Posts Tagged ‘Learning Systems’

Defining OER-Enabled Pedagogy

The term “open pedagogy” has been used in a variety of different ways over the past several decades. In recent years, its use has also become associated with Open Educational Resources (OER). The wide range of competing definitions of open pedagogy, together with its semantic overlap with another underspecified term, open educational practices, makes it […]

Modes of writing in a digital age: The good, the bad and the unknown

With digitization, our modes of writing change and we go from writing by putting pen to paper, to typing on a variety of screens. In educational as well as in leisurely settings, writing by hand is increasingly marginalized, and may in a foreseeable future be abandoned altogether. Summarizing some of the research comparing handwriting and […]

The mystery of the digital natives’ existence: Questioning the validity of the Prenskian metaphor

Net Generation (Tapscott, 2009, 1998; Oblinger and Oblinger, 2005), Generation Y (Zhao and Liu, 2008; Halse and Mallinson, 2009), Millennials (Howe and Strauss, 2000), Homo Zappiens (Veen, 2003) and i-Generation (Rosen, 2010). The labels used to describe the generation of young people and their relation with technology are numerous. Over the past few years, one […]

Student Attitudes Toward Blended Learning in Adult Literacy and Basic Skills College Programs

Literacy and Basic Skills (LBS) programs in many Ontario colleges offer adult learners who have low literacy and basic skills with opportunities to improve their employment skills as well as results on prerequisite courses for entrance into post-secondary education. LBS students encounter many challenges and require extra interpersonal instructional support, which may be overcome through […]

Connecting Learner Motivation to Learner Progress and Completion in Massive Open Online Courses

We examined how massive open online courses (MOOC) learners’ motivational factors, self-efficacy, and task-value related to their course progress and achievement, as informed by learners’ initial course completion intention. In three individual MOOCs, learners completed a pre-course survey to report their levels of task-value and self-efficacy and to indicate their intention to complete each course […]

A Comparison of Social Learning Systems: Crochet Alongs and MOOCs

Essentially social learning is a system where the learning occurs with and from others. Internet-based technologies have provided environments within which social learning can take place among very large groups covering various topics, ranging from academic to leisure. In general MOOCs are academic-related courses offered by educational institutions, following a model of formal education, however […]

Effect of Communication Management on Distance Learners’ Cognitive Engagement in Malaysian Institutions of Higher Learning

Rapid development of communication tools has brought about contentious issues in communication management in distance learning (DL) programs. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between communication management indicators, namely, communication practices, communication tools, and students’ cognitive engagement in distance learning programs.  A conceptual framework for communication management was developed from Moore’s […]

Influence of Learning Design of the Formation of Online Communities of Learning

This paper presents the findings of a study on a fully online Bachelor’s level course in Health Sciences at a European University conducted to explore the influence of learning design on the formation and evolution of different types of communities of learning. The impetus for the study came from the well-established effectiveness of community-based learning, […]

Distance Learning in the Musical Field in Romania through European-Funded Projects

The organization of Romanian distance learning in music has been supported in terms of research, collaboration and financing by European projects, with the following achievements: training of teaching staff involved in distance learning, assistance in activities meant to introduce ICT in general schools, construction of a platform dedicated to distance learning activities, creating a database […]

Perceptions of Undergraduate Students of Student-Regulated Online Courses

Undergraduate students at a large, public, southeastern university enrolled in one of two independent, fully-online courses were released from the instructor-regulated structure mid-semester.  Subsequently, the course was structured as student-regulated and students self-managed pace of study and timing of assessments for the remainder of the course.  The objective of the research is to assess student […]