Premier Portal for Professionals Since 1995, Covering Technology-Based Education
Retention in MOOCs should be considered in the context of learner intent, especially given the varied backgrounds and motivations of students who choose to enroll. When viewed in the appropriate context, the apparently low retention in MOOCs is often reasonable. EDUCAUSE Review Full Article
With thousands of materials having been produced and shared openly and freely on the Internet as Open Educational Resources (OER) or OpenCourseWare (OCW), the focus of the Open Education movement has shifted toward the need to demonstrate how such materials are being used, by whom and with what impact. This paper reports on the uses, […]
Distance education has potential to reach teachers from diverse areas, but the challenges of building community and promoting reflection in these settings can be considerable. In this study, photonarratives were used as an assignment in a distance education course to promote reflection on science teaching. Twenty science teachers (half from rural areas) produced photonarratives that […]
This essay addresses the question of change as it is expressed in debates on the introduction and use of new digital technologies in contemporary education. It sets out some of the terms of this debate, concerning MOOCs in particular, and puts into question the very conception of change they presume. The essay advocates a distinction […]
This paper outlines the attempt by librarians at California State University Channel Islands (CI) to authentically assess the information literacy levels of first-year and third-year students, their partnership with faculty from CI’s writing and rhetoric programme in receiving a grant for this endeavour, the creation of a rubric and specialised assignment to facilitate the assessment […]
Each time a teacher or a learner interacts with an Open Educational Resource (OER), these interactions produce data. This “interaction data” includes “artifact data” routinely captured during any online interaction by Web server logs (e.g., users’ browsers, users’ IP addresses) and “social data” created during Web 2.0-style interactions with resources (e.g., tags, comments, ratings, favorites). […]
In August, 2012, four months after opening, Coursera—one of several Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) providers quickly gaining traction on the Internet—registered one million students, from nearly 200 countries. This is only one of the many staggering statistics that could be shared about the sudden popularity of MOOCs, the total of which speak to the […]
The largest college within an online university of over 50,000 students invested significant resources in translating a complex assessment system focused on continuous improvement and national accreditation into an effective and efficient electronic portfolio (ePortfolio). The team building the system needed a model to address problems met throughout the planning, design, and implementation of the […]
Designing problem-based learning (PBL), especially blended PBL, is very different from designing traditional teacher-centered instruction and requires a new set of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. To be successful, teachers must step out of their comfort zone, adopt new roles and responsibilities, and develop new knowledge and skills required in PBL environments as well as technology […]
The analysis and use of data generated by students’ interactions with learning systems or programs – learning analytics – has recently gained widespread attention in the educational technology community. Part of the reason for this interest is based on the potential of learning analytic techniques such as data mining to find hidden patterns in students’ […]