Communication Commons^™

Developing Evaluation Frameworks For Assessing Quality Ict-Based Learning In Higher Education, Ron Oliver, John Hedberg, Barry Harper, Sandra Wills, Shirley Agostinho

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper describes the evaluation of high quality learning designs which are being selected for possible redevelopment in a National Project funded by the Australian University Teaching Committee (AUTC). The project focuses on "Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Their Role in Flexible Learning" and is evaluating over 50 projects with a view to developing a range of software tools, templates and/or guidelines based on those that are deemed to be effective ICT-based learning projects. The approach is unique in that it tries to pinpoint the key attributes of ICT-based projects that make them suitable for application in other contexts …

Authentic Activities And Online Learning, Ron Oliver, Janice Herrington, Thomas Reeves

Research outputs pre 2011

There has been a renewed interest in the role of student activities within course units as constructivist philosophy and advances in technology impact on educational design and practice. This paper proposes ten characteristics of authentic activities, based on a substantial body of educational theory and research, which can assist teachers to design more authentic activities for online learning environments. The paper includes a short review of the literature, together with the list of characteristics attributed to appropriate authors and theorists. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the affordances of Internet technologies can facilitate the operationalisation of authentic activities …

Designing For Reflection In Online Courses, Ron Oliver, Janice Herrington

Research outputs pre 2011

Reflection can be described as both an individually-mediated and a socially-mediated process. In this paper we describe an online unit in a Graduate Certificate of Online Learning that has been designed to enhance the opportunities for students to reflect on their learning. Rather than being promoted as a learning strategy to supplement the unit curriculum, reflection has been integrated fully within the course design. Students are encouraged to reflect as they complete their chosen project (reflection-in-action) and in a more sustained and extended manner (reflection-on-action) as they write up their experiences in an article of publishable quality. The technology and …

Formalising The Description Of Learning Designs, Ron Oliver, Barry Harper, John Hedberg, Sandra Wills, Shirley Agostinho

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper describes an activity being undertaken by researchers involved in the AUTC funded Project: Information and Communication Technologies and Their Role in Flexible Learning. The project is seeking to investigate and develop generic and reusable frameworks for the provision of technology-enhanced high quality learning experiences in higher education. To achieve this, the researchers have been exploring ways to formalise generic descriptions of some learning designs that foster knowledge construction and problem solving. This paper provides a summary of the work that has been undertaken and describes the generic descriptions that have been developed in this process.

A Typology For Identifying Teachers' Progress In Ict Uptake, Barnard Clarkson, Ron Oliver

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper describes the design of an instrument to help identify teachers' level of ICT uptake. The instrument takes the form of a typology matrix comprising four stages in ICT uptake across a continuum describing teachers' levels of dependence. Identification of teachers' positions in the typology matrix is determined by their affective, cognitive and demonstrated states of ICT application and use. The paper describes the process of determining the position of two elementary school teachers within the typology and discusses the reliability and validity of the instrument and the placement process.

Online Learning Design For Dummies: Professional Development Strategies For Beginning Online Designers, Ron Oliver, Janice Herrington

Research outputs pre 2011

Much of the conventional development of Web-based learning environments stems from design strategies that are based on providing delivery of the course content. Contemporary courseware delivery systems encourage teachers to see the design of online learning as settings as a process of electronic delivery of content and information. As a consequence Web-based courses have tended to display limited evidence of an underpinning learning design and varying degrees of use of the opportunities and affordances of the new technologies. This paper provides an overview of instructional design principles that can guide beginning designers in the creation of Web-based learning materials that …

Exploring The Development Of Learning Communities In Online Settings, Ron Oliver, Christopher Brook

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper discusses the notion of community as an outcome of working within an online environment. In particular, the paper explores the concept of users' development of a sense of community as an outcome of working within an online environment designed to support the professional and personal development of its users. The paper discusses previous research, which has explored the development of a sense of community and reports a study that investigates the development of a sense of community among users of a community-oriented site supporting teachers' professional development. The data gathered in this inquiry provided evidence that the users …

Promoting Student Learning Through Peer Tutoring - A Case Study, Barnard Clarkson, Joseph Luca

Research outputs pre 2011

The literature abounds with information about peer tutoring and the benefits that it can bring to student learning. This case study sought to explore ways of using peer tutoring to enhance the learning experience of a group of higher education students in a multimedia course, who had access to learning resources in an online environment. It illustrates how easily and effectively the basic principles of peer tutoring can be adapted and implemented following explicit guidelines from the literature.

Keeping An Anchor Watch: Industry Partnership A Basis For Learning, Catherine E Mcloughlin, Joseph Luca

Research outputs pre 2011

During the 1990’s Australia has heard the call for graduates equipped with generic skills as a key theme in the development appropriate curriculum and pedagogy. In tertiary contexts, skills and knowledge are often decontextualised and transferable, and work-related skills are not accorded sufficient emphasis in teaching and assessment. The present study is an example of industry involvement on tertiary learning and assessment enhances the student experience and contextualises the curriculum. The context of the study is a project management unit at tertiary level that utilising online learning and self-directed learning pedagogies. The design of the environment is presented within a …

Open Online Assessment: Keeping The Tutors Honest!, Corri Barrett, Joseph Luca

Research outputs pre 2011

Tutors often find it difficult to mark consistently across all students in their classes. Students will occasionally complain about marking inconsistencies noticed when they compare assignments. The task of maintaining consistency in marking becomes much more difficult when all students can openly see everybody’s solutions, marks and tutors’ comments. This task becomes even more difficult when the marking of tutors from other classes is also available to be seen openly. This case study describes a learning environment that had four tutors in four separate classes with a total of 85 students. Students were required to post solutions to an online …

A Question Of Balance: Using Self And Peer Assessment Effectively In Teamwork, Joseph Luca, Catherine E Mcloughlin

Research outputs pre 2011

There is a growing emphasis that students should develop professional skills in the course of their education. These include team skills, problem solving skills, decisionmaking skills, communication skills, information literacy skills, time management skills and many others. To develop such skills, tertiary learners have to engage in tasks that are likely to help students reflect on their own success in completing tasks, and that of their peers. In the literature on learning and self-regulation, self and peer assessment are important strategies used to help develop these skills as well as helping to promote skill transfer to the workplace. On-line learning …

Enhancing The Quality Of The Student Experience Online: Revisiting The Imperative Of Learning As Socially Based, Catherine E Mcloughlin, Joseph Luca

Research outputs pre 2011

Delivery of quality educational services and opportunities is becoming increasingly more complex as Web-based learning tools and support structures continue to evolve. Although much effort is devoted to examining the use of technology to teach course content, an emerging area of some importance in online teaching is how to enhance the student experience of learning and communicating online. Associated with this is the creation of social and supportive environments for learning when there is little face-to-face contact between distance learners and their teachers. This paper provides a framework and a set of strategies that can be used to create a …

Experiential Learning On-Line: The Role Of Asynchronous Communication Tools, Catherine E Mcloughlin, Joseph Luca

Research outputs pre 2011

The needs of learners are changing rapidly and continually in response to an environment that is characterised by change at economic, political and technological levels. There is greater pressure on universities to work more closely with employers in contributing to the process of economic development through the creation of a skilled workforce. Universities are becoming increasingly flexible in their responses to meeting the lifelong learning agenda. Online experiential learning is an essential element in the move towards more situated and professional orientations and with the drive to providing students with real world working knowledge. Asynchronous communication tools and tasks are …

From Impartial Objectivity To Responsible Affectivity: Some Ethical Implications Of The 9/11 Attacks On America And The War On Terror, Lelia Rosalind Green, Steven Maras

Research outputs pre 2011

In this paper we trace same of the ways a responsibility to affect might be thought of in the wake of the events of 9/11, and examine what it might mean to shift the orientation of journalistic ethics away from an ethics based on objectivity to an ethics of affectivity.

Did The World Really Change On 9/11?, Lelia Rosalind Green

Research outputs pre 2011

In setting myself the question 'Did the world really change an 9/11 ?', I tie myself into two discussions. The first is an exercise in comparing and contrasting perceptions around the pivotal date of September 11, 2001: what was the world 'really' like prior to the attacks on America (as they came to be called) and what is it 'really' like now? The use of the word 'really' here flags the operation of value judgements; any estimation of change around this event is laden with personal perspectives. The second discussion is the one I deal with first: is there a …

Using The Internet To Provide Authentic Professional Development For Beginning Teachers, Anthony Herrington, Janice Herrington, Arshad Omari

Research outputs pre 2011

How can the Internet be used to provide authentic professional development for newly appointed teachers? This paper reports on work-in-progress of an industry partnership research study between Edith Cowan University education staff and students, and the Education Department of Western Australia teachers and curriculum advisers. The study involves developing a web site to assist novice teachers solve realistic school-based problems and will involve approximately 120 K-7 and middle school teachers from ECU who have undertaken training in the use of the website. Teachers appointed in 2003 from the university cohort will be invited to use the website in their first …

Satisfying Real Client Requirements Through Student-Centred Coursework, Kenneth Ireland, Pina Tarricone, Joseph Luca

Research outputs pre 2011

This paper outlines a rationale and course design strategy used for creating a course that was student-centred and focused on satisfying the needs of industry clients through project work. The pedagogical underpinnings of the course are based on authentic assessment, which is used to promote motivation and interest of students in a higher education institution. Students were given the opportunity in a multimedia development course to develop real E-commerce business solutions. This is the third evolutionary development of the unit. The design of the unit now reflects contemporary pedagogy, taking into consideration the needs of students and the changing requirements …

Successful Teamwork: A Case Study, Pina Tarricone, Joseph Luca

Research outputs pre 2011

Why are some teams successful and others unsuccessful? What criteria or attributes are needed for success? Contemporary teaching and learning practice over the past few years in higher education institutions has seen a proliferation of open-ended constructivist learning designs that incorporate collaboration. This has promoted the need for identifying essential attributes needed for successful teamwork. This study reviews the literature with a view of identifying a framework that educators can use to help promote effective teamwork in their classes. A case study is used to investigate two teams of final year multimedia students completing a project-based unit, in which teamwork …

Reality Television Goes Interactive: The Big Brother Television Audience, Lisa Gandy, Lisa Mcchristian

The Corinthian

Reality television was taken to a new realm in the summer of 2000. Television audiences and Internet audiences were married through a voyeuristic, interactive experience. This study attempted to better understand the audience attracted to these interactive, realistic television shows. Utilizing previous studies on audience interactivity, a random telephone survey of Big Brother viewers was administered. Big Brother viewers that browsed the show's website before and after the show were demographically more likely to be younger, more educated, and own computers. Big Brother website visitors were significantly more likely to plan to watch the television show, eliminate distractions to that …

Framing Intelligibility, Identity And Selfhood: A Reconsideration Of Spatio-Temporal Models, Sally Munt

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The relationship between intelligibility and identity over the past thirty years has largely been approached through the linguistic construct of the subject. Proposing that our subjectivities be theoretically comprehended (made intelligible) as discursive effects is now common sense. Poststructuralism, following particularly Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan, has ensured that the subject is a cardinal category of contemporary thought; in any number of disciplines, it is one of the first concepts we teach to our undergraduates. But are we best served by continuing to insist on the intellectual primacy of the subject, formulated as it has been …

From Print To Online World: Examining The Predictors That Influence The Level Of Interactivity Of Newspaper's World Wide Web Pages, Qian Zeng

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the predictors that influenced the interactivity of U.S. daily newspapers Web sites, namely the market size of newspapers, newspapers ownership, the number of online newspaper technical staff, length of newspaper Web site existence. Whether a national newspaper has different interactive Web site from a local newspaper is also studied. A content analysis of 106 U.S. daily newspapers Web sites found that market size and length of time newspapers having Internet presence sites are correlated to the interactive level of newspapers Web sites. National newspapers are also found having more interactive Web sites …

Perception Of And Reactions To The Presence Of Url's In Print Advertising Of A Non-Technology Brand, Neil Melancon

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis, through an experiment of 108 subjects, studies the relationship between the presence of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL or web address) in newspaper advertisements and perception of the product advertised as well as the likelihood to act on the advertisement. The findings reveal URLs do in fact have an effect on perception, although, as it is suggested in the theoretical framework, it does not necessarily induce the subjects to act on the ad. This study also finds there is a stronger inclination for perception change to take place versus the likelihood for consumers to either seek more information …

How The Media Are Portrayed In Print Advertisements: A Content Analysis Of Magazine Advertisements Throughout The Twentieth Century, Kathryn Elizabeth Burke

LSU Master's Theses

This study examines the portrayal of media within print advertisements found in Harper's Magazine between 1931 and 2000. This study evaluated a number of categories to provide understanding of the role of media within society, specifically the portrayal of gender and media use, how media are used in society and the perceived class within the advertisements featuring media products. The study also looked at the Diffusion of Innovation Theory, which states that a socioeconomic elite group are the first people within a society to adopt new ideas or technologies. A content analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, of Harper's Magazine produced …

The World Wide Web As A Vehicle For Advertising Movies To College Students: An Exploratory Study, Xiaoge Hu

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore the World Wide Web as a vehicle for advertising movies to college students. Through a survey of LSU students, this study finds that online promotions as vehicles for advertising movies have great potential. Movie promotion websites are rated the second most effective form of movie advertising after television. The study found that people surf movie promotion websites mainly for movie show times, movie plot and cast information to compare film choices, and movie ticket purchases. The huge amount of data available and the 24/7 access to the internet is an important advantage. …

2001 Louisiana Legislative Special Session: Do We All Read The Same News, Jennifer Bhatia Ledbetter

LSU Master's Theses

This study reviews the newspaper coverage given during the 2001 Louisiana special legislative session. It was convened to raise additional money to fund teacher pay raises through legislation impacting the state’s gambling tax requirements. The seven markets include Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette, Lake Charles, Alexandria, Monroe and Shreveport. The session was a “last resort effort” in response to persistent pleas from educators that had elevated into statewide teacher sickouts. In the fall of 2000 the public voted down new taxes to fund their pay raises. The governor charged his administration to come up with a plan to raise teacher’s …

The Influence Of Imagined Interactions On Verbal Fluency, Charles Choi

LSU Master's Theses

Imagined interactions (IIs) are a type of social cognition and mental imagery whereby actors imagine an interaction with others for the purposes of planning. Within actual encounters, verbal fluency is a characteristic that contributes to the speaker's credibility. The planning that takes place through imagined dialogues can help a speaker overcome disfluency found in speech. This study shows that improvements in speaking style are also dependent upon the trait of communication apprehension that an individual experiences. Visualization can decrease apprehension levels, thus producing higher verbal fluency. Results from this study indicate planning's influence in the reduction of silent pauses but …

Taking Pr To School: A Case Study Of The Three Private High School Public Relations And Development Departments, Christine Cidalise Indest

LSU Master's Theses

Few studies specifically explore public relations in private high schools. Statistics reveal that in Louisiana the number of nonpublic high school students continues to increase, therefore the competition among private schools for students increases as well as the demand to improve the private schools. These private schools need public relations to establish mutually beneficial relationships with strategic publics to attract students and to raise money to educate the students. This thesis is a case study of private school public relations programs at three Louisiana high schools. The theoretical basis for this thesis centered on the research of James Grunig. To …

Isleno Decima Singers Of Louisiana: An Interpretation Of Performance And Event, Danielle Elise Sears

LSU Master's Theses

This study is a metaperformance autoethnography of the Isleno decima singers of Saint Bernard Parish, Louisiana. The performance and event of the decima are explored using research techniques including the performance of ethnography. First a basis is provided for the study by presenting a brief historical overview of the Spanish influence in Saint Bernard Parish, Louisiana. The work of Richard Bauman in Verbal Art as Performance is included in order to key the decima as a performance event. Second, the script, “A Tribute to Storytellers: Isleno Decima Singers of Louisiana,” performed at Louisiana State University in The HopKins Black Box …

The Bauhaus (Per)Forms, Lisa Flanagan

LSU Master's Theses

This study uses the methods and discourses of creative/performative writing and formal aesthetics to evoke the visual aesthetic principles exercised and developed by the Bauhaus and its Stage Workshop. It explores the creative connections between visual and written forms that can affect meaning through primary, universal expression and comprehension. First, a graph links creative/performative writing and avant-garde theater concepts with related Bauhaus performance documents. This initial graph contains the key forms of visual and written expression used in the remaining sections. These further areas of inquiry include, an evocative rendering of the multiple and partial histories that include the Bauhaus, …

Corporate America And Web Access For The Blind: Are Public Relations Practioners Communicating With The Blind Public?, Jenice Daigle

LSU Master's Theses

Advances in technology have given the blind public a new voice in corporate America. Today, blind individuals are able to utilize the Internet independently using screen access software. However, like ramps for wheelchairs in physical spaces, Web site accommodations are needed in cyberspace for successful use. A review of the current literature indicates trends in public relations are shifting toward a corporate ethic of social responsibility, but on-line concerns for the disabled are not clearly demonstrated among the leading corporations in the United States. The purpose of this research is to determine if blind consumers are being accommodated on corporate …