WIRE: A Highly Interactive Blended Learning for Engineering Education - Web-Based Engineering Education: Critical Design and Effective Tools - page 151

the Aspect of technology Adoption And the first five popular learning modalities

with technology support are:

Modern technologies that support for teaching and
learning generally consist of learning platform
(course management system (CMS), learning
management system (LMS), virtual learning
environment (VLE) or instructional management
system (IMS), such as Blackboard, Moodle, Sakai,
etc.), learning content authoring and presenta-
tion tools (such as Articulate, Camtasia, Adobe
Captivate, Microsoft PowerPoint, etc.), classroom
technology products (such as interactive white-
board, clickers, classroom management, etc.),
web-served content (such as Wikipedia, Elsevier,
Safari Montage, etc.), adaptive & gaming (such
as adaptive tutoring, educational gaming, or other
domain-specific learning environment products),
content management (including course manage-
ment system content management, digital reposito-
ries, and document management systems), mobile
technology, etc. What technology the teacher will
adopt depends on the instructional design and
objective environment, but more consideration
is focused on the usability and complexity. By
referring to Rogers' model for the adoption and
diffusion of innovations, the authors believe a
new technology for education will be relatively
accepted by most teachers when its diffusion, at
least, has got into or has stepped across the 'early
majority' stage. Teachers are interested in trying
new technology with slight challenges but easy
to use.
According to 2008 Snapshot Report on Learn-
ing Modalities released by eLearning Guide
Research (2008), the first five popular learning
modalities are:

1. Asynchronous web-based learning,
2. Email,
3. Online assessment and testing,
4. Online references, and
5. Synchronous web-based learning.

Even in the 2006 report on the popular mixes
of media in blended learning (Pulichino, 2006), the
results are similar to the above except that the 4th
and 5th items of popular learning modalities are
replaced by 'Online assessment and testing' and
'Online reference' respectively, and the 5th item
in the popular learning modalities with technology
support is replaced by 'Learning content man-
agement systems.' The physical communication
in a face-to-face context is still the main stream
for human resource training in enterprises. The
adoption of learning technologies concentrates
on the traditional functions provided in general
eLearning platforms.
In school setting, the authors referred to the
study of the Second Information Technology in
Education Studies (SITES 2006) launched by the
IEA (International Association for the Evalua-
tion of Educational Achievement). There are 23
education systems (22 countries), 400 schools
per countries, join the study. The population of
schools will be all schools in a country that have
eighth grade students. According to the report of
SITES 2006 (Law, Pelgrum, & Plomp, 2008), the
first five ICT tools with high frequency of use in
teaching are:

1. Equipment and hands-on materials (e.g.,
laboratory equipment, musical instruments,
art materials, overhead projectors, slide
projectors, electronic calculators),
2. General office suite (e.g., word-process-
ing, database, spreadsheet, presentation
software),

1. Printed-based materials,
2. Classroom instruction,
3. Asynchronous web-based learning,
4. In-person mentoring and tutoring, and
5. Conference calls.