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1. Middle School Student Perception of Technology Use and Digital Citizenship Practices

   Florence Martin, Brittany Hunt (July 2020, Computers in the schools)

   Digital citizenship is defined as using knowledge and skills to exhibit appropriate behavior online using digital technology. Two hundred and thirty-seven middle school students were surveyed about digital device use and perception of digital citizenship practices on cyberbullying, digital netiquette, digital footprint, digital privacy, and digital identity. Findings indicated that student use of mobile devices has increased, which has established the need for parental monitoring of the online behavior of their children. Only 55.3% of the surveyed students indicated parental monitoring of their internet/social media use, and only 37.1% of the students identified digital citizenship as being taught in their schools. Seventy-three percent of the students indicated having never been cyberbullied, and only 55.7% indicated knowing how to collect proof if they suspect cyberbullying has occurred. Fifty-seven percent of the students cited following digital netiquette when communicating or posting online, 59.7% of the students have shared their password with a friend, and 48.5% have added a friend and followed someone they did not know. Middle school students lack an understanding of digital citizenship practices, which has implications for teachers, administrators, and parents on teaching digital citizenship at school and home. 

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2. Examining K-12 educator experiences from digital citizenship professional development

   https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2020.1815611  

   Martin, Florence; Gezer, Tuba; Wang, Wei Chao; Petty, Teresa; Wang, Chuang (January 2021, Journal of Research on Technology in Education)

   Digital citizenship refers to exhibiting responsible digital habits to function in a digital world. The purpose of this mixed methods study is to examine K-12 educators' experiences based on a digital citizenship graduate-level course that they participated in for professional development. Forty-five educators participated in this course. In addition to the knowledge and attitudinal data collected from assessment and survey, ten educators also participated in follow-up interviews at the end of the course. Results indicated that educators’ digital citizenship knowledge increased significantly over the course period. Qualitative data indicated educators could transfer the course content to their school environments and enrolled in the course due to personal, student-related, curriculum-related, and school-related reasons. Needs and challenges regarding digital citizenship were also identified. 

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3. A Rapid and Formative Response by the Engineering Education Faculty to Support the Engineering Faculty and Students Throughout the Extreme Classroom Changes Resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36606  

   White, Lance; Jaison, Donna; Ray, Samantha; Brumbelow, Kelly; Fields, Sherecce; Barroso, Luciana; Watson, Karan; Hammond, Tracy (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   This paper describes an evidence based-practice paper to a formative response to the engineering faculty and students’ needs at Anonymous University. Within two weeks, the pandemic forced the vast majority of the 1.5 million faculty and 20 million students nationwide to transition all courses from face-to-face to entirely online. Never in the history of higher education has there been a concerted effort to adapt so quickly and radically, nor have we had the technology to facilitate such a rapid and massive change. At Anonymous University, over 700 engineering educators were racing to transition their courses. Many of those faculty had never experienced online course preparation, much less taught one synchronously or asynchronously. Faculty development centers and technology specialists across the university made a great effort to aid educators in this transition. These educators had questions about the best practices for moving online, how their students were affected, and the best ways to engage their students. However, these faculty’s detailed questions were answerable only by faculty peers’ experience, students’ feedback, and advice from experts in relevant engineering education research-based practices. This paper describes rapid, continuous, and formative feedback provided by the Engineering Education Faculty Group (EEFG) to provide an immediate response for peer faculty guidance during the pandemic, creating a community of practice. The faculty membership spans multiple colleges in the university, including engineering, education, and liberal arts. The EEFG transitioned immediately to weekly meetings focused on the rapidly changing needs of their colleagues. Two surveys were generated rapidly by Hammond et al. to characterize student and faculty concerns and needs in March of 2020 and were distributed through various means and media. Survey 1 and 2 had 3381 and 1506 respondents respectively with most being students, with 113 faculty respondents in survey 1, the focus of this piece of work. The first survey was disseminated as aggregated data to the College of Engineering faculty with suggested modifications to course structures based on these findings. The EEFG continued to meet and collaborate during the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester and has continued through to this day. This group has acted as a hub for teaching innovation in remote online pedagogy and techniques, while also operating as a support structure for members of the group, aiding those members with training in teaching tools, discussion difficult current events, and various challenges they are facing in their professional teaching lives. While the aggregated data gathered from the surveys developed by Hammond et al. was useful beyond measure in the early weeks of the pandemic, little attention at the time was given to the responses of faculty to that survey. The focus of this work has been to characterize faculty perceptions at the beginning of the pandemic and compare those responses between engineering and non-engineering faculty respondents, while also comparing reported perceptions of pre- and post-transition to remote online teaching. Interviews were conducted between 4 members of the EEFG with the goal of characterizing some of the experiences they have had while being members of the group during the time of the pandemic utilizing Grounded theory qualitative analysis. 

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4. Preservice secondary school mathematics teachers' perceptions toward students with disabilities: A preliminary investigation

   Romero_Castro, Offir N; Van_Zoest, Laura R (November 2024, Kent State University)

   Better understanding preservice teachers’ current perceptions toward students with disabilities will allow mathematics educators to create specific strategies for helping students to develop perceptions promoting inclusive classroom environments. To access these perceptions, we developed an online survey that asks respondents about their knowledge of disabilities, their experiences with people with disabilities, and decisions they would make based on classroom scenarios that involve students with disabilities. We gave this survey to 14 preservice secondary school teachers (PSTs). Key findings include five PSTs presented an inclusive perception toward students with disabilities, seven PSTs presented an ambiguous perception and the perceptions of two PSTs remained unknown. All but the latter two PSTs provided at least some evidence of their willingness to fully include students with disabilities in their mathematics classrooms. 

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5. Students' technological ambivalence toward online proctoring and the need for responsible use of educational technologies

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20504  

   Johri, Aditya; Hingle, Ashish (January 2023, Journal of Engineering Education)

   Abstract BackgroundCOVID‐19 has led to an unprecedented increase in the use of technology for teaching and learning in higher education institutions (HEIs), including in engineering, computing, and technology programs. Given the urgency of the situation, technologies were often implemented with a short‐term rather than long‐term view. PurposeIn this study, we investigate students' perceptions of the use of video‐based monitoring (VbM) for proctoring exams to better assess its impact on students. We leverage technological ambivalence as a framing lens to analyze students' experiences and perceptions of using VbM and draw implications for responsible use of educational technology. MethodQualitative data were collected from students using focus group interviews and discussion board assignments and analyzed inductively to understand students' experiences. FindingsWe present a framework of how a technological shift of existing practice triggered ambivalence that manifested itself as a sustained negative outlook among students regarding the use of VbM, as well as their institution and instructors. Students accepted the inevitability of the technology but were unconvinced that the benefits of VbM outweighed its risks. ConclusionsAs instructors use educational technologies that are inherently driven by user data and algorithms that are not transparent, it is imperative that they are attentive to the responsible use of technology. To educate future engineers who are ethically and morally responsible, engineering educators and engineering institutions need to exhibit that behavior in their own practices, starting with their use of educational technologies. 

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