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Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

Goals, Motivation for, and Outcomes of Personal Learning through Networks: Results of a Tweetstorm

Recent developments in the use of social media for learning have posed serious challenges for learners. The information overload that these online social tools create has changed the way learners learn and from whom they learn. An investigation of learners’ goals, motivations and expected outcomes when using a personal learning network is essential since there […]

Applying Neurological Learning Research to an Online Undergraduate Science Laboratory Course

Neurological research has demonstrated that pre-test verbal preparation improves performance. The well-tested Tower of London puzzle can assess cognitive skills of a wide age range of participants. Preschoolers who talked to themselves about future puzzle moves had greatly improved Tower of London performance over those without such preparation. For adults, similar results are found with […]

Factorial Validity and Reliability of the Sense of Community in Online Courses Scale

The alarmingly high rate of attrition in online courses results in many negative consequences for students, faculty, online institutions, and for society as a whole. One reason theorized for this attrition is a lack of a sense of community in online courses; however, there is much theoretical and empirical debate on what factors contribute to […]

When to Talk, When to Chat: Student Interactions in Live Virtual Classrooms

This study explores students’ choices of verbal and text interaction in a synchronous Live Virtual Classroom (LVC) environment that mixed onsite and online learners. Data were collected from analysis of recorded LVC sessions and post-course interviews with students in two different offerings of a graduate instructional design course that used Adobe Connect as a live […]

Connectivism: 21st Century’s New Learning Theory

Transformed into a large collaborative learning environment, the Internet is comprised of information reservoirs namely, (a) online classrooms, (b) social networks, and (c) virtual reality or simulated communities, to expeditiously create, reproduce, share, and deliver information into the hands of educators and students. Most importantly, the Internet has become a focal point for a potentially […]

The Tutors’ Views on the Utilization of E-learning System in Architectural Education

The design studio is the core of Architectural education where – face to face – social interaction, negotiations and communications happen between tutors and students. These communications are essential for development of the design concept and initiation of student’s innovation. At the University of Dammam, an ambitious e-learning system plan was initiated in 2011 and […]

Video of Children as Anchors in an Online Forum for Elementary School Teachers: A Tool for Positioning Oneself as Knowledgeable About Physics

The authors investigated how prospective teachers enrolled in an undergraduate physical science course participated in an online forum in which they posted reactions to video episodes of children talking about science. Using Positioning Theory (Harré & Van Langenhove, 1991) as a lens, the authors analyzed 108 online posts from 26 prospective teachers as they completed […]

Using Online Error Analysis Items to Support Preservice Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Mathematics

This article describes how a free, web-based intelligent tutoring system, (ASSISTment), was used to create online error analysis items for preservice elementary and secondary mathematics teachers. The online error analysis items challenged preservice teachers to analyze, diagnose, and provide targeted instructional remediation intended to help mock students overcome common error patterns and misconceptions. A short […]

Teacher Candidates’ Perceptions of Technology Supported Literacy Practices

This study explores teacher education candidates’ perceptions of technologies used to support K-12 student literacy development. Candidates scored each technology based on their impressions of its ability to support student literacy development. They also evaluated their own level of expertise with each piece of technology using a pre-post survey. Technologies included broad-based applications (blogs, wikis, […]

Teaching Web Evaluation: A Cognitive Development Approach

Web evaluation has been a standard information literacy offering for years and has always been a challenging topic for instruction librarians. Over time, the authors had tried a myriad of strategies to teach freshmen how to assess the credibility of Web sites but felt the efforts were insufficient. By familiarizing themselves with the cognitive development […]