Online and Distance Education Commons^™

The Brief & Expansive History (And Future) Of The Mooc: Why Two Divergent Models Share The Same Name, Rolin Moe

Rolin Moe

Within popular media, the massive open online course (MOOC) is presented as a novel idea created by maverick professors and further developed with a goal to further democratize education on bases of quality and cost. The perception of this sequence of events as modular history has perpetuated a difficulty in developing MOOC-related research and critique within the fields of distance and online education. At the center of this struggle is the MOOC acronym: its initial development was in 2008, and its use today happens in opposition to the theoretical and pedagogical elements of the 2008 MOOC. This paper endeavors to …

Quality Learning With Technologies: Strategies For School Leaders To Address Challenges And Dilemmas, Kathryn Moyle

Professor Kathryn Moyle

The integration of technologies into schools is often promoted as a way to improve the quality of students’ learning, and an approach that enables teachers to be more ‘learner focused’.

Virtual learning environments, such as learning management systems, mobile technologies, online games, simulations and virtual worlds, are seen to offer teachers the ability to personalise learning for students, and as a way to enable students to be in control of the pace of their own learning. Technologies are also seen to assist in the collection and analysis of data about students’ achievements. Integrating technologies into school programs however, is not …

Digital Fluency: Skills Necessary For The Digital Age., Gerry White

Dr Gerald K. White

Many researchers argue that major innovations, especially the internet, adopted by society, have an effect on the structure of the human brain, which may or may not be a change for the better. If the structure of the human brain and ways of finding information and communication are changing as a result of the internet, then changes to the way that students learn, and probably what they are learning, would appear to follow. This article examines the skills that will be required for the twenty first century that will need to be embedded in educational curricula in order to achieve …