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Students in flipped classrooms are challenged to orchestrate an increasingly heterogeneous collection of learning objects, including audiovisual materials as well as traditional learning objects, such as textbooks and syllabi. This study aims to examine students' information practices interacting with and synthesizing across learning objects, technologies and people in flipped classrooms.

This grounded theory study explores the information practices of 12 undergraduate engineering students as they learned in two flipped classrooms. An artifact walkthrough was used to elicit descriptions of how students conceptualize and work around interoperability problems between the diverse and distributed learning objects by weaving them together into information tapestries.

Students maintained a notebook as an information tapestry, weaving fragmented information snippets from the available learning objects, including, but not limited to, instructional videos and textbooks. Students also connected with peers on Facebook, a back-channel that allowed them to sidestep the academic honesty policy of the course discussion forum, when collaborating on homework assignments.

The importance of the interoperability of tools with elements of students' information space and the significance of designing for existing information practices are two outcomes of the grounded theory approach. Design implications for educational technology including the weaving of mixed media and the establishment of spaces for student-to-student interaction are also discussed.

Annotation is a practice that is familiar to many of us, and yet it is a practice so natural that it is hard to pin down its characteristics, to find where its edges are, and identify what it does for us. In this piece, we use reflections on the practices of annotation in four fields of work: academia, software engineering, medical sonography and visual art as a point of departure to theorise annotation as a set of practices that bridge reading, writing and thinking. We think about annotation being performative and consider what and how it brings into being. Revealing hidden practices in our working lives, such as annotation, helps us to understand how knowledge comes to be created, disseminated, legitimated and popularised. To this end, we make the practices of annotation involved in writing the present piece visible in an effort to write differently in management and organisation studies, unpicking and exposing it as ever dialogical and unfinished.

This paper describes a small research project undertaken in a technical college in Qatar on the use of iPads in the classroom. iPads were trialed for a semester each in mathematics and physics classes; students completed pre- and post-surveys. Classroom observations were carried out and interviews were conducted with both faculty (N=3) and students (N=19). Over 80% of students reported positively on the iPad as being “helpful” to “very helpful” for learning new things and course materials, for increasing their interaction with online course materials and getting course information and for exploring additional material related to course topics. Faculty perceptions of iPad use in class were also positive.

This chapter reviews student engagement and learning over of a six year study period (>500 students) in a technology rich learning environment. The technology rich learning environment in this project consists of tablet PCs for each student (1:1 environment), visually immersive multiple projection screens, and collaborative digital inking software. This chapter reviews the education problem being addressed, and the learning theory used as a lens to focus specific active learning pedagogical techniques to address the educational problem. From this problem-based learning theory grounded approach, the features desired in a technology rich learning environment were developed. The approach is shared in this chapter with specific detailed examples to allow others to implement technology rich learning environments with active learning pedagogical approaches to address specific education problems in their institution. The technology rich learning environment implemented and studied includes multiple hardware/software pieces to create a system level solution versus a single device or single app solution.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the needs of humanists with respect to information and communication technology (ICT) in order to prescribe the design of an e‐humanist's workbench.

A web‐based survey comprising over 60 questions gathered the following data from 169 humanists: profile of the humanist, use of ICT in teaching, e‐texts, text analysis tools, access to and use of primary and secondary sources, and use of collaboration and communication tools.

Humanists conduct varied forms of research and use multiple techniques. They rely on the availability of inexpensive, quality‐controlled e‐texts for their research. The existence of primary sources in digital form influences the type of research conducted. They are unaware of existing tools for conducting text analyses, but expressed a need for better tools. Search engines have replaced the library catalogue as the key access tool for sources. Research continues to be solitary with little collaboration among scholars.

The results are based on a self‐selected sample of humanists who responded to a web‐based survey. Future research needs to examine the work of the scholar at a more detailed level, preferably through observation and/or interviewing.

The findings support a five‐part framework that could serve as the basis for the design of an e‐humanist's workbench.

The paper examines the needs of the humanist, founded on an integration of information science research and humanities computing for a more comprehensive understanding of the humanist at work.

This study aims to examine teachers’ efficacy to use iPad for teaching, their perceived impact of 1:1 iPad implementation in the classroom and the role of both variables in predicting teachers’ adoption of the iPad.

This paper opted for multiple linear regression analysis of the data from a total of 91 teachers (44 male and 47 female). All participating teachers are from upper-middle-class private schools who have been using iPad in their classrooms for at least three months. All three variables being studied are measured using instruments developed by the researcher and self-rated by participating teachers: iPad-Teaching Efficacy (iTE), Perceived Impact of iPad in the Classroom (iPI) and iPad Actual Use for Teaching (iAU). All three instruments have good internal reliability and validity, with an alpha coefficient of 0.97, 0.92 and 0.93 respectively.

The paper provides empirical insights about factors contributing to teachers’ technology adoption (specifically iPad) in the classroom. It suggests that teachers’ efficacy significantly predicts their actual use of the iPad for teaching, but teachers’ perceived impact of the implementation does not.

These research findings play an important role in designing a program for technology adoption in schools, especially in Indonesia.

As publishers and academia swiftly head towards e-textbooks, it is important to understand how students feel about using e-textbooks as a primary learning tool. This paper discusses results of a small-scale study looking into how a group of language learners view and use e-textbooks as learning tools in ESL classrooms. The paper concludes by offering teaching implications that could ease integrating e-textbooks in language classrooms in a more effective and efficient manner.

A study examined reading strategies in relation to information-seeking stages, tasks and reading media in an academic setting. Understanding reading practices and needs in the context of information-seeking can refine our understanding of user choices and preferences for information sources (e.g. textbooks, articles, multimedia content) and media (e.g. print and digital tools used for reading). It can also help to examine the changes in reading practices brought about by digital devices and content.

The data were collected via an online questionnaire from a sample of graduate students over the course of two months. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics.

The authors found that all information-seeking stages and all academic tasks were characterised by a combination of “deep” and “surface” reading and a use of both print and electronic resources. Contrary to previous studies that linked digital media to “surface” reading (e.g. skimming, searching for keywords), the participants reported a high number of “deep” reading tactics (e.g. annotating, connecting text to prior knowledge) while using digital resources.

The study relied on a convenience sample of library and information science students, so some findings can be attributed to the sample’s demographics and academic demands. The findings imply that at all stages of information-seeking for all academic tasks, graduate students were engaged in both deep and surface reading using both print and electronic resources.

The findings show that students read print and digital texts, suggesting that it might be premature for academic libraries to part with their print collections. Understanding relationships between academic task, information-seeking and reading can aid students in choosing the right reading resources for their academic tasks, educators in assigning appropriate materials for course projects, libraries in providing appropriate resources to their readers and information retrieval system designers in offering useful features for different reading needs and styles.

The findings indicate a shift in academic work culture and reliance on digital texts for deep and surface reading.

The study produced preliminary support for the development of a unified information-seeking and reading model.

The paper aims to present an innovative method for imaging the pressure distribution between two interface surfaces. The physical principles behind the design of the pressure imaging system are explained, and some case studies involving the use of this technology in diverse applications are described.

The XSENSOR pressure sensor is comprised of a matrix of capacitive sensing elements. Pressure applied to the surface of the sensing element causes a change in capacitance that is correlated to a change in pressure. Proprietary Windows based software compensates for sensor non‐linearity, hysteresis, and creep over time, resulting in enhanced accuracy.

XSENSOR's capacitive based pressure imaging sensors can graphically display pressure distributions in real time between virtually any two surfaces in contact. The sensor element is accurate, thin, flexible, and robust. These physical characteristics minimize any artificial influences created by the presence of the sensor during data collection.

Pressure imaging technology can be used in industrial and engineering environments for product design and verification, process control, or quality assurance.

This paper will be useful to the engineer or business manager interested in applying sensor technology to solve engineering or design problems.

Purpose – To describe the use of the software platform, TechScaffold, for use in teacher education to provide pre-service and in-service teachers with decision-making heuristics to select apps based on formulation of their instructional purposes for using those apps; participate in a community designed to foster knowledge and experience about effective, purposeful uses of apps; and share project reports to illustrate the use of apps to achieve certain learning objectives.

Design – The authors draw on research related to decision-making associated with purposeful uses of apps as well as analysis of the limitations of similar instructional design tools to develop features for TechScaffold. They sought to scaffold teachers’ decision-making through users formulating open-ended responses to queries with responses matched against a database of apps identified according to platform, purpose, grade level, difficulty, and cost, as well as ways for users to participate as members of a community to share projects illustrating uses of apps. The authors also obtained feedback regarding the potential usability and value of TechScaffold.

Findings – Given research indicating the importance of scaffolding decision-making processes regarding uses of apps, feedback from users indicated that they perceive TechScaffold as a useful tool within the context of teacher education as well as for professional development in schools to foster effective decision-making associated with purposeful uses of apps.

Practical Implications – Teacher educators can employ scaffolding activities to help pre-service and in-service teachers make decisions regarding productive uses of apps through their open-ended formulation of certain purposes through use of a tool such as TechScaffold.