Digital Media in Teaching and its Added Value

This book project was initiated in fall 2013 at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), Nebraska during a Global Engagement Research and Teaching Workshop between faculty from UNO and the University of Agder (UiA), Norway. The anthology presents articles that center on the application of digital technologies that add value to the teaching and learning process in a globalized context. The unique focus of the book is the intersection between pedagogy and technology, specifically the innovative use of technology to improve higher education teaching and learning. With the increased mobility of faculty and students, more diversity among our students and faculty, increased cross-disciplinary designs, alternative environments enabled by technology, and greater demand from the millennial generation for increased access and flexibility, it is important to share accounts where technology has made a positive impact on the instructional process. Topics that are discussed are local studies with implications for the global environment and the innovative use of technology to improve higher education teaching and learning. The target audiences for the book are researchers, teachers and stakeholders in learning organizations interested in using IT for teaching and learning.

David F. Conway is the Associate Dean in the College of Education at the University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO). He serves on the campus-wide, Distance Learning Advisory Committee. The college offers a fully-online Master’s degree program in Behavioral Disorders, a blended/hybrid School Library program, and several courses in other undergraduate and graduate programs. His background and training is in special education, specifically in education of children who are deaf/hard of hearing. He directed a distance training program for teachers in a seven state region. He serves as secretary of the Division for Communication Disabilities and Deafness of the International Council for Exceptional Children. Dr. Conway’s research interests include language and literacy development, and math and science learning.

Hillen, Stefanie A. works as a professor at the Department of Education at the University of Agder (UiA). She is head of the research group on school development, evaluation, and digital assessment. She has worked as a visiting professor at Florida State University (USA). She has also held a post-doctoral position at the Department of ICT Grimstad (UiA), where she developed digital learning environments for topics on integrated operations to connect off-shore and on-shore working needs. She holds a Ph.D. in business education from the University of Mainz, Germany. Her research is comprised of digital assessment and evaluation, technology-based learning, general didactics, didactics in VET, democratic education, and comparative education. At the Teacher Training Center, Wiesbaden, Germany, Dr. Hillen fulfilled a full-time, two-year education programme and received her degree as a teacher for vocational schools with ICT, economics, and business administration. Stefanie Hillen’s focus during the School-In project was to look at school development from a systemic perspective and appropriate working methods that create collective responsibility.

Melodee Landis is an Associate Professor Emeritus of the Teacher Education Department of the University of Nebraska Omaha College of Education. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Administration, Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Dr. Landis has previously held positions as a middle school teacher, a distance learning coordinator at the Nebraska Department of Education, and at the University of Minnesota before joining the faculty at UNO. Her publishings include research on best practices in instructional technology, distance learning, and the development of higher level thinking. Dr. Landis’s current focus has shifted to English language instruction and reading remediation in which she uses technology as a major tool.

Mary Schlegelmilch received her B.Sc. in Education with concentration in Early Childhood from the University of South Dakota in 1989. Mary studied K-12 Curriculum Development at Black Hills State University receiving an endorsement in middle level education. She earned a M.Sc. in Educational Administration from the University Nebraska Lincoln in 2007. Schlegelmilch has worked in K-12 education in both rural and urban schools. She has experience as a classroom instructor, district curriculum facilitator in the area of eLearning, elementary school principal and post-secondary instructor. She joined Cisco in 2011 as Education Advisor to assist K-12 and higher education institutions transform their teaching and learning environments through the use of technology. Schlegelmilch has facilitated webinars on topics pertaining to the use of learning objects, Open Education Resources, collaborative technologies, and the implementation of blended learning programs.

Peter Wolcott holds the Mutual of Omaha Chair of Information Science & Technology and chairs the Department of Information Systems and Quantitative Analysis. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona in Business Administration (Management Information Systems) in 1993. He has long-standing interests in the international dimensions of information technologies, and data management. His current research projects are in the areas of service learning and information technology for development. His teaching interests are in data management and information technology for development.