Thousands of international ESL students come to the United States every year to learn English for the purpose of matriculating into an American university. Teaching these diverse students can be a challenge for educators and despite the students' significant investment of time and money, many of them are inadequately prepared for the demands…

Three student employees with intellectual disabilities and autism used an iPod touch with video prompts to increase their level of independence at work. Using the iPod, they each experienced an increase in correct task completion across three work tasks. In addition, I conducted a social validation study to determine if employers and job coaches…

Increasingly, users are performing more sophisticated types of tasks, like information search, across computing platforms including desktops/laptops, tablets, and smartphones. While much research has been done to improve efficiency for each of these devices in the area of information search, few investigations have taken a pragmatic approach to…

Communication is getting increasingly mobile, with more than a third of the world's population using cellular phones. Recent statistics indicate that this proportion is much bigger among young people. Research has also registered significant predominance of short message exchange over other modes of interaction in youth culture, where e-mail is…

King Saud University (KSU) created an online Short Message Service (SMS) system called "Tawasul", developed in house, to connect administrators, faculty, and students. The KSU rector, deans, department heads and program coordinators send group season's greetings and notifications to the mobile phones of a selected group of faculty,…

Tony Alpert, chief operating officer for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), ponders whether to allow tablet computers--and particularly iPads--to be used for summative testing online. As Alpert points out, not only would student cheating compromise the validity of the individual student's test event, "worse yet, it could expose…

Soon after the iPad's release in 2010, several universities decided to issue the devices to all incoming freshmen. At the time, critics scoffed at the moves as little more than marketing gimmicks designed to attract students. In truth, few of the schools required instructors to design curriculum around the iPad or had specific plans to measure…

The burgeoning role of technology in society has provided opportunities for the development of new means of communication for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). This paper offers an organizational framework for describing traditional and emerging augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technology, and highlights how tools…

As emerging information technologies have driven demand for new library communication channels, there has been increased interest in the use of mobile tools to promote interaction, expand outreach, market programs, and enhance the library experience. Libraries today are at widely different levels of mobile engagement, a gap poised to grow as…

This study evaluated the effects of video modeling on teaching three high school students with moderate intellectual disability to perform three activities on an iPhone 3GS. This study is a replication and extension of the Hammond, Whatley, Ayres, and Gast (2010) study in which researchers taught this same set of skills using a slightly different…

Technological innovation is sweeping the world into an unimaginable future. These forces are affecting all aspects of how people live and work. What will be the role of museums and museum educators in this future? This article surveys some of the technologies that have profoundly affected museums and museum education and poses some questions: what…

This study examined the effects of text messaging class arrival to an academic counselor on the attendance and punctuality of 4 college student athletes. Each participant had a history of class tardiness and was considered to be at risk for academic failure. Class attendance and punctuality improved for all participants. (Contains 1 figure.)

When Braille Institute in Los Angeles conceived The Braille Challenge contest more than a decade ago, the goal was to create an innovative way to promote braille literacy. Now that more than 4,500 students over the last 12 years from across the United States and Canada have chosen to participate in The Challenge, it is safe to say that it has been…

This study investigates the acquisition of the L2 French vowel /y/ in a mobile-assisted learning environment, via the use of automatic speech recognition (ASR). Particularly, it addresses the question of whether ASR-based pronunciation instruction using a mobile device can improve the production and perception of French /y/. Forty-two elementary…

We report on the development and evaluation of an innovative instructional model, which harnesses advanced technologies and local resources (an in-campus museum), to support undergraduate-level art history students in developing the skills required for analyzing artwork. Theory suggests that analyzing artwork requires theoretical knowledge and…