Software applications in educational technology have been a strong driving force for the success of online learning at all levels. These applications are created for various purposes and are used by a range of experts. The development of a successful educational technology software takes a deliberate team effort and thoughtful project management.…

Augmented/virtual realities (ARs/VRs) promise to revolutionize STEM education. However, most easy-to-use tools are limited to static visualizations, which limits the approachable content, whereas more interactive and dynamic alternatives require costly hardware, preventing large-scale use and evaluation of pedagogical effects. Here, we introduce…

The educational game industry struggles from a lack of standardization around collecting, analyzing and managing student learning data, which is potentially jeopardizing millions of dollars of investment in educational games. Investors, administrators, and educators require data to support quantitative and qualitative learning measurement in…

A spin coater is widely used for thin film coating in nano/microtechnology. In this paper, a spin coater with inexpensive mechanical and electronic components was fabricated based on an open-source Arduino microcontroller. To measure and control the spin speed of the spin coater, two sensor types including two infrared (IR) light-emitting diodes…

This case describes a classroom activity that explores a fictional software product company to help students learn about ways that businesses make money from software, including Free & Open Source Software (FOSS). The activity shows how a company might evolve through different business models, but does not imply that some models are always…

An essential goal for physics and optical science instructors is to encourage students to find excitement and beauty in physical and optical phenomena while helping them learn the theoretical concepts and conducting experiments that can test the validity of the concepts. Such motivation largely relies on realistic hands-on lab opportunities where…

Information and Communication Technology specialists, working within universities play important roles in the deployment of educational technologies for teaching and learning. Given the centrality of these specialists and the woeful dearth of empirics on this subject-matter in Sub-Saharan Africa, this paper interrogates the perspectives of ICT…

Current distance education practices can be susceptible to the types of content-heavy, top-down instruction often seen in physical classrooms. These practices are similar to the activities of corporations, which use recommendation systems and game theory to mold the public sphere and fragment it. We propose that free knowledge creation through…

The Fourier transformation (FT) is a mathematical process frequently encountered by chemistry students. However, it remains an automated background process perceived by many students as difficult to understand. In this paper we present a simple open-source web application, which can help students to understand the basics of the FT applied to…

LiaScript is an attempt to enable everyone to create free and interactive online courses, without the need of being an experienced programmer. Instead, it aims to bring both parties, software- and course-developers, closer together by introducing Open-Source techniques into the Open-courSe development process. LiaScript was designed to be…

The use of large, open-source data sets is ubiquitous in scientific research. Scientists--ranging from meteorologists to chemists to epidemiologists--are researching and investigating critical questions using data that they have not themselves collected. To contribute to the growing effort to bring data science into classrooms, the authors have…

As an emergent technology augmented reality (AR) demonstrated a plethora of advantages in foreign language education, promoting motivation, memorization of contents, as well as contextualized learning. However, the majority of teachers are unfamiliar with AR, and their role as designers and facilitators requires further investigation. Moreover,…

Teacher presence has been considered one of the cornerstones of students' motivation and engagement in traditional and online education. However, we argue that diminished teacher presence can actually be beneficial for building a democratic, student-led classroom. We hypothesize that this can be achieved through the use of an Open Source Educative…

The field of computer science has long been plagued by issues of diversity - in particular, attracting and retaining those historically marginalized in computing contexts. This is a great loss to the field, to the future of innovation, and to society. Perhaps most importantly, it is an incalculable loss to those populations excluded from pursuing…

Open source software has now become a significant alternative in meeting different needs in business, government and academic environments, such as needs related to economics, management, learning and innovation, among others. The purpose of this research was to examine the research trends and evolution of the field of open source software…