Stephanie Moore

Developing Cultural Competency in Engineering Through Transnational Distance Learning

While cultural competency is a stated priority for engineering education in the United States, as emphasized by Outcome H in the ABET standards, it is often difficult to engage students in immersive international experiences that develop intercultural awareness. Undergraduate engineering students face packed curricula with little or no room for languages and an often unforgiving structure that puts them a year out of course sequences if they do travel for study abroad. In this case study, the authors examine how online education can be a transformational factor in this challenge. When designed to create interactive, engaging learning across nations, online education can support joint international experiences that develop cultural competency without requiring the time and expenses that are often a barrier for students. This online model could easily be scaled up to offer more students an international collaboration opportunity without institutional reliance on study abroad. This online transnational distance learning approach saves students and universities time and money, while accomplishing the intended professional competencies.

Ethics of Educational Technology

While ethics has been an under-researched area in educational technology, it is receiving current recognition as a critical focus for inquiry and development. In this chapter, we review the contribution of ethics as part of the history of professionalization of the field, the development of a code of ethics for the profession, and contemporary ethics issues like cultural competence, intellectual property, accessibility and universal design, critical theory in educational technology, system ethics, and social responsibility of professionals. In addition, this chapter presents major theoretical and philosophical models for ethics that pertain specifically to technology in educational systems along with implications of research from other fields exploring the integration of ethics into policy, standards, and higher education curricula. Existing research on ethics in educational technology programs suggests a very low level of integration in such domains at present; findings from a survey of the curricular landscape and implications for future research and development are discussed along with consideration of ethics as a foundational component not only to professional standards, practices, and leadership, but also to education policy, as we highlight the role of faculty and graduate programs, practicing professionals, and scholarly associations in shaping future directions and research in this emerging domain.

Ethics and Design: Rethinking Professional Ethics as Part of the Design Domain

Ethics have traditionally, although not solely, been discussed in terms of professional standards and codes of conducts. While these codes and standards remain essential, the purpose of this piece is to attempt an expansion of the way ethics are conceived by drawing out the relationship between ethics and design. Analyses of technology that emphasize its relationships to other parts of social systems demonstrate how a systems view can enhance our own conception of ethics as well as design, especially when these two ideas intersect in the space of social responsibility of a profession. In this piece, a review of some key pieces and concepts from outside the field of instructional design are used to highlight how other technology and design-oriented fields are exploring these ideas, and examples in educational technology are used to illustrate how these ideas are consistent with analysis of technology in the specific context of educational systems.

“Engineering the future: A global endeavor”: An online course for transnational learning experiences with German and US students

Cultural competency is a priority for engineering education in todays world. Nevertheless it is often difficult to engage students in immersive international experiences that develop inter-cultural awareness. Especially undergraduate engineering students have to deal with packed curricula with little or no room for languages and an often unforgiving structure that puts them a year out of course sequences if they do travel for a study abroad. In this paper, we examine how an online engineering education can be a transformational factor in this challenge. When designed to create interactive, engaging learning, an online platform can support joint international experiences that develop cultural competency without requiring the time and expenses that are often a barrier for students. We present a joint online engineering course designed and implemented by the University of Virginia (UVa) and the TU Dortmund University (TU) with students from both countries. Such approaches may be of special interest for countries, that want to work together on the educational sector without facing language differences - like Portugal and Brazil for example.

Online course: Engineering the future - a global endeavor

Cultural competency is a priority for engineering education but it is often difficult to engage students in immersive international experiences that develop inter-cultural awareness. Undergraduate engineering students face packed curricula with little or no room for languages and an often unforgiving structure that puts them a year out of course sequences if they do travel for a study abroad. In this paper, we examine how online education can be a transformational factor in this challenge. When designed to create interactive, engaging learning, an online platform can support joint international experiences that develop cultural competency without requiring the time and expenses that are often a barrier for students. We present a joint online engineering course designed and implemented by the University of Virginia (UVa) and the TU Dortmund University (TU) with students from both countries.

Cross-Institutional Online Engineering Tutoring: Implementation of Tutoring at a Distance

This paper describes a cross-institutional online engineering and math tutoring program. Students at a four-year institution tutor students at community colleges throughout the state using a simple platform of technology and training. Additionally, a brief description of the proposed evaluation plan is included.

Mini workshop — Electronic inking without the tablet: Instructional applications and findings on use of the Livescribe smartpen

In Fall 2008, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) at the University of Virginia (UVa) began an efficacy study with Livescribe, Inc. on their smartpen technology. In particular, SEAS wanted to investigate whether the device could serve as a technological support for distributed learning as well as a more cost-effective alternative to other electronic inking solutions (e.g. tablet PCs or Wacom tablets). The smartpen technology works differently from other digital pens in that it records both the written word on the page and audio simultaneously, which can then be played back by tapping the handwritten marks on the page or saved as recordings that can be transferred to the computer as a viewable movie and played back. The pen also offers additional affordances that allow it to be adapted to educational settings. As part of the efficacy study, UVa has mapped out processes for using this technology for those additional affordances such as grading, creating interactive documents, electronic homework submission, and use of the device as an alternative to tablet PCs. In this special session, participants will have the chance to use the smartpen and learn more about the processes for using this technology for advanced application.