Jonathan Michael Spector

University of North Texas | UNT · Department of Learning Technologies

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a relatively new phenomenon. The general consensus holds that its field of exploration began in 1956 at a summer conference at Dartmouth College sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Somewhat earlier, Alan Turing sparked interest in AI in a paper published in Mind in 1950 by wondering if a machi...

Mobile learning in higher education has become more popular than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the presence of mobile learning in Chinese higher vocational education is unexplored. Therefore, the aim of this research is to extend the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) by incorporating three sub-dimensions of s...

Replicating research studies is considered one way of establishing validity and confidence of findings in a field of study. In this paper, we introduce a replication framework for classifying studies conducted in the area of educational technology as a possible guide to conducting and reporting replication studies in the field. The paper includes t...

This study provided a content analysis of studies aiming to disclose how artificial intelligence (AI) has been applied to the education sector and explore the potential research trends and challenges of AI in education. A total of 100 papers including 63 empirical papers (74 studies) and 37 analytic papers were selected from the education and educa...

Personalized learning is a learning approach that aims to personalize the learning experience according to the unique needs, goals, and skills of individuals which can be achieved by using current instructional technology that provides unique learning experiences in different learning environments. Technology is the main component that will enable...

Student satisfaction is of great significance in online learning, but few studies have explored its determinants in emerging countries. This study investigated the determinants of university students' satisfaction with online learning platforms in China through applying the Technology Satisfaction Model during the COVID-19 pandemic, when an unprece...

This paper aims at answering the "how" questions about organizing and hosting an online conference during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 3 rd International Pan-Pacific Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (PPTELL) Conference and Critical Thinking Meeting (hereafter PPTELL 2020) hosted from June 29 to July 1, 2020, on Zoom is the example conference use...

This book uncovers the important issues in language learning and teaching in the intelligent, digital era. “Social connectivity” is a contemporary style of learning and living. By engaging in the connectivity of physical and digital worlds, how essential parts of language learning and teaching can be achieved? How can the advanced technologies, suc...

Assessment studies using structural equation modeling and Rasch Model have long been prominent in all areas of educational psychology. Their emphases have covered, but have not been limited to, the improvement of quality in teaching, learning, and research as well as the pursuit of research productivity. However, such methodological approaches have...

Learning is a natural human activity that is shaped by personal experiences, cognitive awareness, personal bias, opinions, cultural background, and environment. Learning has been defined as a stable and persistent change in what a person knows and can do. Learning is formed through an individual’s interactions, including the conveyance of knowledge...

Among the literature on self-regulated learning and social networking, the studies, which explore the impact of social networks on learning regarding connection sizes and relationship-establishing factors, are rarely seen in the context of social networking among strangers. This descriptive study addresses the gap by exploring data from 468 Chinese...

This study examined the impact of cues on learning processes and outcomes in short instructional videos. One hundred and twenty college students were randomly assigned to watch short videos in one of four conditions: 1) no added cues, 2) textual cues, 3) visual cues, and 4) combined textual-&-visual cues. A Tobii X120 eye-tracker was used to record...

The problem motivating this research is the rapid introduction of educational technologies and the strong push to use new technologies in technical and vocational training in China coupled with varied responses and uneven adoption of new tools on the part of practitioners. This study investigated the factors that influence technical and vocational...

Abstract Along with the increasing attention to artificial intelligence (AI), renewed emphasis or reflection on human intelligence (HI) is appearing in many places and at multiple levels. One of the foci is critical thinking. Critical thinking is one of four key 21st century skills – communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. T...

This study focuses on visual creativity and how it can be supported with computer technologies and thereby be used to support learning and instruction. However, studies related to computer-enabled visual creativity have not been frequently explored. As such, the current research proposes a model consisting of four major factors: (a) computer-aided...

Abstract Smart devices and intelligent technologies are enabling a smart learning environment to effectively promote the development of personalized learning and adaptive learning, in line with the trend of accelerating the integration of both. In this regard, we introduce a new teaching method enabled by a smart learning environment, which is a fo...

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been provided by higher education authorities to ensure that teachers use ICT to enhance their teaching, learning and research outcomes. However, ICT has been found to be underutilized, especially by teachers. To investigate this issue, the technology adoption and gratification (TAG) model was...

Among the skill and competency areas being addressed in national education plans and by prominent educators are collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. In this chapter, a fifth C is added to that list—namely, contemplation. The argument to be presented in this chapter involves two assumptions: (a) technologies can play an i...

Smart devices and intelligent technologies are enabling a smart learning environment to effectively promote the development of personalized learning and adaptive learning, in line with the trend of accelerating the integration of both. In this regard, we introduce a new teaching method enabled by a smart learning environment, which is a form of per...

The third day of the third US-China Smart Education Conference featured a discussion with 27 thinkers representing higher education, business and industry, vocational training, and policy making. Researchers from the fields of artificial intelligence, computer science, educational technology, neuro-science and the learning sciences from many countr...

Computer‐based technologies are changing at an accelerating pace and becoming increasingly complex. Smart and context‐aware devices and Internet access enable children and adult learners to gain factual and procedure knowledge about many things anywhere at any time. These computer‐based technologies, if well‐utilized in support of learning, can pro...

This study analyzed research trends in flipped classroom research using a bibliometric analysis approach. A total of 254 related publications were extracted from Web of Science Core Collection based on their publication patterns (e.g., document type, language, country, etc.) during the period 2012-2017. The results show the exponential growth of re...

We provide a summary report of a two-and-half-day symposium sponsored by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) and hosted by the Texas Center for Educational Technology at the University of North Texas on May 16–18, 2018. The theme of the symposium was “Human Intelligence 0.2 versus Artificial Intelligence 2.0 || The...

Augmented reality (AR) is growing in popularity in teaching and learning due in part to powerful new technologies. What has yet to be well established is when and with which learners and learning tasks AR is an effective approach. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of using AR-based formative assessment for improving...

Given the fact that the Internet has had a significant impact on science research and academic publishing especially during the last two decades (Kinshuk et al. 2013), a 20-year period was selected rather than a shorter ten-year period as originally planned. Editorials, introductions to special issues, conference reports, book reviews, paper discus...

A review of ten of the top educational technology journals provided an opportunity for the current study to survey the terrain of educational research through a review of high quality published research studies: 1) Educational Technology Research and Development (ETR&D), 2) Instructional Science, 3) Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4) TechTrends,...

We recognize the need to promote and ensure a continuing conversation in the dynamic and diverse system of scholarly communication for which researchers and scholars provide the focus and the purpose and consider it reasonable to look at persistent trends and technologies that might have a positive impact on learning. The researchers took the appro...

A trend is a shift or tendency within a system. Some trends may present an opportunity for advancement of an idea, while others may disrupt, challenge or threaten advancement. Some technological innovations may result in fads or temporary novelties, while others may endure for many years while receiving little attention. Schools may be unable to co...

It is clear that educational technologies are being introduced at an increasing rate. It is also clear that many of today’s students have grown up with digital technologies. What are the implications for the design of effective learning environments and instructional systems give such changes? Many have predicted that radical changes in learning de...

The history of educational technology in the last 50 years contains few instances of dramatic improvements in learning based on the adoption of a particular technology. An example involving a smart learning technology occurred in the 1990s with the development of intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs). The success of ITSs was limited to constrained an...

This is an edited volume based on expanded versions of the best 30 papers presented at ETWC 2016 in Bali. Included are contributions from the keynote speakers of ETWC 2016: Robert Branch, Tian Belawati, Steve Harmon, Johannes Cronjé, Marc Childress, Mike Spector, Chairul Tanjung, and Rudiantara. The work is organized into the following sections: (a...

A recurring challenge in nearly every education is how to effectively integrate new and emerging technologies into existing curricula and existing learning places. In this paper, what is not new is the general approach to learning and instruction – namely, authentic learning. What is new an innovative are the ways and means to make authentic meanin...

I have asked my co-editors at Educational Technology Research & Development (ETR&D) for an opportunity to share a few reflections as my 15 years of service as ETR&D Development Editor draws to a close. These few remarks represent my reflections about some of the things I have observed over the years. The categories into which I have chosen to group...

Much of the focus on learning technologies has been on structuring innovative learning experiences and on managing distance and hybrid learning environments. This article focuses on the use of technology as an important formative assessment and feedback tool. The rationale for this focus is based on prior research findings that suggest that timely...

Learning activities and environments have changed dramatically in the last 50 years, in large part due to information and communications technologies. New technologies make it possible to create a smart learning engine in the form of an intelligent personalized learning system that can be integrated with a variety of interaction devices. In additio...

Information and communications technologies that can be used in support of learning, performance, and instruction are changing at a rapid pace. There is now a vast array of learning resources available via the Internet, and there are many powerful and affordable mobile learning devices and applications that can be used in support of education and t...

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are offered online to anyone who registers. There are no requirements to register and for those not wishing to receive course credit or a certificate indicating successful completion, there are no charges to enroll. As a result, enrollments can reach into the thousands. MOOCs are a recent twenty-first century phe...

Collaborative problem solving (CPS) can support online learning by enabling interactions for social and cognitive processes. Teachers may not have sufficient knowledge to support such interactions, so support needs to be designed into learning modules for this purpose. This study investigates to what extent an online module for teaching nutrition i...

New technologies are changing how best to support and facilitate learning in primary and secondary education. Many of these new technologies are available through the Internet, which is an important resource for learning and instruction at all levels and in nearly all contexts. Among the changes that are occurring is the possibility of integrating...

The notion of deep learning is of interest to the machine learning community, and of long-time concern to educational psychologists and the instructional design and technology community. When applied to humans, deep learning involves such things as (a) understanding the complexities of dynamic problems, (b) determining the interactions among variou...

The rapid introduction of powerful digital technologies in the last 20 years has made it possible to create innovative and engaging learning activities in nearly every subject domain at nearly every education level. As a consequence, however, the task of designing, developing, and deploying effective instruction has become ever more challenging. Wh...

This special issue of ETR&D is devoted to ethics in the broad domain of educational technology. Many ethical issues arise involving the study and use of educational technologies. A well-known issue involves the digital divide and the degree to which the introduction of new technologies is increasing the digital divide and disadvantaging some studen...

New technologies are changing how best to support and facilitate learning in primary and secondary education. Many of these new technologies are available through the Internet, which is an important resource for learning and instruction at all levels and in nearly all contexts. Among the changes that are occurring is the possibility of integrating...

There are two new journals in our field that involve the emerging notion of smart educational technologies. Earlier this year, the Smart Learning Institute at Beijing Normal University sponsored the Smart Education Conference. Related efforts in recent years involving adaptive technologies and personalized learning are also noteworthy. Given such i...

EduSummIT is a global community of policy-makers, researchers, and educators working together to move education into the digital age. The fourth EDUsummIT took place September 14-15, 2015 in Bangkok, Thailand, in close connection with the UNESCO Bangkok. About 100 policy-makers, researchers and educators worked in nine thematic working groups on th...

In this session panelists will define what replication studies are, explain why they are needed, and invite researchers to conduct multi-site replication studies of technology and teacher education using common methods and measures. Additionally, panelists will share a revised replication study typology for describing the types of replication studi...

This paper is based on the deliberations of the Assessment Working Group at EDUsummIT 2015 in Bangkok, Thailand. All of the members of Thematic Working Group 5 (TWG5) have contributed to this synthesis of potentials, concerns and issues with regard to the role of technology in assessment as, for and of learning in the 21 st century. The group decid...

In 1972, Edsger Dijkstra claimed that computers had only introduced the new problem of learning to use them effectively. This is especially true in 2015 with regard to powerful new educational technologies. This article describes the challenges that 21st century educational technologists are, and will be, addressing as they undertake the effective...

Purpose. This article critically discusses the contributions in this symposium and the progress in the fields of system dynamics and interactive learning environments. Two Perspectives. For this purpose, the article uses two different perspectives. One perspective is system dynamics or model-based policy analysis and design. The other perspective i...

The internationally recognized NMC Horizon Report series and regional NMC Technology Outlooks are part of the NMC Horizon Project, a comprehensive research venture established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact over the coming five years in education around the globe.

There are well-established evaluation methods that can be applied to programs, projects, products, practice, and policies in many domains. However, evaluations of educational efforts and technologies to support learning, instruction, and performance have received less support than in other domains such as health care or marketing. Education is a co...

Learning environments have changed dramatically in the last 50 years, in large part due to information and communications technologies. From the introduction of personal computing and the Internet, there has been a continuing explosion of innovations in support of learning and instruction. Much has been written about new learning approaches and ins...

On-demand education enables individual learners to choose their learning pathways according to their own learning needs. They must use self-directed learning (SDL) skills involving self-assessment and task selection to determine appropriate pathways for learning. Learners who lack these skills must develop them because SDL skills are prerequisite t...

In an earlier issue of ETR&D, the editors provided an hierarchical framework of components to support learning and instruction. That hierarchy included information objects, knowledge objects, learning objects, instructional objects, courses, programs and ongoing efforts, with each subsequent component building on the former components. For example,...

The concept of intentional learning is well established in the educational community. Intentional learning implies that there is a recognized learning goal and that those involved are rational agents who can make choices with regard to achieving that goal. There are typically two different kinds of people involved in a learning situation-learners a...

Educational technology research and development nearly always involves an intervention of some kind aimed at solving a problem or improving a situation pertaining to learning and instruction. Those involved-the stakeholders-naturally want to know whether the problem was solved and/or the extent to which the situation was improved. Attributing any o...

The 4th edition of the Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology expands upon the previous 3 versions, providing a comprehensive update on research pertaining to new and emerging educational technologies. Chapters that are no longer pertinent have been eliminated in this edition, with most chapters being completely rewritten...

Problem solving has been increasingly used as an important approach to learning especially in ill-structured domains. It is assumed that knowledge can be better consolidated and extended through problem-solving experience. However, many learners do not have the ability to separate general knowledge from specific cases, which inhibits successful tra...

form only given. This session will address how e-portfolios are being used in a variety of innovative ways in forth formal and informal learning contexts. The development and deployment of e-portfolios in a variety of learning environments will be discussed along with tools and technologies used to create them. The session will include a discussion...

Two recent publications report the emerging technologies that are likely to have a significant impact on learning and instruction: (a) New Media Consortium's 2011 Horizon Report (Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine & Haywood, 2011), and (b) A Roadmap for Education Technology funded by the National Science Foundation in the USA (to download the report se...