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Online Learning News and Research
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Saturday, November 06, 2004
A Pedagogical Design Strategy for Effective Technology-Based Learning: iLEARN Model - Ju-Ling Shih, Instructional Technology and Distance Learning
iLEARN is an interactive distance learning framework designed specifically for analyzing, understanding, and implementing technology-oriented education but generally applicable to other computer-assisted instruction. It is a pedagogical design strategy which lays great emphasis on learning rather than teaching in the aim of strengthening students’ role in the education process. Reminiscent to the Chinese term for “education” which is a compound of two words “teaching” and “learning,” this framework created a bilateral dynamic offering a student-centered and teacher-guided paradigm. iLEARN also is the antithesis of the all too common philosophy of “teaching to the test.” It is a challenge for teachers who are used to the conformation of the conventional lectural teaching to adapt to the “invasion” of technology into their classrooms. This paper offers a quick flash of the historical view to the technology-oriented education as a foundation to acknowledge the necessity to create an educational environment supporting effective learning, followed by a thinking strategy for those teachers who are searching for an entrance to the technological realm and a guiding map for pedagogical transformation. (0) comments
Wireless Classrooms: Evolution or Extinction? - Howard Strauss, Syllabus
Automatic Teller Machines initially appeared inside banks, right next to the human tellers they emulated. ATMs disbursed money and accepted deposits, but when banks closed for the day, ATMs were locked inside, as useful and accessible as the vacant teller cages they abutted. Locked inside a bank, ATMs provided a few evolutionary advantages over human tellers. Waiting lines were shorter and ATMs never took breaks. There was a loss of human contact. An ATM never asked about Uncle Larry’s gout or suggested a loan for your daughter. Wireless notebook initially appeared inside classrooms on the same laps that previously held paper notebooks or wired laptops. Wireless notebooks could be used to look things up and do classroom collaboration, but when class was over and students were out of range of wireless access points, wireless laptops were not much better than the paper or silicon solutions they superseded. Even limited to classrooms, wireless laptops had some evolutionary advantages, but these did not begin to exploit the possibilities of mobile intelligent devices. (0) comments
Group touts free eLearning platform - Cara Branigan, eSchool News
A handful of leading universities have developed a new consortium to raise awareness and increase the use of a free, open-source software platform for managing courses, content, collaboration, and online learning. The software, known as .LRN ("dot-learn"), was originally developed for use at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It is a completely free, open-source application suite and development platform reportedly capable of: managing course syllabi, calendars, and class lists; offering community support tools such as surveys, polls, bulletin boards, and file storage; and managing learning (0) comments Friday, November 05, 2004
Students with disabilities gain an advocate - Lynda Hills, University of Victoria
Shohreh Hadian is hoping to help UVic operate with its eyes closed. By concentrating on visually impaired students, she researched how universities offer Web-based courses and identified important barriers to accessibility. "Online learning is attractive to disabled students," Hadian says. "They benefit from this environment because they can take courses from home at their own pace." Hadian, who graduates this month with a master's degree in computer science, has found that one of the key components to online education is accessibility. (0) comments
E-learning's increasing popularity - CNN
At the height of the dotcom boom, e-learning was tipped as the next big thing in workplace education, with experts predicting that the future was online. In 2001, with companies scrambling to jump on the bandwagon, market research company IDC wildly predicted that the global e-learning market would be worth $23 billion by 2004. Most of the companies that raced into that market ended up tripping over themselves in the rush to make money.... Yet e-learning now appears set for a second, more modest surge. According to a survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development last year, more than half of managers are now involved in some sort of e-learning. (0) comments
Agreement facilitates computerisation of Arabic language curricula - Rami Abdelrahman, Jordan Times
As part of a process to reinforce Jordan's e-learning initiative, an agreement was signed yesterday between the Ministry of Education and France Telecom to facilitate the computerisation of the Arabic language curricula for schools. The 640,000 euro agreement falls within the framework of the Jordan Education Initiative (JEI) for e-learning and stipulates that France Telecom will manage and finance the project of computerising the Arabic language curriculum for grades 1-12, to be operational by 2006. After the signing ceremony, Minister of Education Khalid Touqan said the agreement is part of a national strategy to upgrade the efficiency of the educational system by increasing its effectiveness, developing the infrastructure to provide modern and useful knowledge, and meet the requirements of economic development. (0) comments Thursday, November 04, 2004
Forget wikis, blogs and other online learning tools -- one professor says the future of higher education is mobile. - Howard Rheingold, the Feature
"This generation entering our schools is immersed in cyberculture and is untethered, mobile and wirelessly connected. At colleges and universities around the world, the nomadic swarms are already arriving," says Bryan Alexander, codirector of the Center for Educational Technology at Middlebury College in Vermont. The always-on, one-handed texting, instant-messaging, multitasking generation Professor Alexander welcomes into his classes are drawn to the kind of mobile learning he has been developing, or "m-learning," as he calls it. Over the years, Alexander has used online communities, blogs and wikis to teach Gothic literature, history of the Vietnam war and Arab culture. Now he's going mobile. (0) comments
The big picture - Gary Barker, theAge
Video technology harnessed to the internet is pushing back the boundaries for Australian students. The internet has revolutionised education, perhaps most of all in distance education. Suddenly, students on the far side of the planet can engage in email discussions with their tutors and other students. Many universities in Australia saw great opportunity to export their courses and to co-operate with foreign institutions in developing their students. Empowerment was everywhere, and indeed is still growing as faster broadband connections allow not only text, but images and video to be streamed to academic networks. Technology buffs believe the horizon is limitless - every student with instant online face-to-face video connection to their professor. (0) comments
Are We There Yet? - Judith V. Boettcher, Campus Technology
Since my 1999 predictions for distance education, subtle shifts in teaching and learning patterns have emerged. Many of you may remember that in June of 1999 I shared a number of teaching and learning predictions for 2007 with Syllabus readers (“21st Century Teaching and Learning Patterns”). Now, here it is five years later and—armed with the realities and perspectives of 2004—I have the opportunity to revisit many of those predictions with Campus Technology readers, to find out how close to the mark I came. What has happened in the realm of distance education since those prognostications? How has technology changed the way we deliver teaching and encourage learning? (0) comments Wednesday, November 03, 2004
A Bulletproof Model for the Design of Blended Learning - Frank J. Troha, CEO Refresher
I hope you'll never hear an outside consultant tell you that it will take another $250,000 and an additional six months to complete your e-learning or blended learning project. By blended learning I simply mean e-learning (or online learning) combined with another venue, typically classroom training. Blended learning is hot and understandably so, combining the best features of online learning (e.g., 24/7 accessibility) with the best features of classroom instruction (e.g., live, face-to-face interaction). No doubt it's here to stay. But why do so many blended learning initiatives turn into frustrating boondoggles, consuming far more time and money than anyone anticipated? The answer -- just as with most troubled initiatives -- can be found in poor planning (i.e., instructional design), the bitter fruits of which often appear during the implementation of training, or long after substantial amounts of time, money and enthusiasm have been expended. (0) comments
Using Online Interaction to Break Your Addiction to Classroom Training - Michael Burke, Learning Circuits
Many of you may be familiar with the phrase: “Interactivity is in the mind, not in the mouse.” I’d endorse that statement, with the following caveat: It’s okay to depend on the mouse to get the mind engaged. Unfortunately, the majority of corporate self-paced online learning consists of screen turners, which is the equivalent of page turners in a print model. That sort of courseware commits cruel and unusual punishment—boredom—upon its victims/learners. The irony is that online learning actually lends itself to interaction, and with little effort can be far more engaging than some traditional classroom instruction. (0) comments
New Zealand Tertiary e-Learning Research Fund projects underway
The first four projects funded by the Ministry of Education’s new Tertiary e-Learning Research Fund are now underway, Associate Education Minister (Tertiary Education) Steve Maharey announced today. Speaking at the e-Fest 2004 conference hosted by the Open Polytechnic in Wellington, Steve Maharey said the projects focussed on learners, teaching, staff development and organisational issues. “Researchers have been asked to identify and analyse major trends affecting e-learning and the broader factors that might impact on future tertiary e-learning in New Zealand. The Ministry of Education expects the projects will help to meet the tertiary sector’s need for robust, up-to-date research on e-learning in New Zealand. (0) comments Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Online Debate: A Case Study Combining Traditional Strategy and Online Technology - Shawn M. Love, Instructional Technology and Distance Learning
Instructional Designers are constantly faced with new challenges. In a volatile technological environment, online resources seem to lead instructional designers into unknown territory. Often, instructors will attempt to merge online media and instruction in an effort to accomplish a single task. However, instructors must consider the resources they use and the strategy they employ before attempting to combine traditional strategies with online technologies. Merging a traditional debate format in synchronous and asynchronous online environments demonstrate the challenges of merging the traditional with the non-traditional. In this article, an online debate is examined in terms of limited communication methods and suggestions are provided for designing an online debate. (0) comments
Clark Aldrich’s Six Criteria of an Educational Simulation - Learning Circuits
The more I build, evaluate, and discuss educational simulations, the more I realize we need to establish some better terms. Specifically, there are six criteria that are emerging as critical, and ultimately not just to simulations but all educational experiences. We are most familiar with [the first] linear content. Here we present learners with inevitable sequences, with one event or step following the next. Striking a match produces fire. World War I came before World War II. Systems Content The second type of content deals with systems. Here, users are exposed to formal, complex, intertwined relationships. This includes all of the components of the system and how those components impact each other. Systems content is more accurate than linear, but where linear works, stick with it. (0) comments
An answer in the wind - when will they ever e-learn? - Eric Wilson, the Age
Online learning could help fix Australia's looming skills shortage or fill corporate knowledge gaps, but not without careful planning. Although e-learning proponents are quick to extol the technology's ability to provide the appropriate training at the right time and place, businesses often struggle to realise these promises. Imparting real learning is not as easy as installing software. The underlying challenge flagged by the watershed Cape Group research this column discussed last week concerns some people taking to e-learning like ducks to water, while others, without help, slowly sink. There's no doubt online learning can be more inclusive in its ability to provide training at the learner's convenience, but its virtual form presents obstacles that many in the training business prefer to ignore. (0) comments Monday, November 01, 2004
Learning Objects: A Practical Definition - Rory McGreal, Instructional Technology and Distance Learning
Learning objects (LOs) enable and facilitate the use of educational content online. Internationally accepted specifications and standards make them interoperable and reusable by different applications and in diverse learning environments. The metadata that describes them facilitates searching and renders them accessible. (0) comments
India: 'Use distance education to train teachers' - Sunnetwork
Open and distance learning has a key role in training and retraining millions of teachers, which is necessary to achieve the millennium development goal of "universal primary education for all by 2015," Sir John Daniel, president and chief executive officer, Commonwealth of Learning, Canada, Said here today. "Universal primary education is the most fundamental of the goals because development is freedom and education is the royal road to freedom," he said.... Existing teacher training institutions and individual teacher educators need to deploy the ODL methods and network themselves into professional communities, he said. (0) comments
Macromedia hopes it can Captivate us all - Chris Reynolds, Computerworld
Macromedia targets its Captivate product at the booming e-learning market. With a whole clutch of enhancements, Macromedia has tried to make it really easy to prepare, deploy and evaluate online course material. Captivate was once known as RoboDemo but the company hopes the name change better reflects the product's new focus. Silke Fleisher, product manager for Captivate, says RoboDemo was seen as a recording tool for creating demonstrations. In contrast, Captivate enables user interactivity and this "captivates" your users and improves retention, she says. (0) comments Sunday, October 31, 2004
Electronic Repositories of Marked Student Work and their Contributions to Formative Evaluation - Eva Heinrich
The educational literature shows that formative assessment is highly conducive to learning. The tasks given to students in formative assessment generally require open-ended responses that can be given, for example, in essay-type format and that are assessed by a human marker. An essential component is the formative feedback provided by the marker that needs to assist the student in recognising knowledge gaps and in formulating steps to close these gaps. The concepts of ‘electronic repositories of marked student work’ introduced in this article suggests an approach to support learning from formative assessment. At the core of this concept lies the realisation that the artefacts submitted by students and assessed by markers are a valuable resource. This resource should not just be used by the submitting students but should be made accessible to future students studying the same concepts. These students can learn from the artefacts and the formative feedback attached to these artefacts. Self- and peer-assessment, important concepts closely linked to formative assessment, can be integrated with the repositories to develop the students’ subject knowledge, to enhance their critical thinking skills and to familiarise them with assessment procedures. This article develops the concepts of electronic repositories of marked student work. Special emphasis is put on reviewing the educational literature on formative assessment and on binding the concepts introduced into the literature findings. (0) comments
What Do ICTs Represent: A Bridge To Knowledge Or A New Exclusion Factor? - D. Segarra, elearningEuropa
The new technologies obviously offer new, interesting opportunities for access to knowledge. Their application may also however become a new exclusion factor. This paper sets out to offer a first examination of this issue, based on articles published on the elearningeuropa.info portal. A brief theoretical note may prove useful to focus the question. According to Information Theory, knowledge tends to become concentrated in itself. Richer structures are able to accumulate new information with ease. In contrast however, “info-poor” structures tend to remain so. In other words, the distance between those who know a lot and those who know little is tending to grow because the former gather information faster than the latter. The propensity of information to become accumulated into increasingly complex structures seems to be a general tendency of all systems, from human societies to ecosystems. (0) comments
The Other Kids on the Block: Commercial Providers Grow Up in the eLearning Space - Syllabus
In a market that has been dominated by two big players, WebCT and Blackboard, how will other commercial vendors gain market share and thrive? Syllabus interviewed key executives at two companies—Unicon and Desire 2 Learn—about how they plan to continue to be successful in this difficult and evolving market. The market for learning management systems in higher education is changing. Open source environments—Sakai, OpenCMS, Plone, Moodel, Segue, and soon Harmoni—are not only alternatives to “black box” systems; they are points around which higher education may organize to influence market directions. One notable project, the OpenKnowledgeInitiative (OKI) was funded in 2000 by the Mellon Foundation to provide a framework and proof of concept for an open source learning management system. More recently, Sakai, also funded by Mellon, has gone beyond that by promising a full-scale production open source learning management system by Summer 2005. Vendors wishing to compete in this marketplace must recognize the unique collaborative nature of higher education and the impact cooperative development efforts may have on their market strategies. (0) comments Online Learning News Blog Archives OTEL - Ray's Home Page - Notebook - UIS Online - U of I Online - UIS Home Fair Use |
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