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Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

Sharing and collaborating between an online community of novice teachers: CMC in language teacher education

New and emerging technologies have transformed the classroom (Mishra and Koehler, 2006) and continue to do so, and it has been reported that teachers and teacher educators now work in ever evolving environments (Elliott, 2009). Research indicates that varied forms of CMC can be implemented to foster collaborative and social learning (Arnold and Ducate, 2006), […]

Media Lab Conversations Series: Howard Rheingold

How can we use digital media so that they help us become empowered participants rather than passive consumers? In his book Net Smart, Howard Rheingold shows how to use social media intelligently, humanely, and, above all, mindfully. Download the table of contents (PDF) here. Mindful use of digital media means thinking about what we are […]

Reading in the Digital Age: Using Electronic Books as a Teaching Tool for Beginning Readers

This study stemmed from a concern of the perceived decline in students’ reading motivation after the early years of schooling. This research investigated the effectiveness of online eBooks on eight grade 1 students’ reading motivation. Eight students were given ten 25-minute sessions with the software programs over 15 weeks. Qualitative data were collected from students, […]

A Typology for Observing Children’s Engagement with eBooks at Preschool

This research reports a two-phase descriptive study of young children’s engagement with ebooks conducted in Head Start classrooms. Phase 1 focused on the development of a typology as an analytic framework for observing engagement with ebooks in different formats (shared book; independent book browsing) and across devices (stationary touch screen; handhelds). Converging extant research categories […]

Impact of OpenCourseWare publication on higher education participation and student recruitment

The free and open publication of course materials (OpenCourseWare or OCW) was initially undertaken by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other universities primarily to share educational resources among educators (Abelson, 2007). OCW, however, and more in general open educational resources (OER), have also provided well-documented opportunities for all learners, including the so-called “informal learners” […]

CORE: Three Access Levels to Underpin Open Access

The last 10 years have seen a massive increase in the amount of Open Access publications in journals and institutional repositories. The open availability of large volumes of state-of-the-art knowledge online has the potential to provide huge savings and benefits in many fields. However, in order to fully leverage this knowledge, it is necessary to […]

How Web 2.0 is Changing the Way Students Learn: The Darwikinism and Folksonomy Revolution

In the 21st century, some argue that we have a new breed of students (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Prensky, 2001). Technologies such as Web 2.0 have been held responsible for these changes as students are now becoming active, critical consumers of information (Klamma, Cao, & Spaniol, 2007). Two components of this Web 2.0 revolution are […]

Language Learning in 3D Virtual World

Second Life (SL) is an ideal platform for language learning. It is called a Multi-User Virtual Environment, where users can have varieties of learning experiences in life-like environments. Numerous attempts have been made to use SL as a platform for language teaching and the possibility of SL as a means to promote conversational interactions has […]

Who am I and what keeps me going? Profiling the distance learning student in higher education

Student retention and progression has exercised the HE sector for some time now, and there has been much research into the reasons why students drop out of Higher Education courses. (Allen, 2006; Buglear, 2009;). More recently the Higher Education Academy Grants Programme Briefing (HEFCE, 2010) , outlined a number of areas that emergent project data […]

Footprints of emergence

  It is ironic that the management of education has become more closed while learning has become more open, particularly over the past 10-20 years. The curriculum has become more instrumental, predictive, standardized, and micro-managed in the belief that this supports employability as well as the management of educational processes, resources, and value. Meanwhile, people […]