Quek, Choon Lang

This book is written keeping in mind prospective educators as well as practicing educators who are seeking a good understanding of how technology enables, mediates or enhances learning. This book provides insights into the global trends as well as Singapore’s journey in the use of technology for teaching and learning. Readers will benefit from the various aspects of using technology for teaching and learning, including the theoretical underpinning, design methods, planning, managing learners, and related issues and challenges. Key considerations for integrating various technological tools are also discussed at length in these chapters.

This is a go-to book for anyone who wants to understand how to enhance teaching and learning with technology.

Computer mediated communication (CMC) tools have marched into schools to provide borderless teaching and learning to complement existing face-to-face interactions. This article describes how teachers have used CMC to facilitate asynchronous online communication among students' collaborative project groups in project-based classrooms. Secondary school teachers used the CMC tool to facilitate and manage students' learning in terms of brainstorming and challenging student ideas, building resources, and working collaboratively to complete group projects.

This study investigates 80 pre-service teachers’ exploration of using a computer mediated communication tool to design interdisciplinary projects collaboratively. Over a period of six weeks, the pre-service teachers assumed their roles as curriculum designers in project crafting. They were engaged in discussions via the online discussion forums and face-to-face tutorial sessions. Amongst their project groups of 4-5 members, they carried out brainstorming of project ideas, asking questions and decision making about their views and ideas of projects. Their online activities and discussions were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The implications and key learning points of their project crafting are discussed in this paper.

Online learning environment is a complex and dynamic learning space for learners to experience social and cognitive processes of knowledge and meaning construction. It has brought about educators’ re-designing of instructional approaches for the emerging constructivist environment Heinich, Molenda, Russell & Smaldino, 2002),translating classroom-based instructions to the Web, incorporating of asynchronous and synchronous communication as well as evaluating web-based instruction (Lynch, 2002). This study investigated 19 pre-service teachers' learning in an online learning environment. These teachers’ online activities were analysed using their individual written reflection logs (end of the module) and a planned forum of discussion notes (out of the three planned forums). Out of the 17 emerging facilitation strategies used by these teachers in this planned forum, 3 highly rated strategies were: Initiating discussions (15.22%), prompting (14.13%) and summarising discussions (10.87%). These teachers also reported 20 facilitation strategies learnt (either by observing their peers’ action taken or acquiring on their own through readings as well as trials and errors) and of which 3 were highly rated: Asking questions (14.71%), summarising (12.75%) and demonstrating leadership (9.8%). It was also found that teacher-facilitators used more strategies than the five strategies introduced to them and they also learnt other facilitation strategies from observing their peers rather than those that they used to facilitate.

This online collaborative project enhances the traditional face-to-face teaching and learning in a typical classroom. It provides an avenue for innovative teaching and learning in the borderless world between Singapore and German secondary schools. Using this cross-cultural context, the project focused on two parts. In the first part, the students from both countries learnt the project skills of argumentative writing, researching on genetically modified food and its related issues. They also learnt to work in collaborative groups in the planning of debate with their overseas counterparts. In the second part, the students engaged in the debate culminating in a "live" exchange using Microsoft Network (MSN) Chat. The local sample consisted of 32 students (aged 13-14)from one class in a typical Singapore high school, while the German sample consisted of 16 students (aged 15-16)from one class in a high school in Neustadt i.H., Germany. The students' responses in this online learning approach were analysed qualitatively. A teachers' resource file was written and a website recording of the exchanges was created. The implications and key learning points of this project will also be discussed in this paper.

The Project work (PW) initiative was introduced by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, to provide students with the opportunities to foster collaborative learning skills, to improve both oral and written communication, to practise creative and critical thinking skills, and to develop self-directed inquiry and life-long learning skills (Ministry of Education, 1999). Although PW has been introduced for a few years, there has not been much research done in the Singapore context, especially in terms of its effect on students’ motivation. To fill the empirical gap, this study examined the extent in which PW promoted students’ intrinsic motivation, as well as satisfied students’ needs for competence, choice and relatedness. Specifically, data was collected from 7 classes of Secondary 2 students with the use of a modified version of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI, McAuley, Duncan, & Tammen, 1989) to assess students’ intrinsic motivation and their perceived choice, competence and relatedness in the PW context and in their normal mathematics or science lessons. Comparisons were made to establish whether there was any significant difference in terms of the students’ experiences in the different learning contexts.

This survey study aims to investigate nursing students’ perceptions of educational experience and satisfaction in a blended course. The modified Community of Inquiry (CoI) and satisfaction questionnaires consist of 5-point Likert scale items, were administered to 224 nursing students. Nursing students were found to have good educational experience (social, cognitive and teaching presences) and satisfaction in this blended course.

With the advancement in technology, learners are spending a substantial amount of time on online learning. Guided by the community of inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 1999), this study examined the relationships among students’ perceived teaching element, social element, cognitive element, satisfaction, continuous academic-related online performance, and academic achievement. A revised form of the CoI survey instrument was administered to 167 polytechnic students (aged between 17 and 24) enrolled in a nutrition course in a polytechnic in Singapore. Results from path analysis confirmed the hypothesised relationships among the three elements of the CoI framework (i.e., social, teaching, and cognitive) and students’ learning related outcomes (i.e., satisfaction, continuous academic-related online performance, and academic achievement). However, only the cognitive element had a direct relationship with continuous academic-related online performance and satisfaction. In addition, the continuous academic-related online performance mediated the relationships between the cognitive element and academic achievement. Generally, the hypothesized model was able to explain 46% of the variance in students’ online course satisfaction and 62% of the variance in students’ academic achievements.

This study examines the influence of both student and teacher perception of the student-teacher relationship on student's attitude towards teachers and school. It also seeks to explore any gender differences in the perception of teacher-student relationship between male and female adolescents. A sample of 1,266 students (541 girls and 725 boys) from six different middle schools in Singapore participated in this study. Findings indicated that gender differences were observed for certain dimensions in the teacher-student relationship predicting their attitude towards teachers and school. Possible explanations for the obtained results were suggested and implications of the findings were also discussed.

In the primary school classrooms, students spend almost three terms (20-25 hours) doing project work in groups o f P 5 . In order for any learning task to be conducted effectively, the students need to know how to work collaboratively in their groups, and teachers need to find out how their students perceive one another while working in their groups. This will in turn help teachers help their students build the interdependence and team spirit needed to develop the correct attitude towards project work. The objectives of this study are to assist teachers to better understand how their students collaborate with one another in their groups, and to suggest strategies to enhance students' collaboration in the classroom. Using one of the standard learning environment instruments, the My Class Inventory (MCI), this study assesses students' perceptions of their actual and preferred learning environments. This paper reports the results and gives suggestions on how the results can be used to assist in developing appropriate strategies to enhance collaboration in project work classrooms.