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It is vital for online educators to know whether the strategies they use help students gain twenty-first-century skills like creativity. Unfortunately, very little research exists on this topic. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine whether participation in online courses can help students develop creativity using asynchronous online discussions, textbooks, and teacher developed […]
In 2003, Kevin Leander and Kelly McKim made the argument for connecting scholarship on physical spaces with that of online spaces. They named this fusion of scholarly areas connective ethnography, termed by Christine Hine (2000, as cited in Leander & McKim, 2003). At that time, they asked: “How might we develop research practices and frameworks […]
More than 40% of doctoral students are unable to complete their independent capstone research at the conclusion of their coursework, and of those who do complete the capstone, completion often takes longer than anticipated. In online universities, students are often successful during their structured course work, but become overwhelmed with the demands of their capstone […]
This article reports on a pilot undergraduate subject that incorporated a range of technology-enhanced learning approaches including online lectures, an online site for in and out of class communications, and strong encouragement for students to blog and use Twitter. This paper evaluates student engagement through the social networking sites (SNS), focusing on the online communication […]
Likely the most significant and life changing technologies of the 21st Century is the adoption of social media as major components of commercial, entertainment and educational activities. In this article, I overview the supposed benefits of the application of these tools within formal higher education programs. I then discuss the disadvantages and challenges, with a […]
In this paper, we present findings from a comparative study on a fully online postgraduate course offered in traditional (i.e. 13-week academic session) and intensive (i.e. 6-week academic session) delivery formats. Keeping the course curriculum, structure and quality consistent in both delivery modes, the study investigated student participation and academic performance given different facilitation techniques […]
Learning in an online classroom can be optimized when teaching methods focus on student engagement with course content and student-student interactivity. Social learning is a challenge in any online learning environment, but it is realistic with the appropriate selection of discussion modalities. Text-based discussions have been traditionally used, but is this the most effective format […]
Two cohorts of teachers recently participated in a professional development program focused on incorporating global perspectives and activities into K-12 classrooms using contemporary technologies. One part of this program requires teachers to plan and carry out a global project with an international classroom as a means to introduce them to a host country’s education system […]
Advances in technology reinforce the imperative to obtain further insight into the factors that impact online interaction in online environments. Even though past researchers have extracted factors impacting student online interaction and engagement, there is a lack of research that uncovers the dynamics of these relationships and investigates the impact of a comprehensive set of […]
Professional learning community (PLC) is a promising strategy for effective professional development because it provides opportunities featuring collaboration, job-embedded contexts, reflection and feedback on practice, and sustained duration of learning. Yet, there are temporal and geographic barriers to designing and implementing a PLC, such as finding shared meeting time and connecting educators across different school/district […]
