Matching Items (10)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Technology
- All Subjects: Multimedia
- Creators: Atkinson, Robert
Description
With the unveiling of the National Educational Technology Plan 2010, both preservice and inservice K12 teachers in the United States are expected to create a classroom environment that fosters the creation of digital citizens. However, it is unclear whether or not teacher education programs build this direct instruction, or any other method of introducing students to the National Education Technology Standards (NETS), "a standard of excellence and best practices in learning, teaching and leading with technology in education," into their curriculum (International Society for Technology in Education, 2012). As with most teaching skills, the NETS and standards-based technology integration must be learned through exposure during the teacher preparation curriculum, either through modeling, direct instruction or assignments constructed to encourage standards-based technology integration. This study attempted to determine the extent to which preservice teachers at Arizona State University (ASU) enrolled in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (MLFTC) can recognize the National Education Technology Standards (NETS) published by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and to what extent preservice teachers are exposed to technology integration in accordance with the NETS-T standards in their preparation curriculum in order to answer the questions of whether or not teacher education curriculum provides students an opportunity to learn and apply the NETS-T and if preservice teachers in core teacher preparation program courses that include objectives that integrate technology are more likely to be able to identify NETS-T standards than those in courses that do not include these elements In order to answer these questions, a mixed-method design study was utilized to gather data from an electronic survey, one-on-one interviews with students, faculty, and administrators, and document analysis of core course objectives and curriculum goals in the teacher certification program at ASU. The data was analyzed in order to determine the relationship between the preservice teachers, the NETS-T standards, and the role technology plays in the curriculum of the teacher preparation program. Results of the analysis indicate that preservice teachers have a minimum NETS-T awareness at the Literacy level, indicating that they can use technology skills when prompted and explore technology independently.
ContributorsLewis, Carrie L (Author) / Nelson, Brian (Thesis advisor) / Archambault, Leanna (Thesis advisor) / Savenye, Wilhelmenia (Committee member) / Atkinson, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Smartphones have become increasingly common over the past few years, and mobile games continue to be the most common type of application (Apple, Inc., 2013). For many people, the social aspect of gaming is very important, and thus most mobile games include support for playing with multiple players. However, there is a lack of common knowledge about which implementation of this functionality is most favorable from a development standpoint. In this study, we evaluate three different types of multiplayer gameplay (pass-and-play, Bluetooth, and GameCenter) via development cost and user interviews. We find that pass-and-play, the most easily-implemented mode, is not favored by players due to its inconvenience. We also find that GameCenter is not as well favored as expected due to latency of GameCenter's servers, and that Bluetooth multiplayer is the most well favored for social play due to its similarity to real-life play. Despite there being a large overhead in developing and testing Bluetooth and GameCenter multiplayer due to Apple's development process, this is irrelevant since professional developers must enroll in this process anyway. Therefore, the most effective multiplayer mode to develop is mostly determined by whether Internet play is desirable: Bluetooth if not, GameCenter if so. Future studies involving more complete development work and more types of multiplayer modes could yield more promising results.
ContributorsBradley, Michael Robert (Author) / Collofello, James (Thesis director) / Wilkerson, Kelly (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
As one of the first attempts to research multimedia platforms for older adults when learning an online photo-editing software, this study examined whether an audio only, a text only, or a combination of an audio and text tutorial would be the most effective teaching method. Elderly adults aged 65 and older (N-45) were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. They first went through a training phase that utilized their assigned condition to teach five tasks within the photo-editing program, and they were then tested on how well they learned these tasks as well as a transfer task. It was predicted that the multimedia condition would increase learning efficiency, produce more successes in the transfer task, and decrease cognitive load compared to the two unimodal conditions. The multimedia condition (text and audio) had no significant effect on transfer task successes or decreases in cognitive load compared to the unimodal conditions (text only and audio only). The multimedia condition, however, did produce significantly less errors on Tasks 2, 4, and 5 than the unimodal conditions. This suggests that redundancy principles may play an important role when designing learning platforms for elderly users, and that age needs to be considered as an additional factor during the technological design process.
ContributorsSwieczkowski, Hannah Elizabeth (Author) / Atkinson, Robert (Thesis director) / Chavez, Helen (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
In this study, the implementation of educational technology and its effect on learning and user experience is measured. A demographic survey, pretest/posttest, and educational experience survey was used to collect data on the control and experimental groups. The experimental group was subjected to different learning material than the control group with the use of the Elements 4D mobile application by Daqri to learn basic chemical elements and compounds. The control group learning material provided all the exact information as the application, but in the 2D form of a printed packet. It was expected the experimental group would outperform the control group and have a more enjoyable experience and higher performance. After data analysis, it was concluded that the control group outperformed the experimental group on performance and both groups has similar experiences in contradiction to the hypothesis. Once the factors that contribute to the limitations of different study duration, learning the application beforehand, and only-memorization questions are addressed, the study can be conducted again. Application improvements may also alter the future results of the study and hopefully lead to full implementation into a curriculum.
ContributorsApplegate, Garrett Charles (Author) / Atkinson, Robert (Thesis director) / Chavez-Echeagaray, Maria Elena (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Hackathons are 24-36 hour events where participants are encouraged to learn, collaborate, and build technological inventions with leaders, companies, and peers in the tech community. Hackathons have been sweeping the nation in the recent years especially at the collegiate level; however, there is no substantial research or documentation of the actual effects of hackathons especially at the collegiate level. This makes justifying the usage of valuable time and resources to host hackathons difficult for tech companies and academic institutions. This thesis specifically examines the effects of collegiate hackathons through running a collegiate hackathon known as Desert Hacks at Arizona State University (ASU). The participants of Desert Hacks were surveyed at the start and at the end of the event to analyze the effects. The results of the survey implicate that participants have grown in base computer programming skills, inclusion in the tech community, overall confidence, and motivation for the technological field. Through these results, this study can be used to help justify the necessity of collegiate hackathons and events similar.
ContributorsLe, Peter Thuan (Author) / Atkinson, Robert (Thesis director) / Chavez-Echeagaray, Maria Elena (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
In today's world, technology plays a large role in everyone's life. However, there is a short supply of professionals to fill the roles in the computing field. When examining closer, it is clear that one group has a smaller representation: women. This can be contributed to many factors early in the women's lives and academic careers. In hopes of increasing the number of women computing professionals, this thesis aimed to understand the problem of a lack of women in technology and studied how hackathons could be a possible solution. The research followed Desert Hacks as it examines the typical participants as well as the hackathons effects on women's morale in technology. Two important questions during the investigation were what kind of women are attending hackathons and how do women feel about the technology industry after a hackathon? The results suggested that hackathon had an overall positive effect on women's motivation in the computing field. Additionally, most research participants believed that everyone has the potential to do well in the field and that gender inclusion is important for the industry. This ideology can foster a healthy environment for women to become more motivated in computing. Through these results, hackathons can be seen as another mean to help motivate women in the field and open up the possibility of future studies of women and hackathons.
ContributorsVo, Thong Bach (Author) / Atkinson, Robert (Thesis director) / Chavez-Echeagaray, Maria Elena (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
Smartphone privacy is a growing concern around the world; smartphone applications routinely take personal information from our phones and monetize it for their own profit. Worse, they're doing it legally. The Terms of Service allow companies to use this information to market, promote, and sell personal data. Most users seem to be either unaware of it, or unconcerned by it. This has negative implications for the future of privacy, particularly as the idea of smart home technology becomes a reality. If this is what privacy looks like now, with only one major type of smart device on the market, what will the future hold, when the smart home systems come into play. In order to examine this question, I investigated how much awareness/knowledge smartphone users of a specific demographic (millennials aged 18-25) knew about their smartphone's data and where it goes. I wanted three questions answered: - For what purposes do millennials use their smartphones? - What do they know about smartphone privacy and security? - How will this affect the future of privacy? To accomplish this, I gathered information using a distributed survey to millennials attending Arizona State University. Using statistical analysis, I exposed trends for this demographic, discovering that there isn't a lack of knowledge among millennials; most are aware that smartphone apps can collect and share data and many of the participants are not comfortable with the current state of smartphone privacy. However, more than half of the study participants indicated that they never read an app's Terms of Service. Due to the nature of the privacy vs. convenience argument, users will willingly agree to let apps take their personal in- formation, since they don't want to give up the convenience.
ContributorsJones, Scott Spenser (Author) / Atkinson, Robert (Thesis director) / Chavez-Echeagaray, Maria Elena (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
A lot of strides have been made in enabling technologies to aid individuals with visual impairment live an independent life. The advent of smart devices and participatory web has especially facilitated the possibility of new interactions to aide everyday tasks. Current systems however tend to be complex and require multiple cumbersome devices which invariably come with steep learning curves. Building new cyber-human systems with simple integrated interfaces while keeping in mind the specific requirements of the target users would help alleviate their mundane yet significant daily needs. Navigation is one such significant need that forms an integral part of everyday life and is one of the areas where individuals with visual impairment face the most discomfort. There is little technology out there to help travelers with navigating new routes. A number of research prototypes have been proposed but none of them are available to the general population. This may be due to the need for special equipment that needs expertise before deployment, or trained professionals needing to calibrate devices or because of the fact that the systems are just not scalable. Another area that needs assistance is the field of education. Lot of the classroom material and textbook material is not readily available in alternate formats for use. Another such area that requires attention is information delivery in the age of web 2.0. Popular websites like Facebook, Amazon, etc are designed with sighted people as target audience. While the mobile editions with their pared down versions make it easier to navigate with screen readers, the truth remains that there is still a long way to go in making such websites truly accessible.
ContributorsPaladugu, Devi Archana (Author) / Li, Baoxin (Thesis advisor) / Hedgpeth, Terri (Committee member) / Atkinson, Robert (Committee member) / Walker, Erin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The gameplay experience can be understood as an interaction between player and game design characteristics. A greater understanding of these characteristics can be gained through empirical means. Subsequently, an enhanced knowledge of these characteristics should enable the creation of games that effectively generate desirable experiences for players. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between gameplay enjoyment and the individual characteristics of gaming goal orientations, game usage, and gender. A total of 301 participants were surveyed and the data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). This led to an expanded Gameplay Enjoyment Model (GEM) with 41 game features, an overarching Enjoyment factor, and 9 specific components, including Challenge, Companionship, Discovery, Fantasy, Fidelity, Identity, Multiplayer, Recognition, and Strategy. Furthermore, the 3x2 educational goal orientation framework was successfully applied to a gaming context. The resulting 3x2 Gaming Goal Orientations (GGO) model consists of 18 statements that describe players' motivations for gaming, which are distributed across the six dimensions of Task-Approach, Task-Avoidance, Self-Approach, Self-Avoidance, Other-Approach, and Other-Avoidance. Lastly, players' individual characteristics were used to predict gameplay enjoyment, which resulted in the formation of the GEM-Individual Characteristics (GEM-IC) model. In GEM-IC, the six GGO dimensions were the strongest predictors. Meanwhile, game usage variables like multiplayer, genre, and platform preference, were minimal to moderate predictors. Although commonly appearing in games research, gender and game time commitment variables failed to predict enjoyment. The results of this study enable important work to be conducted involving game experiences and player characteristics. After several empirical iterations, GEM is considered suitable to employ as a research and design tool. In addition, GGO should be useful to researchers interested in how player motivations relate to gameplay experiences. Moreover, GEM-IC points to several variables that may prove useful in future research. Accordingly, it is posited that researchers will derive more meaningful insights on games and players by investigating detailed, context-specific characteristics as compared to general, demographic ones. Ultimately, it is believed that GEM, GGO, and GEM-IC will be useful tools for researchers and designers who seek to create effective gameplay experiences that meet the needs of players.
ContributorsQuick, John (Author) / Atkinson, Robert (Thesis advisor) / McNamara, Danielle (Committee member) / Nelson, Brian (Committee member) / Savenye, Wilhelmina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The purpose of this experimental study was to investigate the effects of textual and visual annotations on Spanish listening comprehension and vocabulary acquisition in the context of an online multimedia listening activity. 95 students who were enrolled in different sections of first year Spanish classes at a community college and a large southwestern university were randomly assigned to one of four versions of an online multimedia listening activity that contained textual and visual annotations of several key words. Students then took a comprehension and vocabulary posttest and a survey to measure cognitive load and general attitudes towards the program. Results indicated that textual annotations had a significant positive effect on listening comprehension and that visual annotations had a significant positive effect on how successful students felt. No statistically significant differences were found for other variables. Participants also reported positive attitudes towards vocabulary annotations and expressed a desire to see more annotations during multimedia listening activities of this type. These findings provide further evidence of the impact that multimedia may have on language acquisition. These findings have implications for multimedia design and for future research. Language listening activities should include a variety of vocabulary annotations that may help students to understand what they hear and to help them learn new vocabulary. Further research is needed outside of the laboratory, in the online and increasingly-mobile language learning environment in order to align the research with the environment in which many students currently study. The incorporation of motivation into multimedia learning theory and cognitive load should be explored, as well as new measures of cognitive load.
ContributorsCottam, Michael Evan (Author) / Savenye, Wilhelmina (Thesis advisor) / Klein, James D. (Committee member) / Atkinson, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010