Page 113 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

102 6 Learner Experiences with Educational Technology
6.4.4 Adaptability—Do Learners Find the Technology
Personally Adaptive?

Adaptability of an educational technology deals with the diversity of students and
their learning preferences which result in a need to treat learners as individually as
possible. Room layout should be flexible to meet the teacher’s instruction and
learner’s collaboration; a software system should adapt to learning styles of the
learners; and physical environment factors, such as lighting, temperature, and
ventilation, should be adjusted to suit learners.
Hill (2008) recognized that flexible, modern learning environments have
potential to encourage students to participate in activities with peers as they acquire
knowledge for themselves. About classroom layout, Lippman (2002, 2003)in
studies of schools mentions that providing a variety of spaces within a single
classroom may support child–adult/student–teacher interactions. Jamieson (2007)
recognized that formal spaces such as lecture theaters, classrooms, and laboratories
should have flexible layouts which support a diversity of teaching and learning
approaches, although this is not always affordable or feasible.
From the above analysis, combined with the emerging technologies and the main
furnishing elements, we propose these questions for evaluating the adaptability of
technology-rich classroom (1) Does the software system provide instant feedback?
(2) Can students present and share their learning outcome easily? (3) Are the
systems compatible with common devices? (4) Do data between the student and
teacher change easily? (5) Is the classroom layout flexible for different learning
activities? (6) Can the lighting system adapt to learners needs and available
daylight?

6.4.5 Comfortability—Do Learners Feel Conformable
with Educational Technology?

Comfortability with educational technology focuses on providing physical and
emotional well-being experience to learners when they are using educational
technology, i.e., the user interface and environmental conditions consisting of
various elements such as temperature, humidity, noise, thermal, air pressure, ven-
tilation, air quality, acoustic, dust, vibration, lighting, airflows, radiation, and so on.
Due to the increased use of media and technology in classrooms, the design of
easy-to-use, adjustable lighting systems is more critical than ever. Lighting needs to
be designed to the standards proposed by Illuminating Engineering Societies and
the National Electrical Code’s current recommendations. Lighting should be
designed to meet the special program requirements for each instructional space
(Clabaugh, 2004). Also, some studies show that the following factors are important
design considerations: