Matching Items (49)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Education
- Creators: Computer Science and Engineering Program
- Creators: Blasingame, James
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
ABSTRACT This study describes student interactions in the academic social network site Edmodo versus student interactions in Facebook. This qualitative case study relies upon four high school juniors enrolled in Advanced Placement Language and Composition who use Edmodo to complete assignments for their English class. Their experiences were gathered in an attempt to describe specific experiences in a complex system. Students were selected using an Internet Connectedness Index survey. Using a Virtual Community of Practice framework, students were asked about their experiences in Edmodo. This study concludes that Edmodo and Facebook can be compared in three categories: accessibility, functionality, and environment. Unlike Facebook, which students access regularly, students access Edmodo only to fulfill the teacher's participation expectations for the specific grade they wish to receive. Additionally, students appreciated the convenience of using Edmodo to complete assignments. The functionality of Edmodo is quite similar in layout and appearance to Facebook, yet students were unaware of the media sharing capability, wished for private messaging options, and desired the ability to tag peers for direct comment using the @ sign, all options that are available in Facebook. Students felt the environment in Edmodo could best be characterized as intellectual and academic, which some mentioned might best be used with honors or AP students. A surprising benefit of Edmodo is the lack of social cues enable students to feel free of judgment when composing writing. Some felt this allowed students to know their classmates better and share their true personae free from judgment of classmates. As a result of the case studies of four students, this study seeks to illustrate how students interact in Edmodo versus Facebook to provide a robust image of the academic social network site for teachers seeking to implement educational technology in their classes.
ContributorsCurran-Sejkora, Elizabeth (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis advisor) / Nilsen, Alleen (Committee member) / Rodrigo, Rochelle (Committee member) / Turchi, Laura (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
The right to write: novice English teachers write to explore their identities in a writing community
Description
ABSTRACT This research studies the effects of a writing community on three novice, middle school, Title I language arts teachers' perceptions of themselves as educators and as writers. The participants wrote on topics of their selection, on a bi-monthly basis, for one semester, to explore their teaching and learning. The teachers are in their first five years of instruction and work in Title I, urban schools with ethnically diverse students. All participants are National Writing Project fellows. The researcher analyzed teachers' journals, narratives, conversations, interviews and pre-surveys to collapse and code the research into themes. Findings suggest that teachers need time and support to write during the school day if they are going to write. They also need a supportive, honest, and friendly audience, the writing community, to feel like writers. Findings generated have implications for teacher preparation programs. The participant, who was not an education major, in her undergraduate program, is the only teacher who feels confident in her writing abilities which she connects to her experience in writing and presenting her work as an English and women's studies major. More teacher education programs should offer more writing courses so that preservice teachers become comfortable with the art of composition. Universities and colleges must foster the identities of both instructor and writer in preservice language arts teachers so that they become more confident in their writing and, in turn, their writing instruction. It may be implausible for novice teachers to be effective writing instructors, and educate their students on effective writing strategies, if they do not feel confident in their writing abilities. Although writing researchers may posit that English teachers act as gatekeepers by withholding writing practices from their students (Early and DeCosta-Smith, 2011), this study suggests that English teachers may not have these writing skills because they do not write and or participate in a writing community. When preservice English teachers are not afforded authentic writing opportunities, they graduate from their teacher education programs without confidence as writers. Once ELA teachers transition into their careers they are, again, not afforded the opportunity to write. In turn, it is difficult for them to teach writing to their students, particularly low-income, minority students who may need additional support from their teachers with composition. K-12 teachers need the time and space to write for themselves, on topics of their selection, during the school day, and then, must be trained on how to use their writing as a model to coach their students.
ContributorsPowell, Mary G (Author) / Roen, Duane (Thesis advisor) / Blasingame, James (Committee member) / Turchi, Laura (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (2001) was a tipping point for the requirement of academic and English language proficiency standards. Yet, there continue to be variations among English language proficiency standards linked and aligned to academic content standards across states, districts, and schools (Golden, 2011). The purpose of this research was to examine how the requirement of only linking language proficiency standards to academic content standards has impacted the quality of Arizona English Language Proficiency Standards with the Common Core English Language Arts State Standards and WIDA Standards at grades 2, 7, and 9. A modified version of Cook's (2007) method was used to determine the standards alignment as well as common and uncommon knowledge between the sets of standard. Results indicate no alignment and limited linkage. Findings also showed absence of grade-level academic content and academic language.
ContributorsNguyen, Tracy Robin (Author) / Arias, M. Beatriz (Thesis advisor) / Blasingame, James (Committee member) / Garcia, Eugene (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
CourseKarma is a web application that engages students in their own learning through peer-driven social networking. The influence of technology on students is advancing faster than the school system, and a major gap still lingers between traditional learning techniques and the fast-paced, online culture of today's generation. CourseKarma enriches the educational experience of today's student by creating a space for collaborative inquiry as well as illuminating the opportunities of self and group learning through online collaboration. The features of CourseKarma foster this student-driven environment. The main focus is on a news-feed and Question and Answer component that provides a space for students to share instant updates as well ask and answer questions of the community. The community can be as broad as the entire ASU student body, as specific as students in BIO155, or even more targeted via specific subjects and or skills. CourseKarma also provides reputation points, which are the sum of all of their votes received, identifying the individual's level and or ranking in each subject or class. This not only gamifies the usual day-to-day learning environment, but it also provides an in-depth analysis of the individual's skills, accomplishments, and knowledge. The community is also able to input and utilize course and professor descriptions/feedback. This will be in a review format providing the students an opportunity to share and give feedback on their experience as well as providing incoming students the opportunity to be prepared for their future classes. All of the student's contributions and collaborative activity within CourseKarma is displayed on their personal profile creating a timeline of their academic achievements. The application was created using modern web programming technologies such as AngualrJS, Javascript, jQuery, Bootstrap, HTML5, CSS3 for the styling and front-end development, Mustache.js for client side templating, and Firebase AngularFire as the back-end and NoSQL database. Other technologies such as Pivitol Tracker was used for project management and user story generation, as well as, Github for version control management and repository creation. Object-oreinted programming concepts were heavily present in the creation of the various data structures, as well as, a voting algorithm was used to manage voting of specific posts. Down the road, CourseKarma could even be a necessary add-on within LinkedIn or Facebook that provides a quick yet extremely in-depth look at an individuals' education, skills, and potential to learn \u2014 based all on their actual contribution to their academic community rather than just a text they wrote up.
ContributorsCho, Sungjae (Author) / Mayron, Liam (Thesis director) / Lobock, Alan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Arts, Media and Engineering (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The two authors completed the entirety of their schooling within the United States, from preschool to university. Both authors experienced loss of interest towards their education each successive year and assumed the nature of learning and education was to blame. The two students took a class on the Kashiwagi Information Measurement Theory their second years at Arizona State University and applied the concepts taught in that class to past experiences in the United States education system to determine the cause behind their waning interest in their education. Using KSM principles the authors identified that the environment produced by and ineffectual and inefficient educational system is what resulted in their, and the majority of their peers, growing dissatisfaction in their education. A negative correlation was found between GPA and control. As the control in a students environment increased, their GPA decreased. The data collected in this thesis also supports the conclusions that as a student is exposed to a high stress environment, their GPA and average amount of sleep per night decrease.
ContributorsKulanathan, Shivaan (Co-author) / Westlake, Kyle (Co-author) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / Gunnoe, Jake (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Education in computer science is a difficult endeavor, with learning a new programing language being a barrier to entry, especially for college freshman and high school students. Learning a first programming language requires understanding the syntax of the language, the algorithms to use, and any additional complexities the language carries. Often times this becomes a deterrent from learning computer science at all. Especially in high school, students may not want to spend a year or more simply learning the syntax of a programming language. In order to overcome these issues, as well as to mitigate the issues caused by Microsoft discontinuing their Visual Programming Language (VPL), we have decided to implement a new VPL, ASU-VPL, based on Microsoft's VPL. ASU-VPL provides an environment where users can focus on algorithms and worry less about syntactic issues. ASU-VPL was built with the concepts of Robot as a Service and workflow based development in mind. As such, ASU-VPL is designed with the intention of allowing web services to be added to the toolbox (e.g. WSDL and REST services). ASU-VPL has strong support for multithreaded operations, including event driven development, and is built with Microsoft VPL users in mind. It provides support for many different robots, including Lego's third generation robots, i.e. EV3, and any open platform robots. To demonstrate the capabilities of ASU-VPL, this paper details the creation of an Intel Edison based robot and the use of ASU-VPL for programming both the Intel based robot and an EV3 robot. This paper will also discuss differences between ASU-VPL and Microsoft VPL as well as differences between developing for the EV3 and for an open platform robot.
ContributorsDe Luca, Gennaro (Author) / Chen, Yinong (Thesis director) / Cheng, Calvin (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12
Description
This project created a teaching curriculum resource guide for using the popular series, The Hunger Games, in 6th-8th grade classrooms to introduce cultural issues such as child soldiers and international development to students. Studies have shown that literature can cultivate empathy and encourage youth to act. This combined with the expanding phenomenon of participatory culture and fandom activism as outlined by Henry Jenkins demonstrate the potential for youth to learn and act when given the opportunity and resources to do so. The curriculum is composed of three units: The first is a three-week reading of the books with various activities for students to really understand the narrative and source text. The second and third units address the issues of child soldiers and international development using The Hunger Games as a framework and a keystone to build connections so that these complex issues are accessible to youth. This project is a first step in the development of a curriculum that spans the full trilogy and covers a variety of current event topics.
ContributorsSimpson, Rebecca (Author) / Sivak, Henry (Thesis director) / Blasingame, James (Committee member) / Nelson, Margaret (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
A creative project that is the culmination of undergraduate studies in science fiction, young adult fiction, and literary fiction theory. A novel-length science fiction manuscript detailing the effects of a global catastrophe known as the Comeback, a planetary reaction to excessive pollution that results in hyper-accelerated plant growth and natural disasters; a story about the journey of a young girl growing up in a post-Comeback world.
ContributorsNguyen, Lena Dong-Giao (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis director) / Eschrich, Joseph (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Despite the advancement of online tools for activities related to the core experience of taking classes on a college campus, there has been a relatively small amount of research into implementing online tools for ancillary academic resources (e.g. tutoring centers, review sessions, etc.). Previous work and a study conducted for this paper indicates that there is value in creating these online tools but that there is value in maintaining an in-person component to these services. Based on this, a system which provides personalized, easily-accessible, simple access to these services is proposed. Designs for user-centered online-tools that provides access to and interaction with tutoring centers and review sessions are described and prototypes are developed to demonstrate the application of design principles for online tools for academic services.
ContributorsBerk, Nicholas Robert (Author) / Balasooriya, Janaka (Thesis director) / Eaton, John (Committee member) / Walker, Erin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
Education has been at the forefront of many issues in Arizona over the past several years with concerns over lack of funding sparking the Red for Ed movement. However, despite the push for educational change, there remain many barriers to education including a lack of visibility for how Arizona schools are performing at a legislative district level. While there are sources of information released at a school district level, many of these are limited and can become obscure to legislators when such school districts lie on the boundary between 2 different legislative districts. Moreover, much of this information is in the form of raw spreadsheets and is often fragmented between government websites and educational organizations. As such, a visualization dashboard that clearly identifies schools and their relative performance within each legislative district would be an extremely valuable tool to legislative bodies and the Arizona public. Although this dashboard and research are rough drafts of a larger concept, they would ideally increase transparency regarding public information about these districts and allow legislators to utilize the dashboard as a tool for greater understanding and more effective policymaking.
ContributorsColyar, Justin Dallas (Author) / Michael, Katina (Thesis director) / Maciejewski, Ross (Committee member) / Tate, Luke (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05