Evaluation of Emerging Technologies in the Classroom

Update from IDC 2020 in relation to Covid 19 (Coronavirus)

“In consultation with the IDC SG chairs and the ACM we have decided not to hold the conference in London physically this year.

…In the coming weeks we will be posting new updates as we start to design the virtual edition of the conference. IDC is a close-knit community, committed to benefiting children. We will identify new ways to bring our community together virtually this year.”

Please follow the main conference cite (IDC2020) for further updates.

Motivation

Educational policies are turning their focus from numeracy and literacy to targeting 21st century skills such as collaboration, creativity, content creation and digital literacies (Moger & Bagley, 2019; OECD, 2018). In parallel, educational technology innovation is increasingly moving beyond traditional software and hardware tools to include technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, social media, tangibles, robotics, and AI. While the evaluation of educational technology in the classroom has always been a challenge for researchers and practitioners, the shift in the technologies used and the skills targeted is posing even further logistical, ethical, social and methodological challenges (e.g. Da Silva et al., 2019; Regan & Jesse, 2018). This is especially true within the formal education and classroom context, as evaluating these new skills is an ongoing reflection. In alignment with the conference’s “designing for the future” theme, the aim of this workshop is to stimulate a discussion with the educational technology research community around the best practices and challenges of evaluation for such emerging educational technologies and the corresponding development goals in the classroom.

Goals

• To bring together researchers and practitioners who are interested in the challenges of evaluating the impact of deploying innovative technologies in the classroom.
• To discuss and share best practices, strategies methods and tools to support the deployment and evaluation process of such technologies in the classroom.
• To discuss and outline the logistical, ethical and social (i.e., non-methodological) challenges that are associated with such technologies (e.g. the use of social media in the classroom), of which researchers need to be aware when designing, deploying and evaluating such technologies in the classroom.

Interdisciplinary Evaluation of Educational Technology Implementations

Between the fields of Educational Technology and Human-Computer Interaction, there has been a plethora of methodologically diverse studies focusing on different aspects of educational technology implementation. Nevertheless, variations in evaluation methodologies makes it difficult for designers, researchers, educators and learners to determine the value of educational technologies effectively. Until recently, systematic reviews have focused on different aspects of educational technology implementations such as specific technologies, learner types, learning outcomes, or disciplines (e.g., Crompton, Burke, & Gregory, 2017; Kirkwood & Price, 2014; Smetana & Bell, 2012, Brule et al, 2020). More recently, Lai and Bower (2019) conducted a comprehensive review of empirical research published in Computers & Education journal 2015-2017. To extend this comprehensive survey into the HCI domain, several of the authors in this proposal are currently reviewing empirical research in the major ACM conferences and publications in the past five years, including CHI, CSCW, IDC, and TOCHI and their initial findings will help inform the content and activities of this workshop.

Themes of the Workshop

• Emerging technologies in the classroom
• Targeting 21st century skills