Journal of Educational Technology Systems

The interest in, and use of, computers and software for assessment is reported to be increasingly popular via electronic examinations (e-exams). We deepen our understanding of the design, reception, and effectiveness of e-exams for history and philosophy of science modules, undertaken by first-year advanced science and medical science students at university. We employ a quasi-experimental research design approach to examine our implementation of e-exams on reported student satisfaction regarding the suitability of the information provided about the assessment requirements, appropriateness of the assessment methods, and overall quality of the associated courses. We report statistically significant increases in student satisfaction regarding the suitability and appropriateness of the assessment methods or requirements. The outcomes of this research highlight new avenues for educators to explore including (a) the innovative use of associated software (Maple TA™) for e-exams and (b) the implications that e-exams can have on the student experience in the context of medium-stakes testing.

Video recordings for student teaching field experiences have been utilized with student teachers (also known as teacher candidates) to (a) capture the demonstration of their lesson plans, (b) critique their abilities within the performance, and (c) share and rate experiences for internal and external evaluations by the state and other organizations. Many times, the recording, saving, grading, and sharing process was not efficient. Thus, the feedback cycle from the university supervisor to the teacher candidate was negatively impacted. However, one communication technology tool that has the potential to facilitate the feedback process is video annotation software. This communication technology uses the storage within a remote server, known also as a cloud, to store videos that include typed commentary that is in sync with the portion of the video recorded. A group of university supervisors piloted a video annotation tool during student teaching to rate its effectiveness. Through a survey, the participants addressed how they perceived the implementation of the video annotation tool within the student teaching experience. Results suggest a video annotated technology-based supervision method is feasible and effective if paired with effective training and technical support.

Various data systems have been long and pervasively used in schools to collect student data. However, very few educators are able to apply their collected data to improve their teaching. The purpose of this article is to investigate how middle school teachers adapt data mining protocols to enhance their teaching and to improve their students’ learning. Results of the research indicates that most of the middle school teachers use data systems to enter their students’ data under the school requirements and only 20% of the teachers actually retrieve collected data from the system and analyze the data for intervention purpose.

The purpose of this research was to explore the use of virtual reality (VR) in early design studios. In this research project, two different types of Head-Mounted Display (HMD) systems were used. One type of HMD provided six degrees of freedom and the other HMD provided three degrees of freedom. The research findings provide comparison on the functionality of the different types of HMDs and the sense of presence in VR environments. Sense of presence is defined as the sense of “being there” in a computer-simulated environment. The outcomes of this research are (a) development of a new presence questionnaire that focuses on newer VR systems and (b) understanding student perception of using VR in design projects.

This article describes how virtualization technology can provide a solution to the difficulties in teaching, learning, and assessing students’ performance in computer networking subjects. The focus of this article is to show how virtualization technology can provide students with hands-on practice, can largely reduce the need for physical resources, can improve teaching effectiveness, and can provide unique assessment opportunities that would not be available with physical computers in a laboratory. Several techniques used to provide in-depth assessment of learning outcomes are described. A sample assignment is also included.

This research sought to determine what impact a social network messaging app could have on student’s team project performance. The app allowed students to self-select teams based on user profiles within the app. The study investigated three hypotheses that measured the apps impact on the quality of completed team projects, the team’s sense of shared goals, and team cohesiveness. The findings suggested that social network messaging apps that provide a sense of common ground between team members may better engage students in project teamwork which could lead to improved learning and better team cohesiveness.