This research aims to build a Wireless Technology Enhanced Classroom (WiTEC) that supports everyday activities unobtrusively and seamlessly in classroom contexts. This paper describes the integration of wireless LAN, wireless mobile learning devices, an electronic whiteboard, an interactive classroom server, and a resource and class management server to build the WiTEC. This contains a number of features that can support class members in various types of teaching and learning activities. Project-based learning is taken as a scenario to elaborate how teachers and students can engage in teaching and learning via WiTEC. Finally, a number of suggestions are discussed for further study.
The most recent advances in information technology have brought wireless communication and mobile devices to education. The wireless technology enhanced classroom (WiTEC) integrates a wireless local area network, mobile learning devices, and client-server architecture to support instruction and learning activities. This article introduces a framework that involves three learning activity levels-learning functions, learning episodes, and learning flows-as a basis for designing an integrated system that supports various types of learning activities in WiTEC. A teacher can use this system to generate new learning flows before class and to implement them during class. A two-stage evaluation was conducted in three 6th grade classes to investigate the usability and feasibility of the proposed system. The participating teachers indicated that the use of the three learning activity levels eased the burden of preparing, implementing and reviewing instruction and learning activities.
1 : 1 educational computing refers to a scenario where every student in a group or class uses a computing device equipped with wireless communication capability to conduct a learning task. This paper, drawing from design experiences with our digital classroom environment series and other studies, attempts to describe a few valuable 1 : 1 design perspectives for educational computing inside the classroom. We try to describe the major components of the 1 : 1 digital classroom environment and classify the most important component, student devices, according to a set of features. Furthermore, based on the notion of computing affordance, a set of communication affordances are described. This set underpins three basic educational activities, namely: teacher-directed instruction, small group learning and individual learning. Finally, scenarios are exemplified for a few typical educational computing devices. This study concludes with a discussion of short-and long-term research possibilities.
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