RESEARCH PAPER TEMPLATE

North American University

Education Department
M.Ed. in EDLE & CUIN
EDUC 5324: INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY INTO EDUCATION

Name: ERSIN GUNDUZ Date: November 22, 2019

Topic Selected: What are some of the innovative tools that research says is suitable and

works great for distance education? Choose one or highlight several tools that works in

distance education according to research.

1. LITERATURE REVIEW: (250 Words)

What does the literature/research say about this issue/topic? By using NAU
Library or Online Search engines, conduct a literature review.
• You need to include 5 different sources (book, journal article, web article
etc.) in your review. Try to use current sources as much as possible.
• You need to summarize and synthesize your sources by discussing a
common theme or issue.
• You don't need to critique your sources
• You don't need to evaluate your sources (if the sources are trustworthy,
weather the author has a bias or not)
• You need to provide background information such as history and
definitions
Literature Review: Distance education is one of the popular choices among the

student's community (Ramachandran, 2018). The number of students who continue to

increase the number of students enrolled in distance education courses. Distance

education is a type of education in which there is no classroom environment and student

and teacher interaction is almost never experienced. It is used to cover physical

deficiencies in the form of this training which is made by using technological facilities

(Keles & Ozel, 2016). The development of technology has added a new direction and

speed to distance education. It has become a highly preferred form of education for those

looking for flexibility and comfort in time and education. mail, radio, tv, video, internet
has existed in many formats such as. Web technologies have become the mainstream

choice of technology for distance education (Ramachandran, 2018). It is necessary to

have a safe way of communication between the instructors and the students. It is possible

to provide this in today's technology. The earliest distance education courses may date

back to the early 18th century in Europe. One of the earliest examples was from a 1728

advertisement in the Boston Gazette for "Caleb Phillips, Teacher of the new method of

Short Hand," who sought students who wanted to learn through weekly mailed lessons.

After introducing some technical devices in 1900’s technology based distance education

started (Holmberg, 2005). Therefore, we can say that technological distance education

has a history of a century.

Learning management systems are known in the literature by several different names.

These include course management systems, virtual learning environments and e-learning

courseware (Kats, 2010). Nowadays, there are many educational and communication

tools for educators and students. Most of them are free and easy to use tools for

educators. These tools provide opportunities for teachers to easily create assignments,

share presentations, online lectures, create surveys, and create exams. in all of them

privacy and some restrictions can be made within them. For example, when the exam is

created, it can set time constraints and add features such as not delaying the next

presentation without reading the entire presentation. You can create form sites and

discuss topics related to education with your students. It gives students the opportunity to

make online assignments without using paper and to make instant grading at their

teacher. It is possible to share video or various course materials quickly and make them

available to the students. Online offers you the opportunity to share and do again with

your students who are unable to record and attend your courses. . Online grades can also

help you comply with new privacy rules that prohibit posting grades with personal
identifiers in public places. (Cole & Foster, 2007).

Moodle: Moodle is a web-based tool you can access through a web browser. This means

that in order to use Moodle, you need a computer with a web browser installed and an

Internet connection. You also need to have the web address (called a Uniform Resource

Locator, or URL) of a server running Moodle. Moodle is an online course management

system that is widely known and freely available. The word Moodle stands for “Modular

Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment”. Moodle is utilized by both institutions

and individuals. The list of the former is long, including universities, high and primary

schools, governmental departments, military, and healthcare organizations as well as

airlines or oil companies. Homeschoolers, independent educators, and

special educators are among the individual users (Keles & Ozel, 2016).

Moodle has a lot of features such as Creating and managing content, managing class;

forums, chats and classes; quizzes, assignments, lessons, wikis, grades and scales, and

surveys (Cole & Foster, 2007).

ATutor: ATutor is an easy to use, widely used open source learning content

management system around the world. Accessibility and compatibility have been

identified as leading factors in its design. It is designed to be used easily on all types of

computer systems and all operating systems. It is also organized in a way that they can be

used comfortably by considering disabled people. Thanks to this system, which can be

easily installed and used by all trainers, technology integration to education is facilitated.

ATutor Learning Content Management System It is one of the most profitable, low-cost

investments that can be made to increase the quality of education. The graphical interface

of the ATutor Learning Content Management System can be changed at the discretion of

the administrator, at the discretion of each person, as well as determining the desired

module to appear anywhere in the instructional interface in a very short time. With a
single click, the interface can be converted to the desired language and used. Using the

teachers as an auxiliary tool in the lessons will contribute to the students' learning. A

Tutor has been used in many universities, institutions, research centers, and educational

institutions ( Keles & Ozel, 2016)

Pearson eCollege: A division of publishing giant Pearson Education, operates under a

business model that differs from that of other LMS vendors. While most companies offer

the LMS software as a product, with the options for self hosting or vendor hosting and

support, Pearson views itself as the provider of a total institutional solution for distance

learning (Simba information, 2007).

Angel: The Angel Learning Platform was developed at Indiana University-Purdue

University, Indianapolis in 1996 and incorporated in 2000, first as Cyber Learning Labs,

and later as Angel Learning. Angel’s focus has been on how to enhance teaching and

learning in academia, with over 90% of its client base in schools, colleges and

universities (Angel Learning, 2009).

2. REFLECTION: (250 Words)

• What is your personal opinion on this issue? Do you agree with the
research? If you agree or disagree, please explain why?
• Provide examples/experiences regarding this issue from school
perspective or If you are not working in a school, from your profession. Be
specific with your examples. You can mention software/hardware names,
specific methods that you plan to use, etc.
• How would you implement this research in your career? (At least 1
paragraph)

Reflection:
Distance education, which has become a popular education of recent times, has

been a new initiative in the education community. Those who support this education and

those who do not support have justified reasons for them. In my opinion, distance

education will not be in every field but it is a useful education in general. Students have

the chance to get education and graduate from more respectable and quality educational
institutions without going to school. All of these developments are the result of

technological opportunities.

As I remember, the first stages of distance education started by taking lesson videos

and loading them to CDs. The student had the chance to watch and repeat the things that

he did not understand at school. The fact that he had never learned to listen to the

unknown topic. However, the current distance education gives you a kind of class feel.

Especially in one-to-one lessons, students ask comfortable questions and find the

opportunity to ask again and again the places they do not understand. As I said before,

distance education is a good opportunity for students if not for every course. Distance

education has become a great advantage, especially for people who have to live in places

where the quality of education is low.

My school has a total of 17 different branches in different states. In one state there

has been a flood caused by the opening of dam gates. The flood didn't come to school at a

time, but the water level gradually increased and entered the school buildings. For this

reason, the students were evacuated from the school and were given an unrestricted

holiday. Among students, secondary school and high school graduation exam will be

written for students who rented an emergency place and continued education. However,

Online lectures were started to prevent other students from being away from education.

course schedules were removed and distributed to students. At the scheduled times, Zoom

Online Meeting program was held and classes were given. this was a very good prestige

occasion for our school and a program that set an example for other schools.

This work was a light of hope for me to realize some of my dreams, which I was in

the stage of thinking and could not begin with. not only the articles I have read, but also

the work of the master program. Participating in online training courses on behalf of self-

improvement in some areas that currently impact my career. I have a dream of attending
and attending certified programs and improving myself. however, I have some

disadvantages due to the lack of time zone and internet access. Despite these

disadvantages, I will take these courses.

3. REFERENCES:
• Cite at least 5 References in APA.
• You may use http://www.citationmachine.net/apa/cite-a-journal for citing
your sources in APA style.

References:
Angel Learning. (2009). About angel learning. Retrieved from

http://www.angellearning.com

Cole, J., & Foster, H. (2007). Using Moddle (2nd ed.). Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.

Kats, Y. (2010). Learning management system technologies and software solutions for

online teaching: Tools and applications. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

Keles, M. K., & Ozel, S. A. (2016). A review of distance learning and learning

management systems. Virtual Learning. doi:10.5772/65222.

Holmberg, B. (2005). The evolution, principles and practices of distance education.

Germany, Oldenburg: Bibliotheksund Informationssystem der Universityat.

Opensourcecms. (n.d.). Claroline demo and information. Retrieved from

https://www.opensourcecms.com/claroline/

Ramachandran, V. (2018). A framework for making most out of online communities of

practice tools for reforms in distance learning. Asian Journal of Distance

Education, 13(1), 146-156.

Simba Information. (2007). Pearson expands with eCollege. Electronic Education

Report, 14(10).