The spread of COVID-19 poses a threat to humanity, as this pandemic has forced many global activities to close, including educational activities. To reduce the spread of the virus, education ...institutions have been forced to switch to e-learning using available educational platforms, despite the challenges facing this sudden transformation. In order to further explore the potentials challenges facing learning activities, the focus of this study is on e-learning from students’ and instructor’s perspectives on using and implementing e-learning systems in a public university during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study targets the society that includes students and teaching staff in the Information Technology (IT) faculty at the University of Benghazi. The descriptive-analytical approach was applied and the results were analyzed by statistical methods. Two types of questionnaires were designed and distributed, i.e., the student questionnaire and the instructor questionnaire. Four dimensions have been highlighted to reach the expected results, i.e., the extent of using e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, advantages, disadvantages and obstacles of implementing E-learning in the IT faculty. By analyzing the results, we achieved encouraging results that throw light on some of the issues, challenges and advantages of using e-learning systems instead of traditional education in higher education in general and during emergency periods.
This systematic literature review was undertaken primarily to examine the role that print and digitally mediums play in text comprehension. Overall, results suggest that medium plays an influential ...role under certain text or task conditions or for certain readers. Additional goals were to identify how researchers defined and measured comprehension, and the various trends that have emerged over the past 25 years, since Dillon s review. Analysis showed that relatively few researchers defined either reading or digital reading, and that the majority of studies relied on researcher-developed measures. Three types of trends were identified in this body of work: incremental (significant increase; e.g., number of studies conducted, variety of digital devices used), stationary (relative stability; e.g., research setting, chose of participants), and iterative (wide fluctuation; e.g., text length, text manipulations). The review concludes by considering the significance of these findings for future empirical research on reading in print or digital mediums.
The COVID-19 Pandemic has led to social isolation; however, with the help of technology, education can continue through this tough time. Therefore, this research attempts to explore the Unified ...Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) through the expansion of the model. Also, make it relevant to investigate the influence of social isolation, and the moderating role of Corona fear on Behavioral Intention of the Learning Management System and its Use Behavior of Learning Management System among students. The data was analyzed using Partial Least Square (PLS) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The findings show a positive link of Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Influence (SI), and Social Isolation on Behavioral Intention of LMS and, also between Behavioral Intention of LMS and its Use behavior. Moreover, the results of the moderation analysis show that Corona fears only moderates the link of Performance Expectancy and Social influence with Behavioral Intention of LMS. The findings imply the need for improving the LMS experience to increase its Behavioral Intention among students. Finally, the author's recommendation for future researchers is to examine the extended model in other countries and territories to analyze Coronavirus's influence on e-learning acceptance.
The brain is the perfect place to look for inspiration to develop more efficient neural networks. The inner workings of our synapses and neurons provide a glimpse at what the future of deep learning ...might look like. This article serves as a tutorial and perspective showing how to apply the lessons learned from several decades of research in deep learning, gradient descent, backpropagation, and neuroscience to biologically plausible spiking neural networks (SNNs). We also explore the delicate interplay between encoding data as spikes and the learning process; the challenges and solutions of applying gradient-based learning to SNNs; the subtle link between temporal backpropagation and spike timing-dependent plasticity; and how deep learning might move toward biologically plausible online learning. Some ideas are well accepted and commonly used among the neuromorphic engineering community, while others are presented or justified for the first time here. A series of companion interactive tutorials complementary to this article using our Python package, snnTorch, are also made available: https://snntorch.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorials/index.html .
This study presents an ontology-based visualization support system for e-book learners which promotes both meaningful receptive learning and meaningful discovery learning. To examine the system ...effectiveness, two learning modes are used: (a) reception comparison mode, where at the outset learners are shown complete versions of expert-generated topic maps; and (b) "cache-cache comparison mode," where at the first stage of learning all information concerning relations is concealed, and at the second stage learners are encouraged to actively create those relations before comparing the learner-generated and expert-generated relations. The 50 control group participants studied in reception comparison mode while the 146 experimental groupparticipants studied in cache-cache comparison mode. Differences in learning perception and achievement between the two groups are examined, as is the effect of learner expertise level on learning mode effectiveness. Although the control group reported significantly more pressure and less satisfaction than the experimental group, no significant learning achievement differences were found between the two groups. However, in cache-cache comparison mode, the performance of learners with low prior knowledge increased more than that of learners with high prior knowledge; on the other hand, for learners with high prior knowledge, no significant effect of learning mode on learning achievement was found.
During the COVID-19 outbreak, educational institutions were closed, and students worldwide were confined to their homes. In an educational environment, students depend on collaborative learning (CL) ...to improve their learning performance. This study aimed to increase the understanding of social media adoption among students during the COVID-19 pandemic for the purpose of CL. Social media provides a learning platform that enables students to easily communicate with their peers and subject specialists, and is conducive to students' CL. This study addresses the key concept of CL during the COVID-19 pandemic by assessing social media use among students in higher education. The relationship between social media use and students' performance is crucial to understanding the role of social media during a pandemic. This study is based on constructivism theory and the technology acceptance model. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the conceptual model using SmartPLS. The research findings indicate that social media plays an important role during the pandemic because it provides opportunities for students to enhance CL under the aforementioned situations. This study makes noteworthy theoretical and practical contributions.
PurposeThe purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on expectation-confirmation model (ECM) to examine whether interactivity and course quality factors (i.e. course content quality, ...course design quality) as antecedents to student beliefs can influence students' satisfaction and continuance intention of the cloud-based electronic learning (e-learning) system within the educational institution.Design/methodology/approachSample data were collected from students enrolled in a comprehensive university in Taiwan. A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed in the campus, and 515 (85.8%) useable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling.FindingsFindings showed that students' perceptions of interactivity, course content quality and course design quality positively significantly contributed to their perceived usefulness, confirmation and satisfaction with the cloud-based e-learning system, which in turn directly or indirectly led to their continuance intention of the system. Thus, the results strongly supported the research model based on ECM via positioning key constructs as the drivers with all hypothesized links being significant.Originality/valueThis study identifies three factors (i.e. interactivity, course content quality, course design quality) as drivers from the learner perspective within the cloud-based e-learning environment, and links these factors to students' satisfaction and continuance intention of the cloud-based e-learning system based on ECM. It is particularly worth mentioning that the three drivers can serve as precursors for recognizing the determinants that are crucial to understand students' satisfaction and continuance intention of the cloud-based e-learning system. Hence, this study may provide new insights in nourishing the cloud-based e-learning continuance literature in the future.
Due to the spread of COVID-19 worldwide, a large number of universities had to close their campuses. To maintain teaching and learning during this disruption to the traditional teaching, most ...universities have adopted online teaching model. The current study aimed at investigating the efficacy of various online teaching modes as well as comparing a proposed combined model of online and flipped learning to other online and traditional models. The Learning under COVID-19questionnaire was designed and administered to undergraduate engineering students at Chengdu University of Information Technology (CUIT). The questionnaire included five parts: demographic questions, frequencies of online courses, types of online courses, the communication and Q&A in online classes and the effect of online classes, as well as the effect of combined model learning. The results of the study showed that, students were dissatisfied with online learning in general, and they were especially dissatisfied with the communication and Q&A modes. In addition, the combined model of online teaching with the flipped learning improved students' learning, attention, and evaluation of courses.
In this meta-analysis, we investigated the effects of methods for providing item-based feedback in a computer-based environment on students' learning outcomes. From 40 studies, 70 effect sizes were ...computed, which ranged from –0.78 to 2.29. A mixed model was used for the data analysis. The results show that elaborated feedback (EF; e.g., providing an explanation) produced larger effect sizes (0.49) than feedback regarding the correctness of the answer (KR; 0.05) or providing the correct answer (KCR; 0.32). EF was particularly more effective than KR and KCR for higher order learning outcomes. Effect sizes were positively affected by EF feedback, and larger effect sizes were found for mathematics compared with social sciences, science, and languages. Effect sizes were negatively affected by delayed feedback timing and by primary and high school. Although the results suggested that immediate feedback was more effective for lower order learning than delayed feedback and vice versa, no significant interaction was found.
The Covid‐19 pandemic has driven the fastest changes to higher education across the globe, necessitated by social distancing measures preventing face‐to‐face teaching. This has led to an almost ...immediate switch to distance learning by higher education institutions. Anatomy faces some unique challenges. Intrinsically, anatomy is a three‐dimensional subject that requires a sound understanding of the relationships between structures, often achieved by the study of human cadaveric material, models, and virtual resources. This study sought to identify the approaches taken in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland to deliver anatomical education through online means. Data were collected from 14 different universities in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland and compared adopting a thematic analysis approach. Once themes were generated, they were collectively brought together using a strength, weakness, opportunity, threat (SWOT) analysis. Key themes included the opportunity to develop new online resources and the chance to engage in new academic collaborations. Academics frequently mentioned the challenge that time constrains could place on the quality and effectiveness of these resources; especially as in many cases the aim of these resources was to compensate for a lack of exposure to cadaveric exposure. Comparisons of the actions taken by multiple higher education institutions reveal the ways that academics have tried to balance this demand. Discussions will facilitate decisions being made by higher education institutions regarding adapting the curriculum and assessment methods in anatomy.
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