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Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

Social Media Usage: 2005-2015

Nearly two-thirds of American adults (65%) use social networking sites, up from 7% when Pew Research Center began systematically tracking social media usage in 2005. Pew Research reports have documented in great detail how the rise of social media has affected such things as work, politics and political deliberation, communications patterns around the globe, as […]

Over two decades of blended and online physics courses at Michigan State University

In Fall 1992, our first physics course offered online homework. Over two decades later, we have seven physics courses online, spanning the whole range of introductory course offerings, with a total of over 1600 students in 2014. We found that several of the the purely online courses had better learning success than traditional lecture courses, […]

Assisted Learning Through Facebook: A Case Study of Universitas Terbuka’s Students Group Communities in Jakarta, Taiwan And Hong Kong

This paper describes and give insight about the use of Facebook to assist learning in Jakarta and several countries outside Indonesia. There are so many problems that will arise based on the factual sight such users tend to find difficulties in searching, analyzing and accessing information that they need, particularly materials in their academic life. […]

Portfolio, text, data, page

Research Trends in Turkish Distance Education: A Content Analysis of Dissertations, 1986-2014

This paper presents a content analytic approach on doctoral dissertations in the field of distance education in Turkish Higher Education context from the years of 1986 through 2014. A total of 61 dissertations were examined to explore keywords, academic discipline, research areas, theoretical/conceptual frameworks, research designs, research models, tests and analyses, data collection tools, participants, […]

Attitudinal Factors Affecting Wiki Group Collaboration for English Writing

Wikis, being one of the popular Web 2.0 tools, have impacted students’ engagement and performance particularly in the aspects of second and foreign language learning. While an increasing number of studies have focused on the effectiveness of wiki in improving students’ writing skills, this study was conducted to examine the attitudinal factors that influence English as […]

Evaluation Criteria for Interactive E-Books for Open and Distance Learning

The aim of this mixed method study is to identify evaluation criteria for interactive e-books. To find answers for the research questions of the study, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a four-round Delphi study with a panel consisting of 30 experts. After that, a total of 20 interactive e-books were examined with […]

OER Quality and Adaptation in K-12: Comparing Teacher Evaluations of Copyright-Restricted, Open, and Open/Adapted Textbooks

Conducted in conjunction with an institute on open textbook adaptation, this study compares textbook evaluations from practicing K-12 classroom teachers (n = 30) on three different types of textbooks utilized in their contexts: copyright-restricted, open, and open/adapted. Copyright-restricted textbooks consisted of those textbooks already in use by the teachers in their classrooms prior to the institute, […]

Today’s Students

Who Are Today’s College Students? Those who imagine today’s students as recent high school graduates, attending college full-time at a 4-year university have an outdated picture in mind. The majority of students today are more racially and ethnically diverse than ever before. They’re more likely to include second-career retirees, part-time distance learners, GED completers, certificate seekers, […]

The challenges of Web accessibility: The technical and social aspects of a truly universal Web

This paper explores the concept of Web accessibility and how technologies, guidelines and policies have evolved since the turn of the twenty-first century in order to address the ideals of equitable access to online content for all people. The paper discusses the high availability of assistive technologies built into consumer devices and the associated accessibility […]

Riding the Wave of Social Networking in the Context of Preservice Teacher Education

This study examined the use of one online social networking tool, NING™, in teacher education, highlighting preservice teachers’ engagement and perceptions of the tool. Data obtained from 91 preservice teachers suggest that they found the multimodal platform useful as a tool to build pedagogic and content knowledge. Responses to surveys and online forums indicated potential […]