2022 Conference Program

OVERVIEW

Introduction

David Guralnick, Ph.D.
President and CEO
Kaleidoscope Learning
New York, New York, USA

Keynote Speech
Creating Cultural Assets to Foster Social Inclusion and Development

Antonella Poce, Ph.D.
Full Professor in Experimental Pedagogy
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Rome, Italy

Developing innovative cultural experiences that link local, urban, and cultural heritage can lead to an increase in citizenship skills and social inclusion.

The use of new learning methodologies and innovative digital tools along with a focus on cultural heritage has been successful in fighting the realities of marginalization. We see this in many international programs, such as the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce; Heritage Lottery Fund in the UK and programs in the cities of Pittsburgh and Dallas in the U.S. Programs like these enhance transferable skills—especially 4C skills: Creativity, Communication, Collaboration and Critical Thinking, together with digital skills—for a variety of different types of people, particularly those belonging to disadvantaged social groups such as migrants, people with physical or mental disabilities, and the elderly. In addition, such programs also encourage the creation of new social business models that can generate inclusive growth.

In this keynote, Dr. Poce will describe international case studies in which people participate in different experiences that use advanced technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to allow people to experience cultural heritage objects and places. Dr. Poce will describe experiences carried out within the European Inclusive Memory project along with data from field analysis of the project’s experiences thus far.

Under the model that Dr. Poce will describe, people’s active citizenship skills and their participation in cultural life and events will be encouraged. Industries in the creative and technological sectors, personal care organizations, universities, and heritage sites will form a network of collaboration for the promotion of social inclusion and well-being.

Cities change at a remarkable speed. Arts and culture are important drivers for the development of urban centers and identifying new models of effective development is not always so easy. Working in international contexts can facilitate the growth of new ideas, exchange and collaboration.

The recent changes in Pittsburgh and Dallas show how transformative such changes can be; urban areas which combine an active cultural life and properly designed public spaces attract investment, knowledge, workers and tourists, facilitate the creation of community and social capital, and reveal the distinctive local identity. But investments need to be well placed in order to be productive. The European Inclusive Memory project looks to promote change via the effective use of cultural assets and technology-supported learning experiences.

Socio-Affective Profiles in Virtual Learning Environments: Using Learning Analytics

Patricia Alejandra Behar, Ph.D., Jacqueline Mayumi Akazaki, and Leticia Rocha Machado, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

There is a growing number of virtual courses being offered by Brazilian educational institutions, requiring the development of technological resources and research to assist in the teaching and learning processes in Distance Education (DE). The analysis of the student's socio-affective profile in Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) enables possibilities to develop methodologies and/or resources to better understand students. The Social Map (SM) and Affective Map (AM), both features of the Cooperative Learning Network (in Portuguese: ROODA), provide inferences and graphic presentations of students' socio-affective profile. This article aims to identify the possible recurrent socio-affective scenarios in a VLE utilizing Learning Analytics (LA). LA is defined as the measurement, collection, and analysis of data. This qualitative and quantitative research approach was carried out based on 10 case studies. The target audience was 219 students divided between undergraduate, graduate, teachers, and elderly people who participated in teaching activities at a Brazilian public university. Data collected from the SM and AM were extracted in order to identify the relationship between these two aspects. As a result, 38 socio-affective scenarios were created using LA to contribute to the analysis of the students’ learning profile, allowing teachers to develop pedagogical strategies consistent with the needs of each subject.

On the Impact of Standardized University Courses During the COVID-19 Pandemic

David Rueckel, Ph.D., Daniela Waller, and Robert Pucher, Ph.D., University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien, Vienna, Austria

The Bologna Process aims at harmonizing academic programs improving national and international comparability in European countries. This leads to both centralized (e.g., country wide) and decentralized (e.g., university wide) initiatives to foster standardizing of course didactic. On course level the standardizing provides a blended learning approach, so a close interlinking of self-study phases and an application-driven approach during classes…

Digital Learning Innovations to Enhance the Experience of Working Professionals

Ruchika Sethi and Jaclyn Conner, Ed.D., Emory University - Goizueta Business School, Atlanta, GA, USA

The Emory University Goizueta Business School has been working on innovative learning methodologies and the use of technology to support the learning environment. The pandemic just sped up the pace of this initiative. Building global classrooms through 2020-2021, bringing in holograms to give our students an opportunity to meet industry experts in a “limited travel world,” and creating virtual reality products for the newly established “Goizueta Innovation Store,” Emory Goizueta Business School is poised to take digital learning to the next level…

Using Social Media to Teach Advocacy to Students

Sebrena Jackson, Ph.D., University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA, Angela Bullock, Ph.D., University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, USA, and Alex Colvin, Ph.D., Texas Woman's University, Denton, Texas, USA

Social networking tools have widened the “civic space,” creating opportunities to reach more people with a greater impact on our most vexing social problems (Nugroho, 2011). These tools such as email lists, Web sites, message boards, petitions, blogs, social networking, cell phone text messaging, mapping, video and animation, and web-based and mobile applications connect, engage, and distribute user-generated content digitally in a multiway communication model (Boyd & Ellison, 2007; Davis, et al., 2012). These platforms have changed the way individuals advocate, organize, and mobilize support for community causes, “get out the vote” campaigns, and coalition actions (AdvocacyDev.org, 2005)…

Optimizing Student Learning with the Diagnostic Assessment and Achievement of College Skills

Jason Bryer, Ph.D., Angela Lui, and David Franklin, City University of New York School of Professional Studies, New York, New York, USA

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects and predictive power of the Diagnostic Assessment and Achievement of College Skills (DAACS) on student success. DAACS is a no-stakes, open-source, diagnostic assessment tool designed to measure newly enrolled college students’ reading, writing, mathematics, and self-regulated learning (SRL) skills, and provide them with feedback and resources to enhance their functioning and success. A randomized control trial was performed at two online colleges (n = 23,728) to measure the effects of DAACS on academic achievement and credit acquisition. Predictive power of DAACS on student success was also examined…

In a Virtual Learning Environment, Who Excels?

Alicia Haulbrook and Anu Singh, Fiserv, Alpharetta, Georgia, USA

When the world is witnessing unprecedented times and each individual is juggling between what has been and what’s coming, it’s quite a responsibility for teachers and trainers to facilitate learning in a virtual learning environment…

Improving Scalability of Software Engineering Courses

Sigrid Schefer-Wenzl, Ph.D. and Igor Miladinovic, Ph.D., University of Applied Sciences Campus Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Over the past five years, we have seen a steady growth in the number of applicants to our computer science degree programs. Despite selection through the admissions process, this has resulted in a higher number of students enrolled in our courses. This led to two main challenges: (1) the effort required to assess individual student performance increased linearly with the number of students, and (2) the number of groups for the practical tutorials increased as we work with a maximum of 25 students in a tutorial group. These two challenges inspired us to look for solutions to improve the scalability of our courses without compromising quality…

Guiding Instructors Through Teaching Transitions: Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Steve Schmidt, Ph.D., East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA

The COVID-19 global pandemic caused many educators to transition their teaching from face-to-face to online instruction. However, even before the pandemic, many instructors found themselves in situations that required them to change the way they teach. The rise in online learning has certainly been an impetus for this type of transition, but it is not the only one. The increased popularity of active learning, competency-based education and learner-centered approaches to education has meant that even instructors who continue to teach face-to-face have had to transition from lecture-based methods to teaching methods that are more hands-on, interactive, and learner focused. These types of transitions can be difficult for educators, administrators and learners, as different teaching methods require different skill sets. This presentation will focus on best practices and lessons learned about helping instructors to make transitions in their teaching methods.

Improving a Gamified Language Learning Chatbot through AI and UX Boosting

Polina Tsvilodub, Vera Klütz, and Esther Chevalier, Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrueck, Germany, Osnabrueck, Lower Saxony, Germany

Mobile second language learning applications have received increased popularity over the last years. However, most applications focus on individual practice of a single student. Yet the natural setting of applying the learned language in practice usually involves a social context. We outline how the goal of learning a language collaboratively in a group can be approached through a conversational agent based app. In this article, we build upon the proof of concept presented in Johnson et al. (2021) by extending the Telegram-based chatbot Escapeling where users solve language learning tasks in cooperation. The application uses narrative-based contextualisation and gamification elements using an escape room setting. It fosters student interdependence within the game through group-based tasks, which ideally leads to higher engagement and an affective connection to the learning routine. Our application is, therefore, intended for interactive online educational settings which became essential in the last years due to the ongoing pandemic…

Influence of Immersive Virtual Reality on Cognitive and Affective Learning Goals

Janika Finken and Matthias Wölfel, University of Applied Science Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

With the increasing prevalence of immersive virtual reality (VR) systems in educational contexts, it is important to understand how the use of VR impacts cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning processes, as well as learning outcomes. Proponents argue that immersive VR can improve the quality of learning by stimulating individual learning processes to generate interest and motivate them to learn. Others claim that immersive media such as VR disrupts learning by increasing distraction, which leads to a decrease in cognitive performance and a reduction in acquired knowledge. To collect evidence on how immersive VR influences learning we performed a quantitative study: One group received particular information (about environment protection) before and after being immersed in two different VR applications which incorporate content-related informational context. The second group was presented the same information but without the VR experience…

A Pedagogical Conversational Agent for Tutoring in the Development of Educational Research Projects

Elvis Gerardo Ortega Ochoa, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Francisco de Orellana, Orellana, Ecuador

Some countries have difficulties in responding in a personalized way to a growing learner base, given that, on average, the student to teacher ratio is thirteen to one. Practice and theoretical review indicate that there is a lack of analysis in e-learning of the conversational flow of the Pedagogical Conversational Agent (educational chatbot) for tutoring in the general advancement of projects and in particular educational research projects. Therefore, the objective was to analyze their dialogue systems for tutoring in the development of the Knowledge Integration Project of the National University of Education of Ecuador. The population was the student body of the Basic Distance Education Career, academic period semester I - 2021 (N = 1,124) and the sample consisted of 287 participants with a confidence level of 95 % and an estimated sampling error of 5 %, who were chosen by probability sampling by clusters. The method was mixed light of convergent design, variant of the questionnaire (survey) of descriptive, cross-sectional, empirical scope and descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to treat the variable from the pragmatic paradigm. The results were the analysis of the scientific progress of agents in education; the determination of student preferences; and the generation of proposals, i.e., co-design, according to the meta-inferences on the agent interface and the algorithm of its conversational strategy. In conclusion, it responds to the research problems that arose in the literature and required future studies; it contributes to the promotion of adaptive learning in higher education; and it is framed in one of the emerging trends and practices, adaptive technology, transversing several disciplines such as pedagogy, technology and engineering.

Lessons Learned from Using Conversational Agents to Support Collaborative Learning in Massive Online Learning

Santi Caballé, Ph.D., Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) introduce a way of transcending formal education by realizing technology-enhanced formats of learning and instruction and by granting access to an audience way beyond higher education. However, although MOOCs have been reported as an efficient and important educational tool, there are a number of issues and problems related to their educational impact. More specifically, there are an important number of dropouts during a course, little participation, and lack of students’ motivation and engagement overall. This paper reports on the evaluation results of the European project “colMOOC” that aims to enhance the MOOCs experience by integrating collaborative settings based on conversational pedagogical agents to support both students and teachers during a MOOC course. Conversational pedagogical agents guide and support student dialogue using natural language both in individual and collaborative settings. Integrating these type of conversational agents into MOOCs to trigger peer interaction in discussion groups can considerably increase the engagement and the commitment of online students and, consequently, reduce MOOCs dropout rate. The paper describes the lessons learned and the good practices drawn from the evaluation experience of incorporating synchronous collaborative activities mediated by conversational pedagogical agents into a real massive online course.

Evaluation of Learning Experiences from the Perspective of the Sensory Disabled

Sarantos Psycharis, Ph.D. and Paraskevi Theodorou, University, Athens, Attica, Greece

In recent years, there has been a push for the introduction of coding and computational thinking skills in childhood education. Computational thinking is a major issue in all education systems. Children who develop computational thinking develop new skills that can be applied to a variety of problem-solving situations in almost all areas of their lives. The importance of computational thinking skills in the educational process has become clear, and various tools have been developed to improve the teaching of computational thinking skills and ensure its inclusion in school curricula. However, teaching computational thinking to visually impaired students still faces many access barriers that need to be overcome. In this paper, we present a learning object that has been adapted to be equally accessible to visually impaired people. This work has been done by taking into account the different ways of learning of visually impaired students and by taking advantage of innovative technologies such as text-to-speech and speech recognition.

"The Cracks Where the Light Gets in": Exemplary Efforts to Enhance Accessibility during the Pandemic

Pinar Ayyildiz, Ph.D., Ankara Medipol University, Ankara, Turkey

Whilst acknowledging the very case of the pandemic as a global threat to health, to well-being, to the quality of life, it is also worthwhile to concentrate upon hopeful endeavors and reflections of good intentions and solidarity. In Turkey, which has been greatly damaged by the adverse effects of the pandemic and for which the light at the end of the tunnel is yet to be seen, one group of both metropolitan and district municipalities has become comrades of the involved and responsible authorities. These municipalities in Turkey declared they can provide support for vulnerable children and young people mainly in the following forms: i. distributing free tablets for students who cannot afford one, ii. construction of online education points equipped with PCs and the Internet for students who lack these, iii. supplying mobile online education centers for the children of agricultural workers, iv. delivering electricity free of charge to houses of the socio-economically disadvantaged. The present study aims to scrutinize the changing face and capacities of municipalities in Turkey gaining more prominent roles and enhanced participation in social practice via investigating the actions that have been observed to date across the country within the pandemic time period. In doing so the following questions are attempted to be discussed and answered: 1. How are municipalities in Turkey responding to the pandemic with their new work of promoting equity in society? 2. What can the cooperation and undertakings of municipalities in Turkey tell about taking steps of solidarity during the pandemic notably for the right to education?

Professional Development and On-the-Job Support for Equitable Mentoring

Danielle Chine, Ph.D. and Shivang Gupta, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Personalized Learning2 (PL2) is a holistic PD platform designed to improve mentoring efficiency and workplace training through scenario-based instruction and personalized support and by combining human and computer tutoring. Applying research-driven mentor training with AI-powered software, PL2 connects mentors, often under-trained tutors, to personalized resources with a click of a button. This mentor decision-making tool is addressing the opportunity gap among marginalized students by recommending specific instructional supports and social-emotional resources based on student's individual math performance. PL2 functions as both a mentor-focused PD app and as a framework or system for providing mentors the training they need to provide students culturally responsive, personalized support focusing on the whole child…

Promoting Social Inclusion in Vocational Training Students with Disabilities: An Experience of Museum Education

Maria Rosaria Re, Ph.D. and Mara Valente, Roma Tre University, Rome, Italy

The present contribution aims to illustrate the results of a pilot experience carried on at the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia (Rome) with the participation of CFP Simonetta Tosi in Rome, a vocational training centre addressed to people with disabilities. The educational path, realized within the pilot experience, aims to promote well-being, analytical skills and the use of digital technologies in museum education contexts and it is addressed to adult users with problems of social inclusion. The achievement of the aims of the pilot experience is pursued through the use of inclusive and innovative learning methodologies: Object-based Learning (OBL) and Digital Storytelling (DST). OBL is increasingly adopted in both formal and informal education contexts, especially in terms of well-being and trans-verse skills promotion. The focus on the museum object facilitates the involvement of users and support communication, analysis and argumentation skills. DST allows people to express, understand and articulate everyday experiences in a creative way. Through DST, museum users can connect with the territory in which they have situated, identifying different types of stories and telling them through digital devices. Moreover, DST is not simply a vehicle for increasing digital literacy, but also a learning methodology aimed at overcoming social barriers and increasing understanding between generations, ethnicities and displaced groups. The results of the pilot experience underline a good level of well-being at the end of the learning activities, an improvement of sense of community and digital and basic skills promotion within participants.

Integrating Educational Components into the Metaverse

Tetyana Sergeyeva, Ph.D., National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”, Kharkiv, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Sergiy Bronin, Ph.D., Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine, Natalya Turlakova, Ph.D., National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”, Kharkiv, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, and Stanislav Iamnytskyi, National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”, Kharkiv, Kharkiv region, Ukraine

We analyze the integration of educational components into the Metaverse, which is becoming the mainstream of our time. We trace the origin story of the idea of creating an alternative digital reality from the Jewish interpretation of “Hochma”, “Bina”, “Daat” as divine Sefirot (emanations) of wisdom, understanding, awareness and the ancient philosophical concept of "World of Ideas" through the psychological concept of "Cognitive Scheme" as an internal reflection of the real world to the concept of "Metaworld" as a simplified model of the world and, finally, the concept of "Metaverse" as an interface of consciousness interaction with everything possible within the World Wide Web. Possible positive and negative consequences of the gradually erasing edges of the real world and the digital universe are considered. We propose to integrate educational components into the Metaverse Ecosystem, taking into account the laws of personality development as well as to take responsibility for possible consequences by introducing moral dimension into the assessment of possible impact on users’ minds and bodies as well as in the real world…

The 2CG® Poetry Machine : A Hybrid Approach to Human Capability Cultivation with Disruptive Artistic Impulses

Christina Merl, Ph.D., TalkShop/2CG®, Poetry in Business, Vienna, Austria

The future of learning, working and teaching is hybrid. This clear educational and professional shift has forced academics, corporate trainers and HR professionals to re-invent the wheel of teaching, training and course management. Experience has shown that pure ‘onlinification’ of traditional teaching and training models has resulted in poor learning outcomes, low learner engagement and a lack of motivation…

Digitalization: Training University Professors and Students with FlashLearns

Anne-Dominique Salamin, Ph.D., University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (HES-SO), Sierre, Valais, Switzerland and Danièle Rueger, Ph.D., HES-SO DEVPRO, Fribourg, Switzerland

Digitalization is impacting the tertiary education by changing or modifying professors’ teaching methods, organization, coaching, and the way of lecturing. COVID-19 has forced most universities in the world to teach remotely, and revealed shortcomings, difficulties, ineffective habits…

Community Education and Diversity in Digital Contexts: Curricular and Empirical Perspectives

Christoph Knoblauch, Ph.D. and Anselm Böhmer, Ph.D., University of Education Ludwigsburg, Ludwigsburg, BW, Germany

As many higher education institutions have begun to implement matters of community education within their missions, teachers and students try to connect universities, schools and neighborhoods in order to develop civic capacity and foster democratic citizenship. Focusing on the collaboration of communities and educational institutions in the context of diversity and digitalization, this paper discusses (a) international curriculum modules and (b) findings from a digital project-based course in the higher education sector. The curriculum analysis establishes essential principles for community education from an international and interdisciplinary perspective. The dqualitative empirical perspective focuses on students’ attitudes and experiences towards community education in the context of diversity and digitalization. The interviewed students autonomously designed and implemented a project, connecting the University of Education, Ludwigsburg (Germany) and social spaces, thus, linking their academic studies with social inquiry. Against this backdrop, this paper combines curriculum analysis and students’ experiences in community education, discussing the potentials and challenges of diversity and digitalization in universities, schools and neighborhoods.

Using Moodle for Fair and Effective Project-Based Learning: a Case Study in China

Na Li, Eng Gee Lim, Mark Leach, Xiaojun Zhang, and Pengfei Song, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China

Project-based learning (PBL) has been considered as one of the most efficient pedagogies to encourage students to apply multi-disciplinary knowledge in solving real-world problems in China. However, while aiming to make sure every student can get a different project, the project resources (e.g., experienced project supervisor and opportunities to work with the company) are limited compared to the large student population, and dissatisfaction caused by justice issues in the project allocation process has raised concerns for educators and practitioners. Many transnational universities in China have implemented technologies (such as the Moodle plugin fair allocation) to provide automated project allocation services for students. The automated project allocation tool allows the instructor to upload the information of projects designed by the project supervisors in the first stage. Project supervisors can recommend students with the required support documents in advance. The background of project supervisors varies in discipline, experience, and available time; some supervisors might provide opportunities to project with companies…

Using Organizational Values from Highly-Effective Tech Companies to Plan the Future of Education

Khalid Khawaja, Ph.D., RIT Dubai, Dubai

The effect of technology on our lives has accelerated as a result of the Covid-19 events. Perhaps this is most evident in education. However, the educational community at all levels have been left with a major question to answer: what is the effect of technology on education in the long term? This presentation seeks to provide a framework for addressing this question borrowing from the technology sector itself. The DevOps software development framework is juxtaposed on the education sector. First a hypothesis is presented that mandates copying success factors of successful technology companies based on the observation that everything is becoming a software. This is then used to enquire about key success factors for highly performing technology organizations. We then observe that some attributes much of that success to the DevOps movement. So, we anchor on the DevOps CALMS values (Culture, Automation, Lean, Measurement and Sharing) [1] to provide us a starting point for adapting this framework to plan what is next for education at all levels.

Experiences on Creating Personal Study Plans with Chatbots

Matti Koivisto, Ph.D., South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, Mikkeli, Finland

With the ever-increasing number of college students, universities must offer more and more different kinds of student counseling services. To fill this demand, higher education institutions have tested and applied many sophisticated solutions including chatbots. A chatbot is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based computer program designed to simulate discussion with human users. Earlier studies offer the mixed results of suitability of the chatbots in higher education as highlighted in the literature review of the paper. In the empiric part of the study, the observations of the experiment conducted in a Finnish university of applied sciences are reported. In the study, post-graduate engineering students (n=53) used a tailor-made chatbot while creating their personal study plans. During the task, the students were able to request suggestion for optional study modules, using different criteria, such as personal interest, learning needs and course popularity. After the experiment, both quantitative and qualitative data was collected and analyzed. According to the study, students believed that chatbots can to some extent improve student counseling and the main advantages of the chatbots were scalability and unlimited service hours. However, students did not see that artificial intelligence could at least now remove the role of a human counselor. The main reported shortcomings of the chatbot were the minor significance of individuality, lack of inspiring effect, and general attitude towards automated services.

Keynote Speech
Algorithmic Bias in Education

Ryan Baker, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education
Director, Penn Center for Learning Analytics
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

The advanced algorithms of learning analytics and educational data mining underpin modern adaptive learning technologies, for assessment and supporting learning. However, there has not been enough research on whether these algorithms are effective for all learners who use them.

In this talk, I discuss the evidence around algorithmic bias in education, cases where an algorithm works substantially less well for specific groups of learners. I review who is impacted, what the impacts are, and the gaps in the field's knowledge -- both in terms of "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns." I conclude with potential directions to move research and practice towards better understanding how bias impacts educational algorithms, and how to address these problems so that learning systems become fairer and more equitable.

A Conceptual Approach to an AI-Supported Adaptive Study System for Individualized Higher Education Services

Christian-Andreas Schumann, Ph.D., Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau, Chermnitz, Saxony, Germany

In the context of the digital transformation, the targeted implementation of AI-based or AI-supported technologies in "teaching & learning" as well as "administration & service" holds considerable potential for organizational change and quality enhancement for higher education institutions. The use of AI in higher education teaching and services lags behind the level in research. Therefore, holistic solutions must be planned and implemented in unity of teaching and research for the AI-based support of the stakeholders inclusive administration, the further development or the establishment of new digital study programs and offers as well as the prospective qualification of university staff in the field of AI. The applications that currently exist do not generally fit into a holistic concept. Therefore, they must be analyzed, systematized, and structured to generate a conceptual approach via an integrated architecture with adaptive services�

Emory & Delta: Using VR to Scale an Unscalable Learning Experience

Steve Walton, Ph.D., Stephanie Parisi, and Grace Bizzell, Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; and Brett Haupt, Delta TechOps, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

This session will showcase the development of an interactive, virtual reality tour developed by Goizueta Business School in partnership with Delta Technical Operations (“TechOps”). Formerly an in-person tour used in the Process and Systems Management course, this virtual tour gives learners the ability to experience the facility online and even get more up close to some of the technical operation elements than they would in-person. Delta TechOps is a 2.7 million square foot facility located in Atlanta, Georgia—the largest maintenance, repair and overhaul provider in North America. This presentation and demonstration will share with participants why and how the project was developed including how it started, contributor roles, filming & VR creation, internal and external collaboration, instructional design, iterations, and impact on teaching and learning. Additionally, the team will share the technology and tools that supported the development of this project, as well as lessons learned. A demonstration of the tour will be given along with the opportunity for participants to experience the tour using a VR headset.

Collaborative Learning Communities on Social Media Platforms: Creating a Space for Learning and Research

Alyse Jordan, Ed.D. and Shelbe Rodriguez, Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas, USA

Social media has the potential of being a space for active learning in higher education. Whether used as a formal or informal tool, social media promotes student engagement and collaboration, and student and professor’s interactions. In Dougherty and Anderson (2014), studies showed Facebook being useful as a curricular tool for students learning the major concepts in the course. Students also reported feeling a of sense belonging and collaboration. Social media is used as a student-centered approach to compliment instruction in the classroom to promote learning. The limitations of social media are passive behaviors and avoiding participation…

Social Networks in Learning

Bo Chang, Ph.D., Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, USA

The purpose of this study is to explore how social networks impact learners’ knowledge sharing in the context of a learning community. The findings indicate that the various networks collaboratively support learners’ knowledge sharing in a local community. A better social position gives rise to more networks and correspondingly more knowledge accessible to learners. The between-group ties such as residential committees are crucial for knowledge exchange through connecting various social networks. Social isolation impacts learners’ interactions with others. However, more networks do not necessarily lead to more advanced knowledge acquisition. Accessing social networks cannot guarantee that learners will successfully access substantial knowledge in other fields. Social networks targeting learners’ need influence learners’ interest in social networks…

Asynchronous Engagement: The Benefits of Asynchronous Video in Online Learning

W. Scott Cheney, Collin College, Plano, Texas, USA

What’s really available for online students? Twenty-two years into the new millennium, many students leave face-to-face classrooms for online instruction expecting advanced technological applications only to find that their classes are largely text-based and lack real interaction. What’s more, once they get involved in the course, they may also experience a sense of isolation and a lack of connectedness to their instructor, classmates, and course content. Research has long addressed the importance of community and collaboration to overall student success in distance learning classes. In fact, it has been over thirty years since Moore’s article in the American Journal of Distance Education outlined three types of interaction: learner to content, learner to instructor, and learner to learner. Recent research argues that asynchronous video has the potential to address all these concerns and scenarios. While synchronous Zoom-style class meetings can impede student success in the online classroom, the use of asynchronous video encourages connectedness and improves student engagement while retaining the flexibility of the typical online course. This presentation offers a comprehensive survey of the growing body of research on asynchronous video from the last fifteen years and offers practical takeaways for use in college classrooms and beyond. An extensive bibliography and two recent asynchronous video pilots from recent online courses will also be shared.

Emergency Remote Teaching: A Case Study

Macedonio Alanis, Ph.D., Tecnologico de Monterrey, Garza García, N.L., México

During the first quarter of 2020, nearly every country declared a COVID-19 pandemic emergency, and schools suddenly had to migrate to remote teaching modalities. As a result, 1.21 billion learners in 139 countries changed their learning models…

CyEd: A Cyberinfrastructure for Computer Education

Sherif Abdelhamid, Ph.D., Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia, USA

Technology-supported learning (TSL) is a promising discipline, within computer science, concerned with designing and building tools and services that improve the students’ learning environment. TSL can foster group-based interactions, collaborations, and accessibility to learning material, computing resources, and data. This work is situated within the TSL research area. It aims to provide educators and students with an easy-to-use cyberinfrastructure (CI) accessible from their desktops and integrated into their daily study activities…

Medical Simulation in the Cloud: Learning by Doing within an Online Interactive Setting

Fernando Salvetti, Ph.D., Logosnet, Houston, Texas, USA, Roxane Gardner, M.D., MSHPEd, D.Sc, Harvard Center for Medical Simulation, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Rebecca Minehart, M.D., Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Center for Medical Simulation, Boston, Massachusetts, USA and Barbara Bertagni, Ph.D., Logosnet, Houston, Texas, USA

The process of learning by doing within the e-REAL online interactive setting is highly effective and leaves the learners with a memorable experience. Such hypothesis was tested during 5 online synchronous experiences designed around a case of multiple injuries into an alpine environment: they were challenged to recognize a situation requiring rapid intervention, communication, knowledge sharing, decision-making and management of an unforeseen event—while taking into consideration critical contextual factors such as a lack of time, scarcity of resources and tools, and a multitude of additional impactful factors…

The GW Community Medi-Corps Program: A Mobile Mixed-Reality Immersive Learning Center

Fernando Salvetti, Ph.D., Logosnet, Houston, Texas, USA, Teri L. Capshaw, M.B.A., The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC, USA, Linda Zanin, Ed.D., George Washington University School of Medicine Health Sciences, Washington DC, USA, Kevin C. O'Connor, D.O., F.A.A.F.P., The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC, USA, Qing Zeng, Ph.D., The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Washington, DC, USA and Barbara Bertagni, Ph.D., Logosnet, Houston, TX, USA

Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. The Community Medi-Corps Program - designed and implemented by the George Washington University Medicine and Health Sciences Faculty with GO Virginia funding – is aimed at leveraging the power of community, educational institutions, mentors, industry, and business partners to close the opportunity gap, transform student learning, and enrich our regional workforce…

Modernized Learning at Dell: The Future of Learning Made Real

Bruce Cronquist and Todd Stone, Dell Technologies, Seattle, Washington, USA

Dell Technologies' Modernized Learning Initiative identified necessary changes to bring our training and processes into the future and further aligned our training development to adult learning best practices. Our initiative contains four key areas:

• Topic-based learning - Training development focused on need-to-know skill development at the time of need, and smaller re-usable course content.

• Experiential learning - Supports interactive hands-on activities and experiences including AR/VR and digital lab simulations.

• Social/Mobile/Collaborative - Support for personalized learning, consumption on mobile devices, and social interactions with other learners.

• Scalable Curation - Finding and reusing content to decrease training development time…

Models and Methods of Online Team Teaching

Gary Natriello, Ph.D., Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA and Hui Soo Chae, Ph.D., School of Professional Studies, New York University, New York, New York, USA

Although the preponderance of instruction is delivered by a single teacher, practices such as co-teaching or team-teaching have evolved in face-to-face settings to expand the possibilities for delivering learning experiences. (Here “team teaching” refers to any of the various multi-instructor arrangements for delivering learning experiences.) The online venue offers a new setting for team teaching that presents both challenges and opportunities for creative educators. On the one hand, the challenges include the need to coordinate within the constraints of digital environments while managing what is often a changing and unstable technical infrastructure. On the other hand, the needs connected to attending to complex multi-application and multi-platform configurations can make multi-instructor arrangements both essential and powerful. In this session we will consider the growing variety of models for team teaching online. Each model will be described and examined for its potential to contribute to high impact learning experiences in digital environments. This front-end learner perspective will be complemented by a discussion of the back-end technical means available to support multiple instructors, often in multiple locations and brought in by means of diverse applications.

Developing Instructor Presence in Online Courses through Strategic Regular and Substantive Communication

Laura L Thompson, Ph.D., Delaware Technical Community College, Wilmington, Delaware, USA

New federal guidelines have been released that call for regular and substantive communication between instructors and students in online courses. The regularity of communication combined with the quality of the interactions serve to elevate a course from merely being a correspondence experience to an involved learning endeavor. In this presentation we'll discuss the role of the instructor in the online classroom as it pertains to community development, interactions for learning, cognitive development, and how the entire learning experience is influenced by strategic communication planning. Research will be presented that is related directly to instructor perceptions of instructor presence and the implications for student motivation and engagement. Specific ideas for enhancing communication will be discussed. An emphasis will be given to the value of video communication in the online environment. This will include elements of effective instructor-created videos. Also discussed will be findings regarding professional development design and institutional supports for college instructors looking to enhance their online instructional approaches. This presentation will focus on the theoretical framework of the Community of Inquiry but will also explore the value of a revision to this framework that emphasizes the social element that is ever present in education. This presentation is of interest to researchers, learning and development professionals, faculty members, faculty development specialists, and others who serve in a learning or training capacity.

Amigo Circles: A Virtual Peer Mentoring Program for Front Line Employees in Trust and Safety

Aparna Samuel Balasundaram, Srihari Swamy and Jayshree Sarda, WIPRO Limited, Leander, Texas, USA and Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

WFH eroded the organic ways people could informally connect while working from the same office spaces. There was felt need to create opportunities for social solidarity amidst the reality of physical distancing and invest in the resilience and well-being of our front-line employees…

Saving Soft Skills from Extinction

Jennifer Silverest and Eva Hamburger, Cisco Systems, Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

STEM university graduates transitioning into the corporate world lack vital soft skills in today’s corporate culture. Soft skills are a priority even when challenged by a global pandemic and priorities may call for reduction in programs. Creative virtual learning during a global pandemic…

The Future of Digital Robotics and the Metaverse

Dan White, Filament Games, Madison, Wisconsin, USA and Rebecca Kantar, Roblox, San Mateo, California, USA

FIRST® and Filament Games have joined forces to collaborate on RoboCo, an exciting new digital robotics game that will meet the needs of today's robotics competitors while broadening access to this vital and future-facing form of STEM project-based learning. Through open-ended sandbox play, brain-teasing challenges, and competitive virtual tournaments inspired by contemporary eSports championships, RoboCo aims to provide a stunning virtual adventure that complements and expands the world-class FIRST robotics experience. In this talk, Filament Games CEO Dan White and Roblox Head of Education Rebecca Kantar will discuss how they’re bringing the RoboCo and FIRST experience to the Roblox platform. They’ll focus in-depth on the development process of leveraging the multiplayer, collaborative, and creative affordances of Roblox to bring the efficacious FIRST principles of "gracious professionalism" and "coopertition" into the metaverse. Join us for a glimpse into the future of competitive digital robotics!