Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

Comparative Analysis of Pedagogical Strategies Across Disciplines in Open Distance Learning at UnisaODL at Unisa

Re-engineering technological strategies in teaching and learning in an open distance learning (ODL) environment is paramount as the demand for access to quality higher education escalates drastically on a year to year basis. The organisational framework requires change in order to accommodate the increasing number of students. In view of the changing higher education landscape […]

Nurturing global collaboration and networked learning in higher education

We consider the principles of communities of practice (CoP) and networked learning in higher education, illustrated with a case study. iCollab has grown from an international community of practice connecting students and lecturers in seven modules across seven higher education institutions in six countries, to a global network supporting the exploration and evaluation of mobile […]

Locative mobile media and time: Foursquare and technological memory

Foursquare is a location-based social network (LBSN) that can be used to explore locations and mark one’s movements in the form of ‘check-ins’. This paper investigates why some Foursquare users are choosing to record their locational past, and in so doing using it as a ‘mediated memory object’ (Dijck, 2009). The paper explores the different […]

Functionalities provided by Annotation Systems for Learners in Educational Context: An Overview

During his activities, the learner usually uses comments, highlights and circles sections to tag consulted digital documents. Therefore, many systems have been developed to annotate different electronic resources, often adapted to specific users and for particular uses of documents. This great variety of annotation systems reveals a lack of a clear strategy of how to […]

Innovative Authoring Tools for Online-Courses with Assignments – Integrating Heterogeneous Tools of e-Learning Platforms into Hybrid Application Solutions

This paper is concerned with an essential topic in e-learning – course content authoring. Besides supporting the concept of Competence-Based Learning (CBL) our solution is aiming to make effective use of an open integration architecture fostering the interoperability of hybrid e-learning solutions. Modern scenarios ask for interoperable software solutions to seamlessly integrate existing e-learning infrastructures […]

Social Media for Learning and Teaching Undergraduate Sciences: Good Practice Guidelines from Intervention

In 2013, Facebook was used in learning and teaching clinical problem solving in a Pathology and a Clinical Sciences course delivered at a South Australian university. It involved first- and second-year Medical Radiation students and second-year Nursing students, Of the 152 students enrolled in the Pathology course, there were 148 students who participated in the […]

Synthesizing Technology Adoption and Learners Approaches Towards Active Learning in Higher Education

 In understanding how active and blended learning approaches with learning technologies engagement in undergraduate education, current research models tend to undermine the effect of learners’ variations, particularly regarding their styles and approaches to learning, on intention and use of learning technologies. This study contributes to further examine a working model for learning outcomes in higher […]

The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design

The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design arose from a 2012 meeting of experts in Larnaca, Cyprus who sought to provide a new theoretical foundation for the field of Learning Design, based on a synthesis of research and practice in the field to date. It begins by acknowledging the vast benefits that would arise from wider […]

Download Report: GOING DIGITAL: Faculty Pespectives on Digital and OER Course Materials

Quality and the cost of course materials for students emerge as the key factors that drive the decisions of college faculty about textbooks and other course materials. And although the movement to digital course content seems inevitable and a majority of the surveyed faculty express interest in adaptive technologies for their courses, it is also […]

A Big World Out There

MONTREAL — The senior administrators tasked with promoting and coordinating international activities on their university campuses are gathered here for the annual Association of International Education Administrators conference. On the agenda are sessions on a wide range of activities bundled up in the term “internationalization,” including student mobility, global learning, international partnerships, joint and dual […]