Jackie HeeYoung Kim

South Korean Digital Textbook Project

South Korea has adopted the widespread use of digital textbooks. Part school reform and part an effort to prepare todays children for tomorrows challenging world, the way in which this effort was implemented and the lessons learned are valuable. This article highlights the history of the digital textbook project and compares printed textbooks and digital textbooks in terms of pedagogy and their effects on student learning. The article reviews research that found that digital textbooks have a positive effect on students’ meta-cognition, self-regulated learning, self-efficacy, information exploration, problem-solving, intrinsic motivation, and self-reflection. In addition, our research found that the impact of digital textbooks varied according to whether students were in urban or rural schools and was also dependent on their achievement level. With this basis, the article discusses the opportunities and challenges of the digital textbook, and suggests some models of implementation. It is hoped that the exploration of South Korean educators’ approaches to educational reform with innovative digital textbooks will stimulate further work on integrating technology in education.

Effects of Role-Play for Problem-Solving Skills and Engagement in Online Forums

The body of research found that it is difficult to improve the quality of an online discussion experience because of the affordances and the limitations of asynchronous online communication technologies (An et al., Comput Educ 53: 749–760, 2009; Bachner, Cases on critical and qualitative perspectives in online higher education. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2014; Dennen and Wieland, Dis Educ 28(3): 281–297, 2007; Rourke and Kanuka, J Dis Educ 23(1): 19–48, 2009; Thomas, J Comput Assist Learn 18: 351–366, 2002). To address this issue, this study investigated an instructional strategy to increase engagement using a collaborative role-play online discussion where students assumed different roles. This study aimed to assess the quality of interaction by means of the Interaction Analysis Model (IAM) for examining social construction of knowledge and of learning experiences of teachers during computer conferencing designed to learn problem-solving skills. Two major models guided the study: Problem Solving Approach Model (Branford and Stein, The IDEAL problem solver: A guide for improving thinking, learning, and creativity. New York, NY: Freeman, 1993) and Interaction Analysis Model (IAM) for Computer-Mediated Communication rooted in social constructivist theory (Gunawardena et al., J Educ Comput Res 17(4): 397–431, 1997). After analyzing the progress of the discussion transcripts, this study found that the role-play discussion constructed better knowledge socially and improved higher mental operation. The threaded discussion postings from four structured online debates showed that the algorithmic format of problem-solving steps promoted and were closely interrelated to five phases of IAM. The study also found that this problem-solving exercise through computer-mediated communication helped teachers be equipped with a frame of reference to the problems, which resulted in helping teachers to establish boundaries, name problems, form opinions, and uncover solutions (Entman, J Commun 43(4): 51–58, 1993; Goffman, Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. London: Harper and Row, 1974). This study will benefit online instructors as well as instructional designers who strive to find ways to make online discussion engaging.