Online and Distance Education Commons^™

Odyssey Of The Mind: Social Networking In Cyberschool, Michael Barbour, Cory Plough

Education Faculty Publications

K-12 online learning and cyber charter schools have grown at a tremendous rate over the past decade. At the same time, these online programs have struggled to provide the social spaces where students can interact that K-12 schools are traditionally able to provide. Social networking presents a unique opportunity to provide these kinds of social interactions in an online environment. In this article, we trace the development and use of social networking at one cyber charter school to extend the space for online instruction and provide opportunities for social interaction that online schools are often unable to provide.

The Effectiveness Of Blended Instruction In Core Postsecondary Mathematics Courses, Anna E. Bargagliotti, Fernanda Botelho, Jim Gleason, John Haddock, Alistair Windsor

Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science Faculty Works

Most students in U.S. universities are required to take a collection of core courses regardless of their degree or major. These courses are known as "general education" courses. The general education requirements typically include at least one mathematics course. Unfortunately each year hundreds of thousands of students in the US do not succeed in these general education mathematics courses causing them to act as a barrier to degree completion. Low student success rates in these courses are pervasive, and it is well documented that the U.S. needs to improve student success and retention in general education mathematics courses.

In this …

Comparison Of Restricted And Traditional Discussion Boards On Student Critical Thinking, Jennifer R. Morrison, Ginger S. Watson, Gary R. Morrison

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Interaction is a critical component of distance education and involves the transfer of information between the learner and content, learner and learner, or learner and instructor (Moore, 1989). Current distance education literature has examined the role of interaction, specifically learner-learner interaction, in learning and discussion design to enhance achievement. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of restricted and traditional discussion boards on critical thinking and learning in a graduate-level online distance education course. Findings indicated improved critical thinking in the quality and preparation strategies of initial discussion board postings when participants' views of peer responses to …

Cross-Cultural E-Mentor Roles In Facilitating Inquiry-Based Online Learning, Buddhini Gayathri Jayatilleke, Geetha Kulasekera, Malinda C.B. Kumarasinha, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

This paper discusses how cross-cultural e-mentoring facilitated inquiry-based learning through community and knowledge building and the multiple roles e-mentors played in fostering transformative learning in protégées. A series of professional development programmes on “online tutoring and mentoring” were conducted by the Distance Education Modernization Project (DEMP) implemented by the Ministry of Higher Education in Sri Lanka. These programmes were conducted in the form of a blended online course using the MOODLE learning management system. The main aim of these programmes was to develop the capacity of faculty and other professionals who would be responsible for designing and delivering online programmes. …

Developing Online Tutors And Mentors In Sri Lanka Through A Community Building Model: Predictors Of Satisfaction, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Buddhini Gayathri Jayatilleke, Shantha Fernando, Chulantha Kulasekere, Mark Lamontagne, Madduma B. Ekanayake, Thanaraj Thaiyamuthu

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

This paper discusses the results of a tutor mentor development program that utilized a community building model to train online tutors and mentors in higher education institutions and professional organizations in Sri Lanka. Based on WisCom; an instructional design model for developing online wisdom communities, this tutor mentor development program which utilized a blended format of face-to-face and online activities in MOODLE, attempted to build a learning community between trainees, both academics and professionals who represented diverse disciplines and organizations. A regression model examined predictors of learner satisfaction, using four independent variables: Community Building, Interaction, Course Design, and Learner Support. …

Designing Wise Communities That Engage In Creative Problem Solving: An Analysis Of An Online Design Model, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, Ludmila Layne, Casey Frechette

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Addressing the conference theme of “design thinking,” this paper discusses an instructional design model, WisCom (Wisdom Communities) that we developed to build a wise learning community online, to solve open-ended, ill-structured problems such as solving a health crisis or an environmental disaster, which requires the exchange of multiple perspectives, inter-disciplinary thinking, creative problem solving, and social construction of knowledge. Based on socio-constructivist, sociocultural theories of learning and mediated cognition (Vygotsky, 1978), distributed cognition (Hutchins, 1995; Pea, 1993), group cognition (Stahl, 2006), research on how people learn (Bransford, Vye, Bateman, Brophy, & Roselli, 2004), and distance education design principles (Moore & …

Interdisciplinary Collaborative Research For Professional Academic Development In Higher Education, Elizabeth Johnston, Cheryl Burleigh, Andrea Wilson

Higher Learning Research Communications

Although faculties are more diverse, decentralized, and increasingly isolated in technology-supported modern universities, effective technology use can also foster faculty professional academic development and collegiality. This scoping literature review applied Cooper’s systemic review model and a categorical content analysis technique targeting decentralized collaborative research teams in higher education. Findings indicate technology supports formal and informal university and nonuniversity networks, as well as various collaborative research structures; all contributing to professional academic development. Shared attributes of successful collaborative online teams include a sense of social presence, accountability, institutional and team leadership. Collaborative teams are integral to research and allow more faculty …

Is Service Learning More Or Less Effective Than Traditional Face-To-Face Learning In Technology Education In The Community College Environment?, David C. Childress

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Business and Public Affairs at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by David C. Childress on November 29, 2011.

State Of The Nation: K–12 Online Learning In Canada, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

A variety of initiatives are driving online and blended learning in each of Canada’s provinces and territories. From teachers’ unions in Nova Scotia fighting to ensure online learning is an accepted method of educational delivery, to Ontario’s College of Teachers creating an e-learning endorsement for teachers or the British Columbia government creating policies to expand the growth and opportunities online learning provides, there are multiple, isolated initiatives happening across the country.

State of the Nation: K-12 Online Learning in Canada is now in its fourth year of publication and can be seen as a national guide for understanding the field …

Griggs Graduates March Into Andrews History, Keri Suarez

Lake Union Herald

No abstract provided.

Socioeconomics And The Digital Divide : Access, Literacy, And The Online-Classroom Space At The U.S. Postsecondary Institution, Alison Lorraine Nolan

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This study examines the challenges faced by educators and students and how socioeconomics, the digital divide, and a lack of access can potentially lead to low digital-literacy rates. The digital divide describes those who have access to broadband (high-speed) Internet connections and those who do not. Since education has become reliant on technology, those who cannot access the academic-digital space are at a disadvantage. The primary focus of this thesis is to define digital literacy in online, hybrid, and face-to-face composition classrooms at the postsecondary level. A review of literature was supplemented by a brief survey to students attending Montclair …

Asynchronous And Synchronous Teaching And Learning In High-School Distance Education, Elizabeth Murphy, Maria A. Rodríguez-Manzanares, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

This paper presents the results of an inductive, interpretive analysis of the perspectives of 42 Canadian high school distance education (DE) teachers on asynchronous and synchronous online teaching. The paper includes a conceptual overview of the affordances and constraints of each form of teaching. Findings provided insight into the following aspects of asynchronous and synchronous online teaching: degree of use; the tools used; the contexts in which each occur; students’ preferences; and limitations. Pedagogy emerged as more important than media for both asynchronous and synchronous online teaching. Synchronous online teaching relied on teacher- rather than student-centred approaches. Asynchronous online teaching …

Faculty And Student Perceptions Of Students' Sense Of Community In Online Courses, William C. Fiege

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The Classroom Community Scale (Rovai, 2002b) was used to examine faculty and student perceptions of students' sense of community at two points during an academic semester. The study also examined the relationship between student sense of community scores and their final course grades. A non-experimental research design was used by the researcher to analyze pre-survey to post-survey score means of students' sense of community as perceived by students and faculty. Two hundred sixty-nine (269) students and 48 faculty members representing 56 online arts and science courses at a community college in Virginia completed the pre-survey and post-survey surveys.

Students' perceptions …

Asynchronous Use Of Engineering (Materials) Education Videos, Craig Johnson, Arthur D. Morken

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Engineering education delivery is dynamic and increasingly asynchronous. An observation that students had very different levels of knowledge and skills as they progressed through our programs, led the authors to use audio/visual media as a leveling intervention. In this effort the authors collected data to determine if audio/visual media can be used to increase performance in the development of a program related task and guide students to higher levels of learning on Blooms Taxonomy through the development of student created learning aids.

One specific need was reflected in the disparate skills of our majority component of ‘transfer’ students in our …

Critical Reading And Writing: A Literary Project For Non-English Majors With Thinking Tools, Ai Chun Yen

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

This paper discusses how EFL non-English majors’ critical reading and writing awareness in English can be developed in a literature-based class for general education. This module was designed for non-English majors to read the classic literary texts with e-story mapping (hereafter called the “Literary Project” or the “Project”) at Dong Hwa University, Taiwan. The Literary Project centered on how context shaped students’ critical reading and writing skills and to further their knowledge management. The 4P model—plan-produce-publish-present—was introduced in the frst class and framed in such a way as to contextualize reading analytically frst and later writing academically. At the same …

The Effect Of Eportfolio Satisfaction On Students’ Learning Motivation And Internet Self-Efficacy, Jeff J.S. Huang, Stephen J.H. Yang, Matt C.W. Chang

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

This study aims to investigate the effect of e-Portfolio satisfaction on students’ learn­ing motivation and Internet self-efficacy toward the use of e-Portfolio. The data collected for this study occurred over 3 months. Participants were 450 students taking the course of common at an university. The counting of 443 questionnaires was received. The findings revealed that there were positive correlations between learning motivation, Internet self-efficacy, and e-Portfolio satisfac­tion. For gender, the result showed that there were no significant Internet self-efficacy differences between gender. Besides, there were the significant differences in learning motivations and in Internet self-efficacy between the two …

Augmented Reality: An Overview And Five Directions For Ar In Education, Steve Chi-Yin Yuen, Gallayanee Yaoyuneyong, Erik Johnson

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging form of experience in which the Real World (RW) is enhanced by computer-generated content tied to specific locations and/or activities. Over the last several years, AR applications have become portable and widely available on mobile de­vices. AR is becoming visible in our audio-visual media (e.g., news, entertainment, sports) and is beginning to enter other aspects of our lives (e.g., e-commerce, travel, marketing) in tangible and exciting ways. Facilitating ubiquitous learning, AR will give learners instant access to location-specific information compiled and provided by numerous sources (2009). Both the 2010 and 2011 Horizon Reports predict …

Promoting Student’S Online Engagement With Communication Tools, Shuyan Wang

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

This case study investigated students’ engagement and learning experiences in online courses through Blackboard CE6 (Course Management System). The meaning that students gave to their learning experiences and the problems they encountered were also investigated in order to understand how students learn in a technology-enriched learning environment. Data were col­lected through open-ended survey questions, participant observations, and document analyses from three online instructional technology graduate courses where students used threaded dis­cussion, live classroom, chat room, and email for online communication and interaction. Find­ings indicated that students’ engagement was promoted by using various communication tools although student preferred discussion board and …

Teaching In An Efl Program In Second Life: Student Teachers’ Perspectives And Implications, Charles Xiaoxue Wang, Mary L. Lefaiver, Christy Hunt, Qi Wang

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Educational researchers have paid considerable attention to the use of multi-user vir­tual environments (MUVEs) to support learning across curricula. Among those MUVEs, Second Life (SL) is one of the most popular. This paper reports on a study of student teachers’ experience of teaching English in an experimental EFL (English as a Foreign Language) program in Second Life (SL) with students in China. This study was a collaborative effort of faculty members and graduate students of both a state university in the USA and a provincial university in China. The study took a case study approach to reveal student teachers’ perceptions …

Educational Computer Games And Spanish Content Learning, Timothy Dedeaux, Taralynn Hartsell

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to determine differences in engagement, satisfaction, and Spanish language content learning among participants playing one of two dif­ferent educational computer games. Additionally, this study served as preliminary research for future research projects to detect and correct problems at the pilot stage. Participants were briefly introduced to the Spanish content material prior to using the computer games and completed pre-tests, post-tests, and satisfaction/engagement surveys as a way to obtain learning results. The small sample size acquired for the study did not yield any statistically significant difference, but the research did permit examination of the …