effet des frais de scolarité est très saisonnier. Lorsqu’il y a une augmentation de frais de scolarité, les étudiants travaillent plus d’heures et participent plus dans le marché du travail, mais ceci uniquement pendant la période d’été lorsqu’ils ne sont pas impliqués aux études.
Abstract:
Student participation in applied research as a form of experiential learning in community colleges is relatively new. Ontario Colleges today participate at different levels with different numbers of projects and faculty involved. A few colleges in Ontario are more established in doing applied research including having basic infrastructure for research and having defined in which disciplines they will conduct research. This study took place in a college with a more established applied research program with the study goal of hearing and listening from the students and their teacher/research leaders as to their perceived benefit from the research program. The findings showed that the students found the program very beneficial and that student learning in areas considered important for the workplace was occurring that would not have been possible in the regular classroom.
ABSTRACT
Do students know the level of education required to achieve their career objectives? Is this information related to their education pathways? To address these questions, I compare high school students' perceptions of the level of education they will require for the job they intend to hold at age 30, with the level required according to professional job analysts. About three out of four students intending to work in a job requiring a university degree know the level of education that is required to obtain the job. Moreover, students who know that a university degree is required are more likely to attend university. Finally, higher university attendance rates are observed when students learn earlier (rather than later), that a university degree is required for their intended job.
RÉSUMÉ
Les élèves savent-ils quelles études leur permettront d’atteindre leurs objectifs de carrière? Ces renseignements sont-ils associés à leur parcours scolaire? Afi n de répondre à ces questions, je compare, d’une part, la perception qu’ont les élèves du secondaire quant au niveau d’instruction qui leur est requis pour travailler dans la profession qu’ils souhaitent exercer à l’âge de 30 ans avec, d’autre part, le niveau réellement requis selon les analystes du marché professionnel. Ainsi, environ trois étudiants sur quatre ayant l’intention d’exercer une profession qui nécessite un grade universitaire sont conscients du niveau d’instruction requis. Par ailleurs, les élèves qui sont conscients de la nécessité d’un grade universitaire ont plus de chances de fréquenter l’université. Enfi n, on observe un taux de fréquentation universitaire plus élevé chez les élèves qui ont pris conscience, plus tôt dans leur parcours, de la nécessité d’un grade universitaire pour réaliser leur aspiration professionnelle.
ABSTRACT
Findings from biannual American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment surveys have highlighted the prevalence of depression, suicidal ideation, and attempted suicides on Canadian university campuses and the need for comprehensive suicide prevention programs. This article explores how one large western Canadian university has attempted to implement the comprehensive framework for suicide prevention developed by the Jed Foundation. Based on recommendations included in this framework, a multi-faceted suicide prevention strategy was developed, focusing on seven broad intervention
areas:
1) enhanced student connectedness and engagement;
2) increased community suicide awareness;
3) gatekeeper training;
4) collaborative identifi cation and treatment of depression;
5) specialized training in assessment and treatment of suicide;
6) increased accessibility to counselling services for at-risk students; and
7) enhanced crisis management policy and procedures. This article reviews relevant empirical support for these seven intervention domains, provides examples of initiatives in each domain, and identifi es implications for best practice post-secondary policy.
RÉSUMÉ
Les résultats des sondages de la « National College Health Association» soulèvent la prévalence de la dépression, des pensées suicidaires, et des tentatives de suicide parmi les étudiants des universités canadiennes et le besoin de programmes compréhensifs de prévention du suicide. Dans cet article, les auteurs décrivent l’implantation, par une université à vocation de recherche de l’ouest canadien, d’un encadrement globale voué à la prévention du suicide développé par la Fondation Jed. D’après les recommandations de la Fondation Jed, l’approche multilatérale de la prévention du suicide englobe sept dimensions d’interventions :
1) une hausse d’engagement des étudiants dans les activités universitaires et parmi les communautés étudiantes ;
2) une sensibilisation augmentée par rapport à la prévention du suicide ;
3) la formation du personnel « fi ltre» dans l’institution ;
4) une approche collaborative à l’identifi cation et le traitement de la dépression ;
5) une formation spécialisé en identifi cation et traitement du suicide ;
6) un meilleur accès des étudiants à taux de risques relevées aux services
d’assistance psychologique ; et,
7) un enrichissement des politiques
et procédures concernant la gestion des risques. Dans cet article, les auteurs résument les données appuyant les interventions décrites ci-dessus, offrent des exemples des initiatives dans chacune des dimensions listées et proposent les implications pour le renforcement des compétences universitaires dans ces domaines.
Cheryl A. Washburn
University of British Columbia
Michael Mandrusiak
Adler School of Professional Psychology
Vancouver, BC
Since the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) was launched, it has completed and published more than 140 research studies – and funded dozens more that are currently underway – that explore a wide range of trends and issues involving Ontario's postsecondary system. Drawing mainly from HEQCO's own research, this @Issue paper:
. Describes how the definition of student success has gradually broadened at Ontario colleges and universities;
. Summarizes some of the underlying institutional and student population factors that also impact on most current measures of student success;
. Provides broad observations about some recent findings as they relate to the awareness, utilization and impact of various student service, course-based and other initiatives designed to promote student success;
. Recommends what can be measured – as well as how and what outcomes can be expected – when it comes to initiatives and interventions designed to improve student success.
Some readers will be looking for the "silver bullet" within this paper. They will want to be told about a best practice that has been proven to be most effective at improving academic achievement, retention or engagement at an Ontario college or university, and that can be replicated to equal effect elsewhere. This @Issue paper does not identify “silver bullets.†As explained in the pages that follow, the scope and scale of an intervention may make it difficult to measure – or even expect – considerable impacts on student success, especially in the short term.
This paper does provide broad lessons, however, that are likely to be applicable across a wide range of student service, course-based and other interventions currently offered at Ontario colleges and universities.
Defining “Student Successâ€
For several decades, both governments and colleges/universities in Ontario and across Canada have tried to broaden access to postsecondary education (PSE) In particular, it was believed that a wide variety of barriers – family and social background, financial resources, information about options, etc. – needed to be overcome to encourage broader PSE participation, especially by those from traditionally under-represented groups (low income, first-generation, Aboriginal, visible
minority, rural, etc.).
Undergraduate college student borrowing has risen dramatically in recent years. Graduates who received a bachelor’s degree in 20081 borrowed 50% more (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than their counterparts who graduated in 1996, while graduates who earned an associate’s degree or undergraduate certificate in 2008 borrowed more than twice what their counterparts in 1996 had borrowed, according to a new analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project.
Increased borrowing by college students has been driven by three trends:
ï‚· More college students are borrowing. In 2008, 60% of all graduates had borrowed, compared with about half (52%) in 1996.
- College students are borrowing more. Among 2008 graduates who borrowed, the average loan for bachelor’s degree recipients was more than $23,000, compared with slightly more than $17,000 in 1996. For associate’s degree and certificate recipients, the average loan increased to more than $12,600 from about $7,600 (all figures in 2008 dollars).
- More college students are attending private for-profit schools, where levels and rates of borrowing are highest. Over the past decade, the private for-profit sector has expanded more rapidly than either the public or private not-for-profit sectors. In 2008, these institutions granted 18% of all undergraduate awards, up from 14% in 2003.2 Students who attend for-profit colleges are more likely than other students to borrow, and they typically borrow larger amounts.
Other key findings from the Pew Research analysis:
- One-quarter (24%) of 2008 bachelor’s degree graduates at for-profit schools borrowed more than $40,000, compared with 5% of graduates at public institutions and 14% at not-for-profit schools.
- Roughly one-in-four recipients of an associate’s degree or certificate borrowed more than $20,000 at both private for-profit and private not-for-profit schools, compared with 5% of graduates of public schools.
- Graduates of private for-profit schools are demographically different from graduates in other sectors. Generally, private for-profit school graduates have lower incomes, and are older, more likely to be from minority groups, more likely to be female, more likely to be independent of their parents and more likely to have their own dependants.
Summary of findings
Questions have been raised about the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Do these technologies isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way? The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project decided to examine SNS in a survey that explored people’s overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement. The findings presented here paint a rich and complex picture of the role that digital technology plays in people’s social worlds. Wherever possible, we seek to disentangle whether people’s varying social behaviors and attitudes are related to the different ways they use social networking sites, or to other relevant demographic characteristics, such as age, gender and social class.
The number of those using social networking sites has nearly doubled since 2008 and the population of SNS users has gotten older. In this Pew Internet sample, 79% of American adults said they used the internet and nearly half of adults (47%), or 59% of internet users, say they use at least one of SNS. This is close to double the 26% of adults (34% of internet users) who used a SNS in 2008. Among other things, this means the average age of adult-SNS users has shifted from 33 in 2008 to 38 in 2010. Over half of all adult SNS users are now over the age of 35. Some 56% of SNS users now are female.
Facebook dominates the SNS space in this survey: 92% of SNS users are on Facebook; 29% use MySpace, 18% used LinkedIn and 13% use Twitter. There is considerable variance in the way people use various social networking sites: 52% of Facebook users and 33% of Twitter users engage with the platform daily, while only 7% of MySpace and 6% of LinkedIn users do the same.
On Facebook on an average day:
- 15% of Facebook users update their own status.
- 22% comment on another’s post or status.
- 20% comment on another user’s photos.
- 26% “Like†another user’s content.
- 10% send another user a private message
This Digital Content Strategy Guide will assist you in creating a plan for your school or district to bring digital content/curriculum to students, teachers, administrators and parents. This plan will help you set the strategy for leveraging existing digital assets, acquiring new digital content and ensuring the effective implementation of digital content within your school or district. It is meant to be easy to navigate and highly useable with several sets of questions, models and advice to consider, and an abundant amount of resources to explore.
This guide provides you with the information you need to develop a framework that ensures effective policy and practice throughout the educational experience.
This framework is sustainable in systematically achieving the instructional goals and outcomes your school or district desires, outcomes that can — and undoubtedly should — prepare students to compete in the global society.
The guide also provides best practices in the selection and implementation of digital assets that maximize your investment in digital content by helping you to assess what you are doing now, what is working and what to leverage in the next stage. It suggests productive collaborations with industry, community leaders and parents to acquire and produce the content you need and want. In short, it can help guide you toward better and more productive practice.
“Digital learning is the great equalizer. It holds the promise of extending access to rigorous high quality instruction to every student across America, regardless of language, zip code, income levels, or special needs.â€
A May 2011 Pew Internet survey finds that 92% of online adults use search engines to find information on the Web, including 59% who do so on a typical day. This places search at the top of the list of most popular online activities among U.S. adults. But it is not alone at the top. Among online adults, 92% use email, with 61% using it on an average day.
Since the Pew Internet Project began measuring adults' online activities in the last decade, these two behaviors have consistently ranked as the most popular. Even as early as 2002, more than eight in ten online adults were using search engines, and more than nine in ten online adults were emailing.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is based on findings from a pair of Pew Research Center surveys conducted this spring. One is a telephone survey taken among a nationally representative sample of 2,142 adults ages 18 and older. The other is an online survey, done in association with the Chronicle of Higher Education, among the presidents of 1,055 two-year and four-year private, public, and for-profit colleges and universities.
Here is a summary of key findings:
Survey of the General Public
Cost and Value. A majority of Americans (57%) say the higher education system in the United States fails to provide students with good value for the money they and their families spend. An even larger majority—75%—says college is too expensive for most Americans to afford. At the same time, however, an overwhelming majority of college graduates—86%—say that college has been a good investment for them personally.
Monetary Payoff. Adults who graduated from a four-year college believe that, on average, they are earning $20,000 more a year as a result of having gotten that degree. Adults who did not attend college believe that, on average, they are earning $20,000 a year less as a result. These matched estimates by the public are very close to the median gap in annual earnings between a high school and college graduate as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2010: $19,550. A more detailed Pew Research Center analysis (see Chapter 5) shows that this gap varies by type of degree and field of study.
Student Loans. A record share of students are leaving college with a substantial debt burden, and among those who do, about half (48%) say that paying off that debt made it harder to pay other bills; a quarter say it has made it harder to buy a home (25%); and about a quarter say it has had an impact on their career choices (24%).
Why Not College? Nearly every parent surveyed (94%) says they expect their child to attend college, but even as college enrollments have reached record levels, most young adults in this country still do not attend a four-year college. The main barrier is financial. Among adults ages 18 to 34 who are not in school and do not have a bachelor’s degree, two-thirds say a major reason for not continuing their education is the need to support a family. Also, 57% say they would prefer to work and make money; and 48% say they can't afford to go to college.
Many devices have become popular across generations, with a majority now owning cell phones, laptops and desktop computers. Younger adults are leading the way in increased mobility, preferring laptops to desktops and using their cell phones for a variety of functions, including internet, email, music, games, and video.
Among the findings:
- Cell phones are by far the most popular device among American adults, especially for adults under the age of 65. Some 85% of adults own cell phones overall. Taking pictures (done by 76% of cell owners) and text messaging (done by 72% of cell owners) are the two non-voice functions that are widely popular among all cell phone users.
- Desktop computers are most popular with adults ages 35-65, with 69% of Gen X, 65% of Younger Boomers and 64% of Older Boomers owning these devices.
ï‚· Millennials are the only generation that is more likely to own a laptop computer or netbook than a desktop: 70% own a laptop, compared with 57% who own a desktop.
- While almost half of all adults own an mp3 player like an iPod, this device is by far the most popular with Millennials, the youngest generation—74% of adults ages 18-34 own an mp3 player, compared with 56% of the next oldest generation, Gen X (ages 35-46).
- Game consoles are significantly more popular with adults ages 18-46, with 63% owning these devices.
- 5% of all adults own an e-book reader; they are least popular with adults age 75 and older, with 2% owning this device.
- Tablet computers, such as the iPad, are most popular with American adults age 65 and younger. 4% of all adults own this device.
Additionally, about one in 11 (9%) adults do not own any of the devices we asked about, including 43% of adults age 75 and older.
In terms of generations, Millennials are by far the most likely group not only to own most of the devices we asked about, but also to take advantage of a wider range of functions. For instance, while cell phones have become ubiquitous in American households, most cell phone owners only use two of the main non-voice functions on their phones: taking pictures and text messaging. Among Millennials, meanwhile, a majority use their phones also for going online, sending email, playing games, listening to music, and recording videos.
However, Gen X is also very similar to Millennials in ownership of certain devices, such as game consoles. Members of Gen X are also more likely than Millennials to own a desktop computer.
e-Book readers and tablet computers so far have not seen significant differences in ownership between generations, although members of the oldest generation (adults age 75 and older) are less likely than younger generations to own these devices.
When teachers think the best, most important way to improve their teaching is by developing their content knowledge, they end up with sophisticated levels of knowledge, but they have only simplistic instructional methods to convey that material. To imagine that content matters more than process is to imagine that the car is more important than the road. Both are essential. What we teach and how we teach it are inextricably linked and very much dependent on one another.
This special report features 11 articles pulled from the pages of The Teaching Professor to help you discover new ways to build connections between what you teach and how you teach it. The report offers tips on how to engage students, give feedback, create a climate for learning, and more. It also provides fresh perspectives on how faculty should approach their development as teachers.
It’s been said that few things can enhance student learning more than an instructor’s commitment to ongoing professional development. Here’s a sample of the articles you will find in Effective Strategies for Improving College Teaching and Learning:
. Faculty Self-Disclosures in the College Classroom
. A Tree Falling in the Forest: Helping Students ‘Hear’ and Use Your Comments
. Understanding What You See Happening in Class
. Can Training Make You a Better Teacher?
.Striving for Academic Excellence
Although there is no single best teaching method, approach, or style, this special report will give you a variety of strategies to try. Those that work effectively with your students you should make your own.
According to recent forecasts, in just a few years’ time, almost one in three students in American schools will be
English language learners. Many schools that once had only a handful of students new to this country and to the English language are now facing an influx of students for whom English is a second language. The No Child Left Behind Act officially made English learners a potentially significant subgroup for measuring Adequate Yearly Progress, a key accountability
measure for schools and districts. Rapid mastery of the English language is key for students to succeed in the K-12 education program. Reading, writing, listening and speaking are all core areas of learning a language. Each of these skills, of course, lies at the heart of basic K-12 educational programs and are assumed competencies at the higher education level. Academic success within an educationalprogram ultimately requires mastery of content that is more often than not delivered in English-based materials.
Computer and communication technologies have a central role to play in facilitating that rapid mastery. With guided, self-paced instruction that allows repetition and personalization, English learners in today’s K-20 classroom are strides ahead of their counterparts years ago. Whether teaching students within the classroom or adult learners at home or at work, technology-based materials and media have become the delivery medium of choice. Programs specifically focused on English learners, as well as advances in computer-based translation programs, have opened up virtually all electronic content to the English learner.
95% of those in households earning over $75,000 use the internet and cell phones Those in higher-income households are more likely to use the internet on any given day, own multiple internet-ready devices, do things involving money online, and get news online Those in higher-income households are different from other Americans in their tech ownership and use. Analysis of several recent surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Projects find that there are key differences between those who live in households making $75,000 or more relative to those in lower-income households. Some 95% of Americans who live in households earning $75,000 or more a year use the internet at least occasionally, compared with 70% of those living in households earning less than $75,000. Even among those who use the internet, the well off are more likely than those with less income to use technology. Of those 95% of higher-income internet users:
- 99% use the internet at home, compared with 93% of the internet users in lower brackets.
- 93% of higher-income home internet users have some type of broadband connection versus 85% of the internet users who live in households earning less than $75,000 per year. That translates into 87% of all those in live in those better-off households having broadband at home.
- 95% of higher-income households own some type of cell phone compared with 83% in households with less income.
Abstract
Along with the amount of time spent learning (or time-on-task), the quality of learning time has a real influence on learning performance. Quality of time in online learning depends on students’ time availability and their willingness to devote quality cognitive time to learning activities. However, the quantity and quality of the time spent by adult e-learners on
learning activities can be reduced by professional, family, and social commitments. Considering that the main time pattern followed by most adult e-learners is a professional one, it may be beneficial for online education programs to offer a certain degree of flexibility in instructional time that might allow adult learners to adjust their learning times to their professional constraints. However, using the time left over once professional and family requirements have been fulfilled could lead to a reduction in quality time for learning. This paper starts by introducing the concept of quality of learning time from an online student centred perspective. The impact of students’ time-related variables (working hours, timeon-task engagement, time flexibility, time of day, day of week) is then analyzed according to individual and collaborative grades achieved during an online master’s degree program. The data show that both students’ time flexibility (r = .98) and especially their availability to learn in the morning are related to better grades in individual (r = .93) and collaborative activities (r = .46).
Keywords: E-learning; computer-supported collaborative learning; academic performance;
e-learning quality; time flexibility; time-on-task; time quality; learner time
What is a mobile education environment?
Education today doesn’t need to take place within the confines of a school building, thanks to the Internet, wireless communication and mobile computing devices. Students and teachers are no longer required to be “stuck inside these four walls” for learning to take place. Teens whose body clocks don’t mesh with 7:15 a.m. class starts can sleep in — then do the work when they are at their mental peak (9 p.m., perhaps). Teachers, too, can gain increased flexibility in organizing their time. Lessons can be more easily tailored for students with whom they can work one-on-one with using interactive online programs. This is the promise of mobile learning, currently in place in some schools across the country. However, most K-12 schools are just starting to scratch the surface of what mobility can mean for education. Those that adapt to mobile technology will find it easier to reach students; research shows this sort of learning at the K-12 level improves student engagement, enthusiasm and test scores.
ABSTRACT
Invasive alien species (IAS) cause major environmental and economic damage worldwide,and also threaten human food security and health. The impacts of IAS are expected to rise with continued globalization, land use modification, and climate change. Developing effective strategies to deal with IAS requires a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach, in which scientists work co-operatively with social scientists and policy-makers. Higher education can contribute to this process by training professionals to balance the ecological, economic, and social dimensions of the IAS problem. We examined the extent of such training in Canada by reviewing undergraduate and graduate university curricula at all 94 member nstitutions of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada for IAS content. We found that degree and diploma programs focusing on IAS issues are lacking at Canadian post-secondary institutions. Furthermore, few courses are devoted solely to IAS, and those that are typically adopt an ecological perspective. We argue that the absence of interdisciplinary university curricula on IAS in Canada negatively aff ects our ability to respond to this growing global challenge. We present several international educational programs on IAS as case studies on how to better integrate training on invasive species into university curricula in Canada.
RÉSUMÉ
Les espèces exotiques envahissantes (EEE) sont à l’origine d’importants dommages écologiques et économiques partout dans le monde, en plus de menacer la sécurité alimentaire et la santé humaine. On s’attend à ce que leurs eff ets prennent de l’ampleur devant la poursuite de la mondialisation, l’évolution de l’utilisation des sols et les changements climatiques.
L’élaboration de stratégies efficaces pour contrer les EEE exige une approche coopérative et interdisciplinaire, par laquelle des scientifiques travaillent en collaboration avec des spécialistes en sciences sociales et des esponsables de l’élaboration de politiques. L’enseignement supérieur peut y contribuer en formant des professionnels à trouver un équilibre entre les dimensions écologiques, économiques et sociales du problème des EEE. Nous avons étudié la portée d’une telle formation au Canada en révisant les programmes d’études universitaires des premier et second cycles de chacun des 94 établissements membres de l’Association des universités et collèges du Canada. Nous en avons conclu que les programmes menant à un grade ou à un diplôme et ciblant les problèmes liés aux EEE font défaut aux établissements postsecondaires canadiens. En outre, peu de cours se concentrent uniquement sur les EEE, et ceux qui le font adoptent habituellement une approche écologique. Nous faisons valoir que le manque de programmes universitaires interdisciplinaires portant sur les EEE au Canada entrave notre capacité à aff ronter ce défi mondial croissant. Nous présentons plusieurs programmes éducatifs internationaux sur les EEE, à titre d’études de cas pour mieux intégrer la formation sur les espèces envahissantes aux programmes universitaires du Canada.
Andrea L. Smith
Dawn R. Bazely
Norman D. Yan
York University
ABSTRACT
This study examines the transformation of Manitoba’s post-secondary education system between 1967 and 2009 using legislative change to gauge structural change. The paper establishes the beginning of the contemporary post-secondary system with the 1967 decision of the Manitoba government to abandon the “one university” system model, a move akin to a “big bang,” redefining system norms and expectations, and setting direction which continues to be relevant today. The study revealed extensive structural change in Manitoba’s post-secondary system after 1997, the nature of which reflected the trends associated with globalization,but also reflecting the important influence that local forces have had in shaping the province’s post-secondary system.
RÉSUMÉ
Cette étude examine la transformation du système d’éducation post-secondaire manitobain entre 1967 et 2009, qui s’est faite par le biais de changements législatifs afin d’évaluer le changement structurel. Selon l’article, le système post-secondaire contemporain débute avec une décision prise en 1967 par le gouvernement du Manitoba, qui visait à abandonner le modèle systémique d’« une seule université »›. Semblable à un « big bang », cette décision redéfinissait les normes et les attentes du système d’éducation, en lui donnant une direction qui est encore pertinente à ce jour. L’étude a révélé la présence d’un changement structurel important dans le système d’éducation post-secondaire au Manitoba après 1997, dont la nature reflète non seulement les tendances associées à la mondialisation, mais aussi l’influence significative qu’ont eues les forces locales dans l’élaboration du système d’étude post-secondaire de cette province.
Dan Smith
Manitoba’s Council on Post-Secondary Education
What are digital textbooks?
Today’s K-12 students have grown up with technology. Most wouldn’t dream of looking up information in a hardbound dictionary or encyclopedia; they turn to Internet search engines when they have questions, perhaps using a smartphone or tablet. News comes not on newsprint, but from Google News; writing to friends means Facebook, not a letter (what’s that?); phone books and watches are artifacts from another age. Yet such digital natives are often expected to attend schools equipped with aging, heavy, hardbound textbooks — some a decade old and outdated (history texts that remind them that the U.S. has never elected an African-American president, for example). They then are asked to tote five or six or more such books from school to home each day.
Enter the digital textbook, defined as anything stored on a digital medium that can be transmitted through various
digital devices over computer networks, including the Internet. Students can access digital books on e-readers, tablets and smartphones; and on netbooks, laptops or desktop computers. Because the books can be read on mobile devices, the materialcan travel with students just as a physical textbook can, but in a much lighter and more compact way (no more overstuffed backpacks). Textbooks displayed on digital devices can take advantage of Web 2.0 tools: multi-media features (video and audio clips); interactivity (quizzes, games); the ability to search and annotate text; text-to-speech functionality; and customizable (and current) content. In the classroom, teachers can project digital content from these books onto interactive whiteboards and engage the class in viewing material together. Notes taken on the interactive whiteboard can be stored and saved to each student’s laptop, tablet, netbook or smartphone, while students can use their digital devices to submit answers to quizzes or problems. All of these features make digital textbooks more relevant to today’s students, who then become more engaged in learning.
Abstract
The HANDS (Helping Autism-diagnosed teenagers Navigate and Develop Socially) research project involves the creation of an e-learning toolset that can be used to develop individualized tools to support the social development of teenagers with an autism diagnosis. The e-learning toolset is based on ideas from persuasive technology. This paper addresses the system design of the HANDS toolset as seen from the user’s perspective. The results of the evaluation of prototype 1 of the toolset and the needs for further development are discussed. In addition, questions regarding credibility and reflections on ethical issues related to the project are considered.
Keywords: E-learning; autism; mobile learning; persuasive technology
Peter Øhrstrøm
Aalborg University, Denmark