Shaping the future learning environments with smart elements: challenges and opportunities

Interrelationships among College Students' Perceptions of Smart Classroom Environments, Perceived Usefulness of Mobile Technology, Achievement Emotions, and Cognitive Engagement

Cognitive engagement is a crucial factor that shapes successful learning outcomes, but our understanding of the factors that influence such engagement in the smart classroom context remains limited. This study aims to narrow this research gap by exploring the relationships among college students' perceptions of the smart learning environment, perceived usefulness of mobile technology, achievement emotions, and cognitive engagement. A total of 1293 college students completed an online questionnaire survey, and 1076 valid responses were received. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the interrelationships among these factors. The results revealed that students' perceptions of the smart classroom environment and perceived usefulness of mobile technology as well as two achievement emotions (pride and anxiety) significantly impact cognitive engagement. Both pride and anxiety act as mediators in the relationships among perceptions of smart classroom environments, the perceived usefulness of mobile technology, and cognitive engagement, in which context the mediating effect of pride is stronger than that of anxiety. These findings have practical implications for instructors, who should focus on implementing strategies that promote positive achievement emotions when students use mobile technology in smart classrooms. Additionally, these findings can inform the design and construction of smart classroom environments. Moreover, our study has limitations due to reliance on online data collection and self-reported data, which may introduce biases and measurement errors. Future research should incorporate multimodal data and advanced technologies for a comprehensive assessment to better understand students' engagement in smart learning environments, while also considering individual factors and the educational context to enhance the effectiveness of mobile technology in supporting students' emotions and achievement.

In-between worlds: Chilean university lecturers' experiences of teaching transition between face-to-face and virtual reality contexts during the COVID-19 pandemic

The advent of new technology is breaking the boundaries of traditional teaching and learning patterns with virtual worlds (VW) creating new frontiers in education. Previous research has explored the use of VW within educational settings. However, limited studies have investigated the transition processes that educators experience by adopting VW based online tools during the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative exploratory study investigated 18 Chilean lecturers' teaching experiences using a three-dimensional computer-mediated environment: Second Life. Findings suggest that changing from traditional to virtual teaching context is a complex process, which (re)shaped the lecturers' various senses of identity and agency towards different instructional approaches resulting in the sense of in-betweenness with multiple digital competencies. These changes indicated that they taught in an 'in-between' mode mapped by different teaching mediations. The participants' teaching experiences of shaping a sense of in-betweenness could provide a unique theoretical lens to explore instructors' teaching experiences from traditional to a technology-mediated online setting.

Towards a comprehensive perspective to making learning a part of life: a response to Fischer et al.'s contribution

Purpose

This response paper aims to comment on specific aspects of the position paper.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the author presents a response to Fischer et al.'s contribution on “The Challenge for the Digital Age: Making Learning a Part of Life.” While imperatives and narratives of learning in the future have been well articulated in the literature, their paper provides insights into lifelong learning in the digital age.

Findings

The author raises comments on the comprehensiveness of the lifelong learning perspectives and the calls to action. Over the years, with multiyear efforts on the research-based evolution of the design, implementation and adoption of technology-supported learning environments in some parts of the world, the author believes well-researched innovative pedagogy and design principles have already to some extent impacted transformation of learning and teaching in normal schools. By referring to the work in the running of a model school in Taiwan, the author demonstrate some of the pathways that can guide innovation and work towards operationalizing a futuristic vision that is resonant with the one painted in the paper. The paper will end with some comments on how narratives on the future of learning will evolve.

Originality/value

In trying to understand the lens that the vision would bring to learning on the digital edge, the author has provided commentaries to probe into the comprehensiveness of their vision of future learning. From an Asian perspective, the author describes one effort that can help make progress in moving towards this vision. It involves realizing the vision by grounding our designs in real experiments or instantiations, such as the interest-driven creator (IDC) experimental school in Taiwan, and highlight past research efforts which have been successful in transformation of classrooms and schools such as developing seamless learning for connecting learning in different spaces afforded by mobile digital devices.

How teachers manage their classroom in the digital learning environment – experiences from the University Smart Learning Project

The development of modern technologies facilitated for teachers to integrate and use them in managing their teaching classroom. The aim of this paper is to explore how teachers in the Khon Kaen University (KKU) Smart Learning Project use the smart learning concept and innovation to manage their classroom in the digital learning environment. The qualitative research was conducted to clarify the teaching process of teachers in Grade 7–9 at junior high schools using KKU Smart Learning with three subjects (namely, Mathematics, Science, and English). Consequently, 18 in-depth interviews and six observations were done. The results of this research showed that teachers applied and used the basis of KKU Smart Learning technologies, contents, and guidelines to manage their classroom, including design teaching activities in accordance with the learners’ characteristics; create a pleasant learning atmosphere to enhance their thinking ability, knowledge and skills; organize learning activities and solve problematic situations; promote learning motivation; develop and evaluate learners' competence. However, the classroom management of teachers faced with some problems concerning the limitation of internet connection, lack of digital devices and digital literacy of teachers and learners. The findings of this paper have implications for educators, administrators, teachers and stakeholders to design holistic solutions to enhance the quality of educational activities and academic performance.

A Study on Mobile Resources for Language Education of Preschool Children Based on Wireless Network Technology in Artificial Intelligence Context

Preschool language education is a requirement of basic education reform as well as a requirement for children's growth in all aspects of body and mind. It is extremely important and valuable in encouraging the entire growth of preschool education as well as children's general harmonious development. The degree of informatization is changing day by day, and many information technology concepts and tools have entered the preschool education field. The Internet, electronic school bags, ECE whiteboards, terminal devices, and rich digital resources and tools have been introduced into kindergarten classrooms. The continuous advancement and application of information technology have provided the feasibility of building a smart learning environment for kindergartens. To this end, this paper starts from the core concepts and theoretical foundations of preschool education and sorts out the concepts of learning resources, smart learning, and smart learning environments. Learning theory, teaching theory, and activity theory provide the theoretical foundation for the creation of language learning tools in preschool education. The technologies of campus network, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and rich media are examined under the role and inspiration of smart learning environment to provide theoretical support for scientific design of smart language learning environment in preschool education.

Asynchronous Delivery of a 400 Level, Partially Peer-Graded, Oral Presentation and Discussion Course in Systems Neuroscience for 60 Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic

A 400-level undergraduate oral presentation and discussion course in Systems Neuroscience was delivered asynchronously online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Enrolled students banked their narrated oral presentations in video format online then engaged in peer evaluation in virtual classrooms through the course website. Student delivered their oral presentation and responded to peer questions at their leisure and convenience, without the stress and anxiety associated with a "live" performance delivery in front of their peers. A remote and asynchronously delivered course facilitated much more peer contact than "live" versions of the course, which included a total of 62 uploaded presentations, 301 video responses uploaded to 1985 questions posed by peers, a total of 1159 feedback questionnaires submitted, 1066 rankings submitted of viewed oral presentations, and 1091 scores submitted evaluating the quality of questions posed by reviewers of oral presentations. A major drawback in the remote, asynchronous deliver was the enormity of peer engagement through the course website portal, which was mostly blind to the instructor because of the inability to effectively cross-index data linked between the student entries in the LEARN course website and the uploaded videos stored within BONGO Video Assignment tool. Nonetheless, a consistent engagement of students, and the positive feedback from enrolled students, indicate that a future version of this oral/written discussion course will be delivered, in part, remotely and asynchronously, even without a mandated delivery of the course by a remote and asynchronous method due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in 2020-2021.