Networking, anyone? When Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment colleagues Cansu Tatar and Michael Tscholl were measuring how well students at DeKalb’s St. Mary Catholic School understood artificial intelligence, they also met the teachers. And when one of those teachers took
Read moreAI project at St. Mary School advancing to examine teaching ability of chatbots
Michael Tscholl’s long-term project at DeKalb’s St. Mary Catholic School will enter its next phase in March. Last year’s study by Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment researchers focused on 50 students in sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grades to measure their comprehension
Read moreTalking head: ETRA researcher merges ChatGPT, Furhat for improved learning
With a background in computer engineering, Mobin Hossein Panahi brings coding and programming skills to his pursuit of an M.S.Ed. in Instructional Technology at NIU. But can Panahi equip a “social robot” to not only employ AI to respond to spoken questions
Read moreBSAM-ITTE alum Ray Schaefer donates 14 virtual reality headsets to alma mater
A 2023 alumnus of the College of Education’s B.S.A.M. in Instructional Technology degree has honored his alma mater with a gift of Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headsets and a large cleaning unit. The donation from Ray Schaefer, who works in global
Read moreCollaborative study explores prevalence of mixed-methods research in ed tech
Mixed-methods research constitutes 12% of all published articles in the top 10 educational technology journals, according to a trio of researchers affiliated with the College of Education. Olha Ketsman, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment (ETRA), collaborated
Read moreRecent ETRA master’s graduate equips future Huskies to navigate Blackboard
When NIU faculty have technical questions about Blackboard, they often turn to the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL). And when NIU students have technical questions about Blackboard, they turn to … well, typically, the faculty who are requiring them to
Read moreETRA researchers explore AI knowledge of St. Mary School middle-level students
Researchers from the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment (ETRA) are working with nearly 50 middle-level students and their teachers at St. Mary Catholic School to measure their comprehension of Artificial Intelligence. How do they engage and interact with AI? What
Read morePi-Sui Hsu traversing multiple avenues to explore potential of instructional tech
After years of equipping Rockford middle schoolers to create makerspaces, Pi-Sui Hsu wanted to elevate her outreach to another level. Hsu, a Presidential Engagement Professor in the NIU Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment, had taught her after-school students and summer
Read moreEd.D. alum JA Allen returns to campus to share cartoon-based learning model
An alumnus of the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment has returned to NIU to share his knowledge – and, he hopes, to spark more students to follow his unique path. J.A. Allen, who earned his Ed.D. in Instructional Technology in
Read morePicture this: New ETRA course advances learning design via ‘data visualization’
Explaining the concept of “data visualization” is easier shown than said – which, ironically, is the point of data visualization. Cansu Tatar makes this clear when she navigates her browser to an interactive table that allows her to compare math and reading
Read morePi-Sui Hsu honored with Presidential Engagement, Partnership Professorship
Pi-Sui Hsu knows her mission. “Scientific argumentation is one of the eight essential practices in the Next Generation Science Standards,” says Hsu, a professor in the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment. “I firmly believe that this practice can produce young
Read moreETRA researchers employ robots again to nurture computational thinking skills within an NIU STEAM summer school
What began in Naperville Community Unit School District 203 could not stop there. Faculty from the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment interacted with around 200 students in 2021 and 2022 to observe how working with LEGO educational robots might stimulate
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