The Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association Conference

Role of Social Media in Addressing Educational Inequality: A Critical Examination of Marginalized Teens’ Social Media Usage

Daeun Jung — 2024-10-09

Although digital technology is valorized for its promises in empowering individual learners and democratize educational opportunities, such hopeful imaginaries need to be critically revisited. What is the role of social media in addressing educational inequality? This study aims to unravel the question by examining the role of social media in the college choice system of potential first-generation college students. The study adopts a multiple case study approach, engaging with eleven high school seniors, whose parents did not complete a four-year college/university. Two interviews and a week of social media diary data were collected. The themes revealed the teens’ contradictory views toward the role of social media in their college choice system: (a) abundant but insufficient information, (b) helpful but not impactful for college choice, and (c) inspiring but distressing experiences. The contradictions uncover the important role of in-person support system and resources embedded in marginalized teens’ college choice system, underscoring the pre-existing inequalities in their social contexts. Based on the results, I critically discuss the role of social media in addressing educational inequality, particularly the optimism around digital informal learning, and provide suggestions for formal schooling to enhance marginalized teens’ college access.

Considering a Reboot: Using Design-Thinking Strategies to Maintain a Dynamic, Industry-Relevant, Game Design Curriculum

Christopher Marsh — 2024-10-16

The gaming industry, expected to exceed $300 billion in global revenue by 2025, offers unique challenges and opportunities for academic programs and the traditional collegiate curriculum development process. This research discusses how game design curricula can evolve to meet those demands through sustainability and preparing graduates to be skilled and conscious of their impact and opportunities in the field.

Evolving our Understanding of Technology-Integrated Assessment: A Review of the Literature and Development of a New Framework

Colin Madland — 2024-09-27

In this paper, we review the literature on technology in assessment in higher education and compare how the literature aligns with the assessment in a digital world framework (Bearman et al., 2022). We found themes in the literature that were not present in the framework (e.g., academic integrity and faculty workload) and constructs in the framework not evident in the literature (e.g., future self and future activities). Additionally, we consider other gaps in both the framework and the literature evident in day-to-day practices and government legislation or mandates, such as considering legal or ethical aspects of duty of care and the integration of Indigenous worldviews. We then developed the technology-integrated assessment framework to help instructors and administrators consider a broader range of constructs when planning assessment strategies in technology-integrated learning environments and to serve as a basis for further investigation into how the different constructs within the framework contribute to how we design, implement, and teach about assessment in digital learning environments today. We present an introduction of this technology-integrated assessment framework and discuss future research goals and opportunities.

Developing Scales of Learner Modality Preferences and Perspectives on Online Learning

Valerie Irvine — 2024-09-22

While the COVID-19 pandemic significantly transformed post-secondary course delivery formats, little attention has been paid to post-pandemic learner preferences. To address this gap, we designed two scales to advance our understanding of learner preferences for online learning modalities: the Modalities of Digital Education – Learner Preference (MODE-LP) scale and the Perceptions of Online Learning Scale (POLS). In this proceeding, we describe the development and piloting of these scales, including how they can provide a nuanced understanding of learner preferences for online programs, courses, and course designs and the key underlying factors that impact them. We conclude with a snapshot of preliminary results and a discussion of future research.

Creating Capacity for Digital Transformation of Education: Mode and Disciplinary Barriers in the Development of Highly Qualified Personnel

Hongran Cui — 2024-09-30

Educational institutions and training programs have faced an accelerated transformation toward the integration of technology. However, it is unclear whether the capacity to train qualified personnel to support this digital transformation in education. In this session, we review university websites across Canada looking at the availability of online PhD programs in Education Technology. Findings indicate only one is offered online only (5% or 1 out of 20) and two provide students with the possibility to study in a blended format for their PhD program, which is 10% (2 out of 20) of all Canadian universities that have PhD programs. Only 5% (1 out of 20) of Canadian institutions provide a PhD program in educational technology; however, this is offered on campus only. While this review excludes the EdD pathway, we did find two EdD programs in educational technology that could be accessed entirely online and one blended program. As technological and conceptual shifts of entire sectors that prioritize digital learning and digital literacy (e.g., B.C. Digital Learning Strategy), there is significant demand for PhD qualified individuals to lead or execute these initiatives. As such, there needs to be more discussion about how to make PhD study more accessible, specifically in educational technology.