Glenda A. Gunter

University of Central Florida | UCF · College of Education

This chapter presents an actionable framework that evolved as part of a partnership focused on creating a planned, innovative community in southwest Florida. Through a series of discussions that took place during a planning charrette hosted by the community developer, the framework suggests a multi-faceted approach to sustainable and resilient comm...

The authors define Problem Based Learning (PBL) as a student-centered, formative, pedagogical approach in which pupils acquire critical and design thinking skills along with content knowledge. The problem focus is similar to cases found in Case-Based Learning (CBL) that has been commonplace for decades in many academic domains. Most of what is foun...

The RETAIN Model is a game design and evaluation model for serious games. In this study, educators evaluated social change web-based and mobile app games using the RETAIN model rubric. In general, web-based games scored higher on the RETAIN rubric than their mobile app counterparts. In addition, the educators analyzed the social change games for th...

With the ever-growing interest in WhatsApp as a social space to accommodate pedagogical initiatives, the role of emojis as an emergent Internet language in this social space needs to be better understood as mobile technologies have been integrated in education. With that in mind, this paper reports a study that employed an embedded correlational mi...

Being faced with the recent need to rapidly (and with little notice) move from teaching face-to-face (f2f) to an online environment, instructional designers and instructors have been confronted with the need to learn quickly how to more ambitiously approach combining course subject matter with the most effective means to engage with and immerse stu...

With the ever-growing interest in WhatsApp as a social space to accommodate pedagogical initiatives, the role of emojis as an emergent Internet language in this social space needs to be better understood as mobile technologies have been integrated in education. With that in mind, this paper reports a study that employed an embedded correlational mi...

Drawing on the seven “new learning” affordances in Cope and Kalantzis (E-learning ecologies: Principles for new learning and assessment, Routledge, pp. 1–45, 2017), an agenda for integrating digital technologies in the classroom, this chapter presents teacher education initiatives via WhatsApp, part of Taba Móvel, a Brazilian project which seeks to...

As instructional designers continue to assess their design process, the need only intensifies for having a deeper understanding of how it connects to the relationships evolving among the instructors, students, peers, content, and the technology they use. The lenses of these relationships are alterable, especially as defined by the latter. We adopt...

Research has shown that quality instructor–student interactions far outweigh many other considerations in attaining positive learning outcomes. Although this may be inherently obvious, little has been shown in the literature to indicate that instructor/teacher preparation programs in general dedicate much time on how to train teachers the actual pr...

Historically, knowledge has been viewed as an asset in that, once it is “owned” (i.e., acquired) by an individual, it can never be taken away (Rowley, 2000). First and foremost, we need to distinguish between the concepts of information acquisition and knowledge acquisition. The latter is the third in a five-step process of deep learning with data,...

The RETAIN Model is a game design and evaluation model for serious games. In this study, educators evaluated social change web-based and mobile app games using the RETAIN model rubric. In general, web-based games scored higher on the RETAIN rubric than their mobile app counterparts. In addition, the educators analyzed the social change games for th...

Despite society’s adoption of mobile devices, we have yet to learn whether teachers perceive these artifacts as an innovation and what their potential is for teacher development and practice. This study aims to answer the following questions: what does mobile application affordances teachers perceive for their professional development and practice?...

As we move into the second decade of the twenty-first century, educational institutions and especially colleges of education have been under a lot of pressure to update, change, and relook at the way they deliver teacher educational practices. In the process, state departments of education (DOEs) are perceived to be micromanaging these organization...

This quasi-experimental study examined the impact of interactions with native French language Facebook posts on beginning French language learners’ attitudes towards the target language and culture. Participants in this study were recruited from two sections of FRE 1120, Elementary French Language and Civilization I at the University of Central Flo...

One who studies the history of learning recognizes that story is the one of the oldest and most elemental forms of knowing. Story and storytelling precede the art of writing, with the earliest forms of story consisting of the combination oral speech, gestures, and facial expressions. For thousands of years, storying has “…evolutionarily rewired the...

Inservice K-12 educators participated in a pilot study that incorporated digital story development and creation to build STEM and interdisciplinary content knowledge. Prior to completing their STEM-based narrative, the teachers developed their story through using online timelines, storyboarding, and advanced organizers. Next the teachers developed...

Integrating console games into educational settings has been increasingly both applauded and criticized. The vast interest in game playing of people of all ages appears to be a motivating source for educators and trainers to find ways to effectively integrate serious games into their educational settings in order to inspire their own students towar...

As we move further into the twenty-first century, businesses continue to seek employees with global experience and intercultural competence, but the reality is that many students are unable to gain this experience through study abroad programs for a variety of reasons. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is value in using web confer...

There is a trend to use mobile devices in K-12 classrooms and create 1:1 learning experiences. Current research has focused on creating student collaborative efforts and increasing engagemen t when learning using the iPad, as well as the user-friendly characteristics and the tremendous number of apps available. There continues to be a need for empi...

Educators are eager to understand how technology is being used in PK-12 classrooms in the US. Administrators, in particular, are interested in determining the most effective methods for educating teachers to integrate newer technologies into their curriculums. Research supports that students learn best when the process is hands-on, interactive and...

Combining games with mobile devices can promote learning opportunities at the learners' fingertips and enable ubiquitous learning experiences. As teachers increasingly assign games to reinforce language learning, it becomes essential to evaluate how effective these applications are in helping students learn the content or develop the skills that th...

Recently, the many robust learning management systems, and the availability of affordable laptops, have made secure laptop-based testing a reality on many campuses. The undergraduate nursing program at the authors' university began to implement a secure laptop-based testing program in 2009, which allowed students to use their newly purchased laptop...

The purpose of this study was to examine factors that might impact student knowledge sharing within virtual teams through online discussion boards. These factors include: trust, mutual influence, conflict, leadership, and cohesion. A path model was developed to determine whether relationships. exist among knowledge sharing from asynchronous group d...

Educational research strongly suggests that the creativity and problem-solving abilities in young children in the United States have decreased dramatically over the past 50 years. There exists a vast difference in opinion regarding the definition of what it means to be creative and its related measurement in the fields of science technology math an...

Newer social media have brought about attention deficits brought on by a flood of distractions, such as text messaging, blogging, and browsing on mobile devices and laptops brought into the classroom. It appears that online learning places the same demands on learners’ ability to remain on-task and focused. While following up on assessing the benef...

When combining the increasing use of online educational environments, the push to use serious video games and the lack of research on the effectiveness of online learning environments and video games, there is a clear need for further investigation into the use of serious video games in an online format. A mix methods model was used to triangulate...

Attempts to increase motivation in reluctant readers have been the focus of many local, state and federal reading research initiatives. Only recently have researchers and educators come to understand that many of these same issues also face teachers of gifted and talented learners. Frequently, students who are bright and talented but do not perform...

In this article the author presents a meta-analysis of the findings from several studies conducted over multiple years with various types of learners that investigated exemplar/signature pedagogical practices incorporating video to motivate otherwise reluctant and struggling learners. Noting that newer technologies are making today's learners less...

Video games are one of the fastest growing elements of informal, virtual learning. While their popularity in informal learning situations continues to grow, adoption in the K-12 classrooms remains stagnant. We attribute this to two separate but inter-related phenomena. Game designers and developers fail to incorporate important pedagogic components...

We are witnessing a mad rush to pour educational content into games in an ad hoc manner in hopes that player/learners are motivated simply because the content is housed inside a game. A failure to base educational game design on well-established learning and instructional theories increases the risk of the game failing to meet its intended educatio...

New learning and communications paradigms of today's learners are extending the definition of literacy and directly affecting how reading and writing skills are acquired (Leu, 2000). Mirroring an ever-expanding definition of literacy, new college and K-12 curricular programs that redefine digital media are popping up all over the country. Story is...

Current research has explored the impact of instructional immediacy, defined as those behaviors that help build close relationships or feelings of closeness, both on cognition and motivation in the traditional classroom and online classroom; however, online courses continue to suffer from higher dropout rates. Based on Albert Bandura's Social Cogni...

Drawing from the Technology Acceptance Model, this correlational study was intended to determine student users' adoption of WebCT and its relationship to their final grade. In acknowledging the relevance of human-computer interaction, the author attempted to investigate a belief-attitude-behavior relationship in a WebCT setting. Given a social lear...

Five factors affecting student use of an eLearning management system in two Web-enhanced hybrid undergraduate courses are investigated using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This research represents a causal relationship existing between students' attitude toward WebCT and their actual use of the system. Students' perception of the WebCT use,...

The purpose of this article is to report the successful creation and implementation of an instructional model designed to assist educators in infusing technology into the curriculum while at the same time create opportunities for faculty to learn, become more proficient, and successful at integrating technology into their own classroom curriculum....

To prepare future teachers for today s technology driven society, Colleges of Education must produce technology proficient teachers, which involves a change in the attitude of educators, increased access to technology rich K-12 schools, and creating positive attitudes on the part of preservice teachers. The purpose of this study was to determine wh...

The goal of the video in the classroom video project at an elementary school was to increase student achievement by making learning come alive to students, have learners actively engaged in the process of learning through authentic learning experiences, and make that learning have meaning to their lives. Fifth grade students created group video lit...

To prepare educators for the twenty-first century, colleges of education must be leaders of change by providing pre-service teachers with a technology-enriched curriculum. Many pre-service teachers continue to enter institutions of higher learning lacking positive attitudes, proper skills, and knowledge of the use of computers. The purpose of this...

In view of the phenomenal growth of the World Wide Web, web‐based instruction has gained a great deal of popularity in many educational discussions. Creating effective instruction via the web requires that faculty spend a great deal of time planning and developing strategies to address this new environment with new instructional techniques. Web‐bas...

This pilot study examined variables that could influence attitudes toward learning and working with computers of preservice teachers at the beginning and end of an introduction to educational technology computer course taught at the University of Central Florida's College of Education during Summer 1997. The variables examined in the study were com...

In the United States, numerous areas are experiencing a critical shortage of skilled workers. Unfortunately, many schools are not graduating sufficient students with the necessary basic and technology skills needed by businesses and industry. As a result, a number of rural regions in the United States are at risk of becoming economic ghost towns of...

The role of administrators is critical to the successful acceptance, adoption, integration and implementation of technology by teachers. Technology leadership that models, supports and expects computer technology use results in more effective curriculum integration of the technology by teachers. In order to foster teacher productivity with computer...

We are witnessing a mad rush to pour educational content into games in an ad hoc manner in hopes that players are motivated to learn simply because the content is housed inside a game. A failure to base serious game design on well-established learning theories as proposed by well-respected educators like Robert Gagne and James Keller, increases the...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Technology and Education. Bibliography: leaves 111-116.