Online Environments
Museum Affinity Spaces: Exploring the Potential of a New Tool for Re-imagining Museum-school Partnerships for Multiliteracies Engagement and Learning
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Stefania Savva, Nicos Souleles
The proposed research shall give insights into the potential of immersive online environments (IVEs) to act as platforms for developing and evaluating multiliteracies learning for students. To examine the latter, this paper delves into the Museum Affinity Spaces (MAS) project, an empirically based, pedagogically-driven research initiative, entailing plans for a platform targeted at museums/galleries and learning institutions such as schools and universities, which allows them to form partnerships and be immersed in a online environment in order to enrich classroom experience and overcome physical limitations of attending a cultural space. The overall aim of the MAS project is to grant students with opportunities to gain experience of museums and cultural heritage beyond national boundaries and enhance their literacy repertoires by incorporating understandings of technology-enhanced museum learning as a multiliteracy practice. The intention is for school-teachers, museum educators, and students to be able to use a online platform themselves and in collaboration with other parties from around Europe and the world, either through synchronous or asynchronous learning to develop learning activities deriving from museums. The project employs design-based research (DBR) and is structured to unfold in three phases: preliminary analysis, the prototyping stage, and implementation and evaluation or assessment. This presentation shall focus on the preliminary analysis and prototyping stage of the project, as it was carried out during the first six months since the project embarked.
Professional Learning Communities: Possibilities for Distance and Online Learning
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Heather Hemming
One of the challenges of asynchronous course delivery is that by nature they involve less live interaction that either face-to-face classrooms or using online synchronous platforms. For the most part, establishing collaborative online communities for students is considered basic to course delivery. For those engaged in online teaching it is well understood that the creation of dynamic online learning communities entails much more than connecting students enrolled in the same course. Making learning meaningful with authentic opportunities for participants to engage in “deep learning” was, in this case study, a paramount feature to the course design. Marrying the opportunities technologies offer with this goal led to the creation of an assignment aimed towards knowledge creation and purposeful use of digital tools and resources that enable and accelerate the process of deep learning. The study is descriptive and exploratory in nature. The focus of this exploration is an assignment entitled Leadership & Informal Assessment - Preparing for a Professional Learning Community. This task was intended to embed the assessment framework within the context of the assignment. Data collection was analyzed using the following items on a 5- point scoring scheme. Did the assignment: create a session whereby participants are actively involved in learning and using embedded technology, reflect a understanding of the principles assessment and the topic of focus? And, adopt a facilitating approach? The results indicate promising possibilities that may have implications across several realms beyond course delivery.
What Drives Support for Self-Driving Cars?: A Survey-based Experiment
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Joshua Ferno
Technological advancements for the production of autonomous vehicles are nearing levels of commercial availability, promising to bring dramatic changes to everyday life. The degree to which these vehicles are integrated into the transportation system will be heavily dependent upon regulatory policy. Public opinion about self-driving vehicle policy will inform those policies. This study seeks to understand the current landscape of public opinion on self-driving cars and how it may develop in the future. The project leverages a series of survey-based randomized and controlled experiments, designed to present varied information about perceived benefits and drawbacks to autonomous vehicle technology, to a representative sample of the United States to shed light on the nuance behind correlates of public opinion in this area. Findings offer insight on citizens’ attitudes toward the role of government in this emerging technology, as well as contribute to a conversation regarding the perceived value of human autonomy relative to that of the labor-saving benefits of automation. Results suggest that stimuli related to personal safety and autonomy are particularly important, more so than stimuli related to economic implications. Findings are relevant to scholars, policymakers and industry members alike regarding the extent that particular arguments about autonomous vehicles can affect their image among consumers and the wider public.
