Abstract There are many interesting uses of the virtual world in Second Life for Computing Educat... more Abstract There are many interesting uses of the virtual world in Second Life for Computing Education. The panel members are involved in tertiary education and use Second Life as their medium, both for teaching and research purposes. However, the session is an open forum, where they will demonstrate their work in Second Life, and discuss issues and questions with the audience. Not all panel members will be present, but we will link to them in Second Life during the panel forum timeslot.
Original paper entitled 'The power of a university classroom-based simulation learning task&#... more Original paper entitled 'The power of a university classroom-based simulation learning task'.<br>
Twitter has experienced a tremendous growth since its inception and is considered as an effective... more Twitter has experienced a tremendous growth since its inception and is considered as an effective and simple social medium for communication. Despite its huge uptake, less is known about the usage of Twitter as a learning tool especially within higher education. This study investigates the adoption of Twitter in an e-Commerce unit in an Australian higher education institution. Building on Twitter‘s inherent social features, an extension to Davis‘s original Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is devised by including intrinsic and extrinsic motivation behaviours as predictors of Twitter usage. The empirical evaluation does not provide support to the original TAM constructs of usefulness and ease-of-use but reveals enjoyment and social norms as the strongest predictors. The study implications suggest a mind-shift in the adoption of Web 2.0 tools as compared to that of traditional Web technologies, i.e., Web 2.0 is more about enjoyment and social presence and not merely about how useful o...
A classroom-based simulation activity is conducted in a third-year finance subject, involving tea... more A classroom-based simulation activity is conducted in a third-year finance subject, involving teams of students negotiating a business sale or purchase. A case study approach provides a basis for interpretation. Interviews with students, along with statistical information and relevant policy documents, were analyzed and interpreted to generate the findings. The effectiveness of the simulation activity is evaluated and showed that it enhanced learning and involved students drawing on a range of graduate capabilities in meeting a negotiated outcome. The authors also report that the effectiveness of the activity as gauged from the perspective of the students is also supported.
This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or dip... more This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. To the best of my knowledge, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis.
This article describes, evaluates and reflects upon student creation of cloud-based digital flash... more This article describes, evaluates and reflects upon student creation of cloud-based digital flashcards as an authentic formative and summative assessment task designed for the deep learning of constitutional law. The usefulness of digital flashcards in online legal education is explored. The undergraduate law student participants in the study responded differently to the assessment task depending upon the constitutional law topic they were assigned, the perceived relevance of constructing digital flashcards to professional practice and how they reacted to this creative task. Building digital flashcards provides a potentially powerful authentic assessment task for the study of constitutional law provided it is designed to support semester long creation, validation and sharing of digital flashcards that students perceive as professionally relevant and educationally useful. Student recommendations for designing an assessment task involving the creation of digital flashcards are evaluated.
The OpenTab project investigated an open educational (OE) approach to developing course materials... more The OpenTab project investigated an open educational (OE) approach to developing course materials using tablet devices (iPads) to access Open Educational Resources (OERs). It explored the implications of applying an open approach to the development of materials for use in the faculty's new common first year core (CFYC) subjects. Conducted in parallel with a trial roll out of tablet devices in a core subject in the School of Business, the project revealed a range of issues that the project team intends to address as it continues to develop a model workflow for other subjects in the university.
This chapter reports on a study that compares the learning styles and technology acceptance of tw... more This chapter reports on a study that compares the learning styles and technology acceptance of two culturally different groups of students studying at different universities, one in Australia and the other in the US. However, almost all of the students from the Australian cohort were international students from China; thus, this study is essentially a comparison between American and Chinese students. Felder-Solomon's Index of Learning Styles (ILS) was used to collect learning styles data while Davis' Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to examine the acceptance of Twitter, the technology being examined. The study results revealed no statistical significant differences in the learning style preferences of the two groups suggesting that culture did not play a significant role in defining their learning habits. However, culture was a significant factor in the acceptance of technology, in this case Twitter.
Second Life is a 3-D multiuser virtual environment which has gained wide spread popularity amongs... more Second Life is a 3-D multiuser virtual environment which has gained wide spread popularity amongst academic community in the recent years. However, due to its infancy very little is known about the factors driving users' intention to use Second Life especially in the educational context. This paper presents findings from an ongoing study about the impacts of using multiuser virtual environments in higher education. In information systems research, several models and frameworks have attempted to predict the acceptance of new technology. However some recent studies suggest that the traditional technology acceptance approaches may not work well with today's entertainment-oriented technologies such as multiuser virtual environments. They also recommend exploring those facets of human behaviour that are likely to capture the hedonic consumption of such technologies. In this paper, we propose an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) including hedonic consumption behaviours in order to explain the usage and acceptance of Second Life in the educational context. The proposed model is empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 122 users about their perceptions of Second Life. Findings suggest that hedonic consumption behaviours are strong predictors of Second Life usage as compared to traditional motivational constructs of usefulness and ease-of-use.
Despite its huge uptake all over the world, Twitter is still in its early stages of being used as... more Despite its huge uptake all over the world, Twitter is still in its early stages of being used as an educational tool. Here, we present an experiment that was conducted across two undergraduate groups from different universities, an Australian and another American university. In this experiment we looked at Twitter usage in class and compared the results with a particular focus on analysing technology acceptance differences between the two groups. Both groups used Twitter as part of their tutorial work and participated in a survey at the end of the semester. Empirical investigation was done using Davis' technology acceptance model (TAM). The study findings reveal highly significant differences in the technology acceptance behaviours of the two groups, thus highlight cultural differences in the acceptance of technology, in this case Twitter.
International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments, 2013
Second Life is a three dimensional multi-user virtual environment within the Web 2.0 suite of app... more Second Life is a three dimensional multi-user virtual environment within the Web 2.0 suite of applications which has gained wide spread popularity amongst educators in the recent years. However, limited empirical research has been reported on the adoption of Second Life, especially within higher education. The majority of technology adoption studies concentrate on analysing effects of utilitarian variables on adoption of a new technology however one should also focus on the hedonic effects when it comes to the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies which are highly interactive, involving, multi-user and entertaining. In this paper, the authors analyse the effect of utilitarian and hedonic behaviours on adoption of Second Life in a higher education context. To achieve this goal the authors propose an extension to Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by including emotional and imaginative responses as hedonic behaviours and usefulness, ease-of-use and computer self-efficacy as utilitari...
… of the fifteenth annual conference on …, Jan 1, 2010
... Yun Yang Faculty of ICT Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne, Australia +61 3 9214 87... more ... Yun Yang Faculty of ICT Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne, Australia +61 3 9214 8752 [email protected] Suku Sinnappan Faculty of Higher Education Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne, Australia +61 3 9215 7192 [email protected] ...
... Yun Yang Swinburne University of Technology, [email protected] Suku Sinnappan Swinburne Unive... more ... Yun Yang Swinburne University of Technology, [email protected] Suku Sinnappan Swinburne University of Technology, [email protected] This material is brought to you by the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). ...
Blogs and podcasts are emerging Web technologies that have been adopted by educators to facilitat... more Blogs and podcasts are emerging Web technologies that have been adopted by educators to facilitate oncampus and distance education. However, little is known about user acceptance of these technologies. In this paper, we empirically test a theoretical model to examine the effects of individual's cognitive style on user acceptance of blogs and podcasts. We incorporated a course blog and series of lecture podcasts in a Web programming course and collected students' feedback on the technology usage. Empirical findings suggest that individual's cognitive style has significant effects on user acceptance of blogs and podcasts. However, students with innovative cognitive style are more likely to perceive these technologies as useful and easy-to-use as compared to their adaptor counterparts. Also, innovators perceive podcasts as more useful than blog whilst blog as more easy-to-use than podcasts.
Second Life is a 3-D multi user virtual environment and is used as a platform for education by ma... more Second Life is a 3-D multi user virtual environment and is used as a platform for education by many institutions around the world. It offers a variety of communication channels to perform academic activities for both distance and on-campus education. As such, Second Life provides an excellent platform to test the implications of media richness theory (MRT). This paper aims at examining the media richness of Second Life and its impact on the user acceptance. Media Richness Theory and Technology Acceptance Model have been used as its theoretical basis. PLS approach is used to test the hypothesised relationships. Our study results suggest that Second Life is highly rich medium and is capable of promoting effective communication among its users. We found that media richness has a direct positive effect on the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of Second Life which in turn leads to actual usage. Some implications of our findings are discussed and ideas for future research are also presented.
… Technologies, 2008. ICALT'08. Eighth IEEE …, Jan 1, 2008
Emerging e-learning tools have the potential to enrich academic environments. However, there is a... more Emerging e-learning tools have the potential to enrich academic environments. However, there is a need to understand the requirements, expectations, and learning styles of the end users before incorporating new tools into courses. This paper presents details of a user study to analyze learning styles and tools preferences of the end users and to explore significant relationships among them. The study outcomes highlight several significant relationships and reveal the tools preferences of various learner types. In contrast with existing studies, our study report balanced or unbiased academic performances across all learner types.
Abstract There are many interesting uses of the virtual world in Second Life for Computing Educat... more Abstract There are many interesting uses of the virtual world in Second Life for Computing Education. The panel members are involved in tertiary education and use Second Life as their medium, both for teaching and research purposes. However, the session is an open forum, where they will demonstrate their work in Second Life, and discuss issues and questions with the audience. Not all panel members will be present, but we will link to them in Second Life during the panel forum timeslot.
Original paper entitled 'The power of a university classroom-based simulation learning task&#... more Original paper entitled 'The power of a university classroom-based simulation learning task'.<br>
Twitter has experienced a tremendous growth since its inception and is considered as an effective... more Twitter has experienced a tremendous growth since its inception and is considered as an effective and simple social medium for communication. Despite its huge uptake, less is known about the usage of Twitter as a learning tool especially within higher education. This study investigates the adoption of Twitter in an e-Commerce unit in an Australian higher education institution. Building on Twitter‘s inherent social features, an extension to Davis‘s original Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is devised by including intrinsic and extrinsic motivation behaviours as predictors of Twitter usage. The empirical evaluation does not provide support to the original TAM constructs of usefulness and ease-of-use but reveals enjoyment and social norms as the strongest predictors. The study implications suggest a mind-shift in the adoption of Web 2.0 tools as compared to that of traditional Web technologies, i.e., Web 2.0 is more about enjoyment and social presence and not merely about how useful o...
A classroom-based simulation activity is conducted in a third-year finance subject, involving tea... more A classroom-based simulation activity is conducted in a third-year finance subject, involving teams of students negotiating a business sale or purchase. A case study approach provides a basis for interpretation. Interviews with students, along with statistical information and relevant policy documents, were analyzed and interpreted to generate the findings. The effectiveness of the simulation activity is evaluated and showed that it enhanced learning and involved students drawing on a range of graduate capabilities in meeting a negotiated outcome. The authors also report that the effectiveness of the activity as gauged from the perspective of the students is also supported.
This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or dip... more This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. To the best of my knowledge, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis.
This article describes, evaluates and reflects upon student creation of cloud-based digital flash... more This article describes, evaluates and reflects upon student creation of cloud-based digital flashcards as an authentic formative and summative assessment task designed for the deep learning of constitutional law. The usefulness of digital flashcards in online legal education is explored. The undergraduate law student participants in the study responded differently to the assessment task depending upon the constitutional law topic they were assigned, the perceived relevance of constructing digital flashcards to professional practice and how they reacted to this creative task. Building digital flashcards provides a potentially powerful authentic assessment task for the study of constitutional law provided it is designed to support semester long creation, validation and sharing of digital flashcards that students perceive as professionally relevant and educationally useful. Student recommendations for designing an assessment task involving the creation of digital flashcards are evaluated.
The OpenTab project investigated an open educational (OE) approach to developing course materials... more The OpenTab project investigated an open educational (OE) approach to developing course materials using tablet devices (iPads) to access Open Educational Resources (OERs). It explored the implications of applying an open approach to the development of materials for use in the faculty's new common first year core (CFYC) subjects. Conducted in parallel with a trial roll out of tablet devices in a core subject in the School of Business, the project revealed a range of issues that the project team intends to address as it continues to develop a model workflow for other subjects in the university.
This chapter reports on a study that compares the learning styles and technology acceptance of tw... more This chapter reports on a study that compares the learning styles and technology acceptance of two culturally different groups of students studying at different universities, one in Australia and the other in the US. However, almost all of the students from the Australian cohort were international students from China; thus, this study is essentially a comparison between American and Chinese students. Felder-Solomon's Index of Learning Styles (ILS) was used to collect learning styles data while Davis' Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to examine the acceptance of Twitter, the technology being examined. The study results revealed no statistical significant differences in the learning style preferences of the two groups suggesting that culture did not play a significant role in defining their learning habits. However, culture was a significant factor in the acceptance of technology, in this case Twitter.
Second Life is a 3-D multiuser virtual environment which has gained wide spread popularity amongs... more Second Life is a 3-D multiuser virtual environment which has gained wide spread popularity amongst academic community in the recent years. However, due to its infancy very little is known about the factors driving users' intention to use Second Life especially in the educational context. This paper presents findings from an ongoing study about the impacts of using multiuser virtual environments in higher education. In information systems research, several models and frameworks have attempted to predict the acceptance of new technology. However some recent studies suggest that the traditional technology acceptance approaches may not work well with today's entertainment-oriented technologies such as multiuser virtual environments. They also recommend exploring those facets of human behaviour that are likely to capture the hedonic consumption of such technologies. In this paper, we propose an extended technology acceptance model (TAM) including hedonic consumption behaviours in order to explain the usage and acceptance of Second Life in the educational context. The proposed model is empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 122 users about their perceptions of Second Life. Findings suggest that hedonic consumption behaviours are strong predictors of Second Life usage as compared to traditional motivational constructs of usefulness and ease-of-use.
Despite its huge uptake all over the world, Twitter is still in its early stages of being used as... more Despite its huge uptake all over the world, Twitter is still in its early stages of being used as an educational tool. Here, we present an experiment that was conducted across two undergraduate groups from different universities, an Australian and another American university. In this experiment we looked at Twitter usage in class and compared the results with a particular focus on analysing technology acceptance differences between the two groups. Both groups used Twitter as part of their tutorial work and participated in a survey at the end of the semester. Empirical investigation was done using Davis' technology acceptance model (TAM). The study findings reveal highly significant differences in the technology acceptance behaviours of the two groups, thus highlight cultural differences in the acceptance of technology, in this case Twitter.
International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments, 2013
Second Life is a three dimensional multi-user virtual environment within the Web 2.0 suite of app... more Second Life is a three dimensional multi-user virtual environment within the Web 2.0 suite of applications which has gained wide spread popularity amongst educators in the recent years. However, limited empirical research has been reported on the adoption of Second Life, especially within higher education. The majority of technology adoption studies concentrate on analysing effects of utilitarian variables on adoption of a new technology however one should also focus on the hedonic effects when it comes to the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies which are highly interactive, involving, multi-user and entertaining. In this paper, the authors analyse the effect of utilitarian and hedonic behaviours on adoption of Second Life in a higher education context. To achieve this goal the authors propose an extension to Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by including emotional and imaginative responses as hedonic behaviours and usefulness, ease-of-use and computer self-efficacy as utilitari...
… of the fifteenth annual conference on …, Jan 1, 2010
... Yun Yang Faculty of ICT Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne, Australia +61 3 9214 87... more ... Yun Yang Faculty of ICT Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne, Australia +61 3 9214 8752 [email protected] Suku Sinnappan Faculty of Higher Education Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne, Australia +61 3 9215 7192 [email protected] ...
... Yun Yang Swinburne University of Technology, [email protected] Suku Sinnappan Swinburne Unive... more ... Yun Yang Swinburne University of Technology, [email protected] Suku Sinnappan Swinburne University of Technology, [email protected] This material is brought to you by the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). ...
Blogs and podcasts are emerging Web technologies that have been adopted by educators to facilitat... more Blogs and podcasts are emerging Web technologies that have been adopted by educators to facilitate oncampus and distance education. However, little is known about user acceptance of these technologies. In this paper, we empirically test a theoretical model to examine the effects of individual's cognitive style on user acceptance of blogs and podcasts. We incorporated a course blog and series of lecture podcasts in a Web programming course and collected students' feedback on the technology usage. Empirical findings suggest that individual's cognitive style has significant effects on user acceptance of blogs and podcasts. However, students with innovative cognitive style are more likely to perceive these technologies as useful and easy-to-use as compared to their adaptor counterparts. Also, innovators perceive podcasts as more useful than blog whilst blog as more easy-to-use than podcasts.
Second Life is a 3-D multi user virtual environment and is used as a platform for education by ma... more Second Life is a 3-D multi user virtual environment and is used as a platform for education by many institutions around the world. It offers a variety of communication channels to perform academic activities for both distance and on-campus education. As such, Second Life provides an excellent platform to test the implications of media richness theory (MRT). This paper aims at examining the media richness of Second Life and its impact on the user acceptance. Media Richness Theory and Technology Acceptance Model have been used as its theoretical basis. PLS approach is used to test the hypothesised relationships. Our study results suggest that Second Life is highly rich medium and is capable of promoting effective communication among its users. We found that media richness has a direct positive effect on the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of Second Life which in turn leads to actual usage. Some implications of our findings are discussed and ideas for future research are also presented.
… Technologies, 2008. ICALT'08. Eighth IEEE …, Jan 1, 2008
Emerging e-learning tools have the potential to enrich academic environments. However, there is a... more Emerging e-learning tools have the potential to enrich academic environments. However, there is a need to understand the requirements, expectations, and learning styles of the end users before incorporating new tools into courses. This paper presents details of a user study to analyze learning styles and tools preferences of the end users and to explore significant relationships among them. The study outcomes highlight several significant relationships and reveal the tools preferences of various learner types. In contrast with existing studies, our study report balanced or unbiased academic performances across all learner types.
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Papers by Nauman Saeed