We document the need to examine digital game play and app use as a context for cognitive development, particularly during middle childhood. We highlight this developmental period as 6- through 12-year olds comprise a large swath of the preadult population that plays and uses these media forms. Surprisingly, this age range remains understudied with…

Intelligent Tutoring Systems authoring tools are highly complex educational software applications used to produce highly complex software applications (i.e. ITSs). How should our assumptions about the target users (authors) impact the design of authoring tools? In this article I first reflect on the factors leading to my original 1999 article on…

There is conflicting research on the value of using digital technology with young children. This study investigated how an app, used in conjunction with dual language picture books, can support the social, emotional, and literacy learning of bi/multilingual children. Twenty-one children used the app "Talking Stickers" at home and school…

Recent studies have tested the addition of worked examples to tutored problem solving, a more effective instructional approach than the untutored problem solving used in prior worked example research. These studies involved Cognitive Tutors, software designed to support problem solving while minimizing extraneous cognitive load by providing…

The use of PowerPoint slides has become an almost ubiquitous practice in university classrooms, however little research has examined whether the timing of lecture slide availability to students (either before or after lecture) affects classroom behaviour or exam performance. Using a 2 (slide availability condition) x 2 (course type)…

Concept maps are an instructional strategy that promotes meaningful learning. This chapter examines the use of concept maps in online environments through discussion of CmapTools software. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

Discusses the distinction between cognitive effects with computers, whereby an individual's performance is redefined and upgraded during intellectual partnership with the computer, and effects of computers, whereby such partnership leaves durable and generalizable cognitive residues. Suggests two mechanisms for affecting cognition: skill…

This study focused on the cognitive conflicts experienced by young children in using software programs that provided them with tools to create and/or combine individual graphic elements into larger structures. Six 5-year-old children, none with prior computer experience, were observed using three programs--Kids at Work, Picture Perfect, and…

A field experiment of ninety-six employees tested a model of the relationships among dispositional learning orientation, self-efficacy, goal orientation context, and declarative knowledge. Specifically, the model predicted positive influences of task-specific self-efficacy (pre- and mid-training) and declarative knowledge in the relationship…

Web 2.0 software, in particular wikis, have the potential to allow students to become active contributors to the Internet and, as a result, restructure traditional learning environments. In this study, the effects of student-created wikis were evaluated through measures of student engagement, cognitive benefits, and student learning in both the…

This study investigates the role of basic elements of a learning context namely: the given tasks, the nature of the provided tools, and the pupils' gender in their choice of tools provided by an open problem-solving computer environment. Pupils' choice of tools is discussed through the description of an experiment involving the interaction of (30)…