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January 2012 Volume 15 Number 1 - Educational Technology ...

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Individual learning<br />

Figure 2. Screenshot of synchronous one-way lectures<br />

Individual learning for students included studying the content of previous synchronous lectures and doing homework<br />

after online classes. The content of previous synchronous lectures was recorded by the JoinNet application and<br />

stored online so students could review it. Cooper (2007) argued that homework has an immediate effect on the<br />

retention and understanding of the material it covers; thus, students completed homework to practice and master the<br />

teaching material. According to the instructional design theory, homework represents skills, knowledge, and even<br />

attitudes of students, which are stated in the instructional objectives. Smith and Ragan (2004) recommended testing<br />

complex, “high order” knowledge and skills in the real-world context they are actually used, generally with openended<br />

tasks, such as an essay writing. Therefore, this study employed essay writing for the students’ homework. The<br />

first homework session (HW1) related to the “e-Data Protection” synchronous lecture, and the second homework<br />

session (HW2) related to the “File Protection” synchronous lecture. The essay writing activity included: 1)<br />

summarizing an online one-way lecture; 2) generating and articulating an understanding and opinion about general<br />

concepts of the lecture; and 3) elaborating on individual knowledge and experience. Such a writing activity can<br />

challenge students to approach, learn, and explain the complexities of the subject matter in new and thoughtprovoking<br />

ways (Smith & Ragan, 2004).<br />

STR and Training<br />

This study employed Windows ® Speech Recognition using the Microsoft ® Operating System for STR tools. The<br />

choice was made based on the availability of this application for the students and teacher participating in the<br />

experiment. Way et al. (2008) argued that this application is similar to a variety of commercial and open-source<br />

370

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