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This paper examines the impact of weblogs on individual learning processes in a university environment. It outlines experiences with weblogs as an instrument of learning reflection or a learning journal. This paper presents an innovative didactical concept based on the Web 2.0 paradigm and evolving technologies. Weblogs have emerged with the paradigm of Web 2.0 and user-generated content and have gained in importance through the various evolving application contexts, for example, the transfer of knowledge within enterprises, the communication and exchange of experiences with customers, and even the acquisition of projects by power bloggers. In this paper, weblogs are considered in the specificity of learning journals that focus on two objectives: first, supporting individual learning by means of reflection as the most effective method of individual learning; and, second, multiplying these efforts through interaction and discussion within a group of individuals with common interests. The latter is based on contribution-based pedagogies that maintain that collaboratively creating learning resources and sharing them with others are promising practices through which students can learn. Additionally, it is argued that this style of teaching relates to a growing trend in higher education in which the focus of learning is moving away from building a basic knowledge store and toward emphasizing a wider range of skills. We successfully applied the weblog approach to several academic courses during which qualitative and quantitative data were collected in an empirical study. This paper reflects our experiences with weblogs as a support for university lectures and is based on four semesters of exploration and adaptation. Within the scope of the research approach of design research (Hevner et al. 2004), it provides a structured method to support individual learning processes within a learning community realized by a weblog in the specificity of a learning journal. Verification with students and experts has led to a holistic method through which lecturers and coaches can successfully integrate weblogs into academic courses or even professional trainings. This paper addresses both academic learning and professional education management initiatives. Essentially, it aims at in-house trainings in enterprises, vocational schools, and universities. Interviews with experts will also reveal how to successfully align this method with professional trainings. In conclusion, this paper suggests a method with which to design a learning environment by means of learning journals to enforce increased individual learning. More specifically, it reveals that learning journals enable the achievement of level three (transfer to and application in the working environment) of Kirkpatrick's (1994) four-level model, which was generated to evaluate learning programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last ten years e-learning has rapidly emerged as a potentially effective mode of higher education, but it is still unclear what factors are important in the design of an effective e-learning course. e-Learning has been described as being a "disruptive technology" that changes how learning is approached in higher education (Garrison and Anderson 2003). The extensive changes in the technologies over the last decade have the potential to influence the way we engage with knowledge, but the potential will only be realised if we integrate this with an understanding of learning, and design the use of e-learning technologies accordingly within different contexts (Laurillard 2005). This paper explores the influence of the areas of technology, pedagogy and context on e-learning practice in higher education. Three vignettes relating to e-learning are presented which represent the shifts in technology and the tensions and influences of this on context and pedagogy. These vignettes provide the background context within which to discuss the design of an e-learning alignment guide (eLAG). This guide is a navigational tool, which offers e-learning designers a perspective on navigating the e-learning topography. It is devised to assist practitioners when navigating the changing and complex terrain of e-learning and teaching. The key finding of this paper is that technology, pedagogy and context need to be closely aligned in order to realise the potential of e-learning in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A nomadic collaborative partnership model for a community of practice (CoP) in Design for Learning (D4L) can facilitate successful innovation and continuing appraisals of effective professional practice, stimulated by a 'critical friend' assigned to the project. This paper reports on e-learning case studies collected by the UK JISC eLIDA CAMEL Design for Learning project, which implemented and evaluated learning design (LD) tools in higher and further education as part of the 2006-07 JISC Design for Learning pedagogic e-learning programme. Project partners carried out user evaluations on innovative tools with a learning design function, collecting D4L case studies and LD sequences in post-16/HE contexts using LAMS and Moodle. The project brought together learning activity sequences from post-16/HE partners into a collaborative e-learning community of professional practice based on the CAMEL (Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning) model, contributing to international D4L developments. This paper briefly provides an overview of key project output contributions to e-learning innovations, including results from teacher and student evaluations using online surveys. The paper explores intentionality in the development of a community of practice in design for learning, reporting on trials of learning design and social software that bridged some of the tensions between formalised intra-institutional e-learning relationships and inter-institutional project team dynamic D4L practitioner development. Following a brief report of practitioner D4L e-learning case studies and student feedback, the catalytic role of the 'critical friend' is highlighted and recommended as a key ingredient in the successful development of a nomadic model of communities of practice in the management of professional e-learning projects. eLIDA CAMEL Partners included the Association of Learning Technology (ALT), JISC infoNet, three universities and five FE/Sixth Form Colleges. Results reported to the UK JISC Experts' Pedagogy Group demonstrated e-learning innovations by practitioners in D4L case studies, illuminated by the role of the 'critical friend', Professor Mark Stiles of Staffordshire University. The project also benefited from case study evaluations by Dr Liz Masterman of Oxford University Learning Technologies Group and the leading work of ALT and JISC infoNet in the development of the CAMEL model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education institutions are compelled to accommodate growing class sizes as student numbers have increased over time, especially at undergraduate level. Good teaching principles are relevant to all class sizes. For example, teachers of all classes are required to create safe learning environments, motivate and engage students, interact with students, provide stimulating assessment tasks and give prompt feedback. However, meeting these requirements in the context of large classes is more challenging. As a result, traditional large class teaching methods are often characterised by the passive absorption of material, which is not ideal. What constitutes a large class? Class sizes of 60 or more have been considered large. In this paper, we report on online teaching, learning and assessment strategies for classes made up of approximately 600 first year students in Business Management 1 offered at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. The purpose of this ongoing research project is to integrate educational technologies in the classroom and study the impact of these classroom changes on the students' learning experience. The programme, which blends face-to-face teaching, paper-based teaching materials and online learning by means of WebCT/Blackboard tools, is now in its second cycle of implementation. This teaching strategy aims at greater lecturer-student interaction, engaging students with the course materials on a regular basis and eliciting feedback from students, which is used to re-teach concepts that the students find particularly difficult. The blended learning strategy resulted in enhanced student perceptions of the quality of teaching and learning, and a significant improvement in student throughput. The findings and recommendations reported in the paper are based on student feedback, gleaned through online surveys, online artefacts created by students and lecturers' classroom experiences. Although the authors report on online teaching, learning and assessment practices that proved to be effective in large classes, many conclusions may be of relevance to smaller classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on what researchers and professionals in the field internationally report, this paper reviews educational technology as an emergent field. The review reveals the continuum of perspectives on what the field is, and how it is bounded or fragmented. The paper describes the field from two perspectives: the professional and scholarly and considers how the forms of knowledge differ and overlap in each domain. It posits some dichotomies which may frame the field such as science/ social science and positivist/ post-modernist. Finally the paper provides conceptual frameworks for distinguishing fields from each other and suggests what the categorisation of the field might mean, especially considering its emergent status in a rapidly changing context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many K-12 and higher education contexts, the use of smart mobile devices increasingly affords learning experiences that are situated, authentic and connected. While earlier reviews of mobile technology may have led to criticism of these devices as being largely for consumption, many current uses emphasize creativity and productivity, with diverse purposes ranging from blogging and social networking to near full-scale video editing, office productivity and language translation. These affordances are further made possible by the large-scale development of mobile applications (or apps). For the vast majority of mobile device users - now numbering in the billions -- many of these learning experiences are informal and just-in-time, sometimes unplanned, unsanctioned by educational discourse and beyond the immediate locus of institutional control. As smart technologies become increasingly an extension of the personal, educators are faced with the question: how can we best facilitate and explicate the learning process and design relevant experiences that leverage the affordances of so many mobile devices? This paper explores how the effective use of apps enable the learning process to be visualized in ways that support meaningful and student-centered learning. The authors discuss recent developments in technology, mobile learning and multiliteracies, drawing on a range of case studies deploying mobile devices and using apps as part of learner-led inquiry processes to enable creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. Emerging from these case studies are real classroom examples, teacher-student reflections, scaffolds and working models that all speak to the importance of using apps to visualize learning and support learners at each stage of the learning process. Exploring the connections between mobile devices, media literacy and visual literacy, the paper also emphasizes the collaborative affordances of many current apps and the importance of multimodal forms of representation through gesture, voice, text, video and audio. Citing the common issues involved in deploying mobile devices in most education institutions, the authors argue the need for schools and education systems to move away from infrastructure-led developments towards more learner-led solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that MOOCs are being used as a strategic tool to explore alternative models of course delivery (Allen & Seaman, 2013) and this paper shares insight into an example of such innovation for Business School Education. Gateway MBA draws on examples of open learning worldwide to create a MOOC to extend the MBA distance learning programme for Northampton Business School. The Gateway MOOC offers open online access to MBA education to develop recruitment to the MBA internationally and to raise the profile of the university. While there are risks in this strategy, the Gateway project team see potential to introduce and market the MBA to a global audience through open online learning, raising the university brand profile and expanding the eLearning horizons of those involved in the project and beyond.This paper will consider recurring themes in the literature in the context of the design and delivery of the Gateway MBA. It is clear that reconciling MOOC values and aims with educational quality and learner satisfaction standards is problematic so this paper considers how we develop and embed innovations in the areas of technology and academic cultural practices in order to meet this challenge. Finally we will consider the issues and challenges in the use of the Carpe Diem (Salmon et al, 2013) as a model for the design and delivery of a MOOC and will offer further considerations for sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the consent to the Salamanca Statement on special needs education from 1994, e-learning developers have focused on tools aimed to support dyslexic learners. The importance of these efforts is on display every year in the Special Aids exhibition area at the BETT-event in London. ICT and e-learning is now widely used in the special needs education for dyslexics. However, the Salamanca Statement also inspired the vision of The Spacious School and the idea that children with learning disabilities should be transferred from special classes and included in the ordinary classes in primary schools. In the beginning of this process, the children with special needs were present in the classroom with their compensational aid, e.g. e-learning, ICT and special teacher support, and they were rarely included in the socially organised learning activities. Consequently, class teachers and subject teachers were not aware of the existence and potentials of the special compensational e-learning and ICT tools. In recent years in Denmark, ICT has changed from being present in schools to becoming an available, everyday resource. That is, ICT and computers move out of the computer rooms and into every school room. I.e. most pupils use ICT, e-learning and computers in various contexts whenever it seems convenient. The increasing use of ICT in schools has paved the way for new ways of including the children with special educational needs and while knowledge of dyslexic compensational e-learning and ICT tools was earlier restricted to the special teachers, teachers in general have now become aware of the existence of these tools. Within the frame of a large scale research project in primary schools in Denmark (Project IT and Learning - PIL), this change of awareness led to teacher-initiated experiments with the Danish e-learning special needs-software CD Ord in first and second grades. The teachers wanted to see whether these tools could inspire normal children as well as children with special educational needs to start writing their own stories. The paper presents the research findings from the empirical studies of experiments in Second grade. The paper concludes that most children in the experiments wrote longer and more complex stories than normally expected from this age-group. The children with a visual learning style in particular demonstrated a significant progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joseph Campbell's Monomyth not only provides a well-proven pattern for successful storytelling, it may also help to guide teams and team leaders through the challenges of change and innovation processes. In project "HELD: Innovationsdramaturgie nach dem Heldenprinzip" researchers of the University of the Arts Berlin and the Berlin Gameslab, part of the University of Applied Sciences HTW-Berlin, team up to examine the applicability of the Hero's Journey to change management using an adaptation of Campbell's pattern called „Heldenprinzip®“. The project's goal is not to teach the stages of the Monomyth as mere facts but to enable participants of training courses and interventions to actually experience its concepts using a portfolio of creative and aesthetic methods. While a pool of aesthetic methods - like drawing, performing or role-playing - is already being used, the Gameslab subproject qualitatively researches the potentials for enriching and complementing these methods with interactive digital media and games. This paper discusses three types of game based learning treatments to be used in training and intervention sessions as well as teaching the Monomyth in a game based learning university course. The first option is providing participants with a game that follows the Hero's Journey and inducing them to reflect on the experience and its relation to the learning goal. An alternative strategy is to make participants go through a game sequence broaching issues that are relevant for a stage or the journey of change in general. Last but not least, digital equivalents of the non-digital aesthetic methods can be constructed using digital games or digitally enhanced set-ups for playful interactions. All three treatments have their merits and pitfalls, which are discussed in relation to the identified game-based learning scenarios: self- study, blended game-based learning and face-to-face sessions. Furthermore, these scenarios are compared while specific techniques boundary conditions are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mobile learning research project was conducted in Trinidad and Tobago to determine if mobile learning can assist high school students in learning mathematics. Several innovative techniques were used in this research to address the problem of high failure rates of mathematics in high schools in the Caribbean. A mobile learning application was developed based on a subset of the high school mathematics curriculum used in the English-speaking Caribbean. Game-based learning, personalization and multiple learning strategies were used in conjunction with mobile learning to assist students in improving their performance in mathematics. Three evaluation studies were conducted with the mobile learning application. During the studies, usage data was captured automatically by the system and this was used to determine the extent to which the students actually used the mobile application. At the end of each study, a questionnaire was used to capture student opinions of the mobile learning application. Questionnaire data is based solely on student responses and there is no guarantee of its accuracy and reliability. This paper focuses on the responses of the students to the questionnaire and seeks to determine if the usage data can increase the reliability of the questionnaire data. It summarizes the behaviour patterns of the students gleaned from the usage logs and compares this to the students responses to the questionnaire. Generally it was found that the students' responses agreed with the usage data, though there were occasions when the responses diverged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the initial findings from a project which offers a complementary perspective to much of the research on e-learning and student learning in a digital age. Rather than foregrounding technological applications and their associated affordances, its focus is on texts and practices and textual engagements in digital environments. Drawing on previous research into academic literacies (Lea & Street 1998; Lea & Stierer 2000; Lillis, 2001; Thesen & Van Pletzen 2006), it takes a textual lens to the experience of undergraduate students' learning in a digital age. The project contributes to our understanding of a changing environment in exploring the nature of literacies, learning and technologies and how these intersect in students' lives as learners. The research has been carried out in three very different institutions of higher education in the UK, using qualitative, text-based methods. Forty-five undergraduates participated in the project and were interviewed on three occasions over a six month period. The interviews included discussions around their use of digital texts and technologies in their lives as students. In discussion with the research team, participants in the project accessed websites across a range of personal and curricular spheres, including social networking sites and resources directly or indirectly linked to their studies. They also showed examples of their work for assessment and guidance from tutors. This has provided a rich base from which to examine the nature of digital literacies for today's undergraduates and the implications of engagement in a range of texts and practices around technologies for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is an Information and Computer Technology evaluation of the Blackboard Learning Management System into teaching and learning at an institution of higher education in South Africa. In view of the institution's objective of developing a context-driven, transformative, and innovative teaching and learning practices involving the integration of technology, the study sought to classify and evaluate the form and function of teaching and learning innovations on Blackboard. Using a case study research design and a purposive sampling strategy, lecturers making an extensive use of Blackboard in the delivery of their courses were sampled. Blackboard start-up documents as well as open-ended questionnaires for lecturers provided qualitative data. Content analysis and the extraction of themes were employed. The functional pedagogical framework and SAMR models were used as interpretive lenses for the findings. The study concludes that the nature of Blackboard innovations tended to be more superficial at the levels of substitution and augmentation. Limited transformation evidenced by modification and redefinition spelled lack of substantial changes in curriculum design and delivery. With respect to the functions served by Blackboard, the conclusion drawn is that the integration is to a large extent driven by management and efficiency concerns and less by interaction, collaboration and personalisation functions. The study signals non-realisation of the educational functions spelt in the Blackboard start-up documents. The study recommends a differentiated approach to Blackboard training by a multi-disciplinary team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web resources allow a learner to have more opportunities for study at any time and any place. It is still difficult, however, for learners to choose the right study materials to match their desired learning. A competence-based system for recommending study materials from the Web (COSREW) is proposed, based on the learner's competences. COSREW generates a list of learning paths, and extracts search terms from the competence statements on the chosen learning path. Three experiments were conducted to evaluate COSREW's recommendations. The first explored the differences between search engines and the qualities of the study material links in helping learners achieve their competences. The second experiment explored the differences between search keywords, and the third experiment compared COSREW with freely- browsing learning modes. The results showed that the Web is currently not a good resource for a pedagogically informed competence-based system, since Web pages predominantly comprise text-based subject matter content with little support for learning competence or capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A unique approach was planned and implemented for undergraduate dental students that would reinforce the principles of removable partial denture (RPD) design. 162 students were grouped according to their year of dental studies (66 second-year students and 96 third-year students) within the Discipline of Prosthodontics at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto. Previous training for the students consisted of the traditional Socratic approach, including lectures, seminars, and laboratory pre-clinical hands-on exercises. During the testing session, all the students were given the case history of a particular patient. One half of each of the classes was instructed to design an RPD using the traditional, clinically-related approach, with a dental model that could be touched and seen, dental surveyors, and writing instruments. When finished, various treatment options were discussed. The other half of the classes was given the same instructions but saw the dental model only in animated form via a computer-based e-learning scenario. The RPD was virtually fabricated with student choices of drop-down design features made in a particular orderly sequence as the students worked step-by-step through the computer simulation. A pre-test questionnaire was given to all students concerning their design choices, the order in which they chose the denture components, and their learning experiences. All students were then asked to design an RPD for a different but similar case using dental models in the traditional clinical manner. Post-test questionnaires were given to assess the effectiveness of the method of their pre-test technique, in addition to their enjoyment of the approach. A cross-over situation followed one week later, whereby each group of students went through the alternate approach from the previous session. The results from the third-year student data and implications of this blended approach for teaching and learning RPD design are analyzed and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the University of Toronto at Scarborough, we provide enhanced flexibility to our students using a blended learning approach (i.e., the webOption) whereby classes are videotaped as they are offered in a traditional manner, then posted online for subsequent student access. Students can attend lectures live, watch them online at their convenience, or both. Previous research examining the webOption in the context of Introductory Psychology revealed that (a) students were satisfied with the webOption in general, (b) students used and appreciated the pause and seek features afforded by the webOption interface, and (c) those who used the pause and seek features performed slightly better on exams (Bassili & Joordens, 2008). The current research examines similar issues in the context of two mathematics courses. These courses differ from the lecture-based Introductory Psychology class in their emphasis on the teaching of mathematical proofs; cognitive skills that, like any other skill, are enhanced with practice (Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977). Access to online lectures allows students to re-experience the professor as they teach these skills. Given this, the webOption might be especially potent in these learning contexts. Surprisingly, the results we report here do not confirm that prediction. Students do use and appreciate the features of the webOption as was the case in our previous work, but those students who augmented their class attendance with online viewing, and those who used the lecture-control features the most, were actually the students who performed most poorly. Said another way, those students who had the most trouble with the course did indeed use the webOption as a way of understanding the material better but, interestingly, doing so did not result in better performance. Several possible reasons for this surprising result are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]