Archive for the ‘Elearning’ Category

Strategies for engagement in online courses

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on student engagement (e.g., Pike & Kuh, 2009; Porter, 2009). Student engagement occurs when “students make a psychological investment in learning. They try hard to learn what school offers. “They take pride not simply in earning the formal indicators of success (grades), but in understanding the […]

Using virtual environments for synchronous online courses

This article describes how teachers can use virtual environments to teach synchronous online classes. Virtual online environments offer a potential tool for supplying rich, synchronous online communication that comes close to mimicking the traditional classroom environment. Virtual environments feature detailed, 3-D settings within which users, represented by avatars, can explore and interact. While many online […]

Tools for High-Tech Tool Use: A Framework and Heuristics for Using Interactive Simulations

As the use of computer-based science simulations in educational environments grows, so too does the need for research on productive use of simulations. This paper presents ways to create effective assignments that accompany an interactive simulation in a variety of educational environments. A framework that supports the creation of assignments with simulations in any environment […]

Big educational laptop and tablet projects — Ten countries to learn from

Recent headlines from places as diverse as Kenya (“6,000 primary schools picked for free laptop project”) and California (“Los Angeles plans to give 640,000 students free iPads”) are just two announcements among many which highlight the increasing speed and scale by which portable computing devices (laptops, tablets) are being rolled out in school systems all […]

California Puts MOOC Bill on Ice

Legislation in California originally aimed at getting state colleges to award credit for massive open online courses and other offerings from nonuniversity providers has been shelved for at least a year. Wired Campus Full Article

Virtual 3-D Desktop Targets Medicine, Education

Using a stylus to pull objects out of screens into the air in front of them, users can rotate objects and perform various spatial tasks. Government Technology Full Article

Udacity cofounder and CEO Sebastian Thrun says more AI is coming to online education, but we’ll still need humans to grade our English essays

Sebastian Thrun has worn many hats in the tech world: Stanford research professor, founder of Google’s X Labs, where he oversaw the development of self-driving cars and Google Glass, and, most recently, passionate advocate for MOOCs—or massive open online courses—through Udacity, the online education startup he cofounded and runs (see “The Most Important Education Technology […]

New Player in Adaptive Learning

Career Education Corp. has begun one of higher education’s broadest experiments with adaptive learning. Institutions in the for-profit chain have powered more than 300 online course sections with the emerging technology, and enrollments in those courses have topped 11,000 students. Inside Higher Ed Full Article

A Framework for Developing Self-Directed Technology Use for Language Learning

Critical to maximizing the potential of technology for learning is enhancing language learners’ self-directed use of technology for learning purposes. This study aimed to enhance our understanding of the determinants of self-directed technology use through the construction of a structural equation modelling (SEM) framework of factors and interactions that determine students’ self-directed use of technology […]

Online Strategy Instruction for Integrating Dictionary Skills and Language Awareness

This paper explores the feasibility of an automated, online form of L2 strategy instruction (SI) as an alternative to conventional, classroom-based forms that rely primarily on teachers. Feasibility was evaluated by studying the effectiveness, both actual and perceived, of a five-week, online SI course designed to teach web-based dictionary skills integrated with knowledge of lexical […]