Investigating how educational technologies can enhance learning experiences by assisting different learning activities

Current educational technology implementations are done independently and not necessarily linked, neither with key elements of the pedagogic model, nor accommodating different learning styles. This work focuses on developing a framework that would standardise the use of assistive technologies in education. In particular, the focus of this work is on how social media, computer-assisted assessment, augmented and mixed reality can be used to improve the learning experience in certain educational contexts.
This research study is based on a combination of grounded theory that included a literature review on the following relevant areas, covering key topics that correspond to the dimensions of the proposed framework: i) communication in education; ii) assessment; iii) and feedback. This stage provided a review of the learning activity spectrum that can be affected by educational technologies. The deliverable of this stage was a detailed literature review with distinct links to the action research in the form of specific pilot studies. The following stage provides a discussion on the impact of educational technologies on learning activities. The main deliverable is a review of current technologies with emphasis on how they affect specific learning activities
The research also included an element of action research in the form of six pilot studies: i) Google Glass: Student Experience; ii) Google Glass: Presentation Feedback; iii) Google Glass: Feedback on Feedback; iv) Google Glass: Voting System; v) Social Media: Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn; vi) Student Observable Behaviour. The pilots were conducted and analysed in order to provide sufficient evidence supporting the proposed framework guidelines.
The framework proposed consists of four dimensions: i) content; ii) communication; iii) assessment; iv) feedback. This framework is a framework of good practice. It can be used to support academics who wishes to deploy educational technologies in support of a range of learning activities. Furthermore, the framework has the flexibility of applying different educational technologies for different scenarios without missing a standardised evaluation criteria.