| E-Learning |
ISSN 1741-8887 | ||
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Volume 3 Number 4 2006 | |||
Other issues available | Journal home page | Publisher home page | |||
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CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text] | |||
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| Editorial, page
504 | |||
Editorial |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.504 |
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| This issue of E-Learning completes the journal’s third year of publication, during which time its viability for becoming a paid subscription-based journal was to be tested. Thanks to the support of authors and readers the journal has established a strong and sustainable base and with Volume 4, Issue 1, will become a full subscription publication. The model to be used is a ‘single year’ model – paid subscriptions provide access to the current year, and automatically include access to all previous years. All content will become open access 18 months after first publication. We appeal to the journal’s readers to encourage their institutions to take out subscriptions and/or to take out personal subscriptions to support E-Learning’s continuing work. The present issue introduces a new book reviews feature: e-Review Links. This feature is in addition to the conventional book review format. e-Review Links provides hyperlinks to a selection of extant book reviews from current online journals. The journals will be varied from issue to issue, and combined, to give good coverage. Readers are pointed to the reviews, and the information provided as background to the actual reviews includes a representative passage from the review to give an indication of the whole. Readers are invited to submit contributions to e-Review Links as well as to submit conventional book reviews to be considered for publication. Publishers are invited to send books for review. All communications for book review matters should be directed to Michele Knobel (knobelm@mail.montclair.edu). The journal will continue to follow the pattern established in previous years of running general and guest-edited themed issues in roughly equal proportions. Where extraordinary issues become necessary to cope with volume of accepted work they will be published. Readers with ideas for guest-edited themed issues are invited to propose them to the editors (mpet001@ad.uiuc.edu). Themed issues to appear during 2007‑08 include an issue on early childhood and online education (Andrew Gibbons), games and learning (Jessica Hammer), cyberspace and law (Shaheen Shariff) and Web 2.0 and cybercommunities (Doreen Starke-Meyerring). Meanwhile, the present issue further realises the journal’s aim to contribute to the development of an expansive discourse of e-learning. This is a discourse that attends to a range of disciplinary perspectives, encourages critique along with advocacy, and supports attempts to advance theoretical and conceptual work adequate to understanding, explaining and evaluating the complex phenomena falling under a generous framing of e-learning. Themes addressed in the current issue are citizen participation in e-learning environments, interactive fiction, learning styles within e-learning environments, Internet use and cognitive development, professional development for tomorrow’s classrooms, changing concepts of the university associated with the rise of e-learning and related phenomena, comparative distance education, aligning organisational vision and management processes in developing engagement with e-learning, the study of an innovative online programme for junior faculty, and factors associated with smoothing progress toward online doctorates. COLIN
LANKSHEAR James Cook University, Australia, and McGill
University, Canada |
Battery Farming or Free Ranging: towards citizen participation in e-learning environments |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.505 |
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| This article presents a model for conceptualising learner involvement in online environments. It takes as its starting point the emerging approach to service-user engagement in public-sector change in the United Kingdom. This is focused upon civic inclusion and empowered decision making. In turn this personalisation is related to issues surrounding information literacy and access to technology, in order to frame a structure for legitimate participation in e-environments. However, a key question is whether more controlled, academic environments can be activated for use by learners, and if so, what types of participative involvement are created and valued. Thus, a model for participation is developed, which captures how academic teams can move towards partnership and co-ownership with students. This focuses upon building an e-learning approach that is responsive and inclusive, and which has a ‘free-ranging’ structure that demands the legitimate participation of learners as co-owners of its environmental definition. The evaluation uses an action research-based approach to assess how academic staff can work with students to activate meaningful online spaces. |
| Interactive Fiction: ‘new literacy’ learning opportunities for children |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.519 |
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| Interactive fiction has great potential for use in schools, providing engaging and empowering opportunities for learning and literacy. Experiences with interactive fiction provide two key components lacking in contemporary storytelling mediums: autonomy (the ability to act and change on its own) and interactivity (or the ability to think and react intelligently to the user). This descriptive study analyzes a work of interactive fiction created specifically for this research, which illustrates essential traits of character-driven e-literature. The story is evaluated in terms of a set of principles, listed under a heading of empowered learners. Finally, the educational implications of using interactive fiction in an educational setting are discussed. |
| How Learning Styles Impact E-learning: a case comparative study of undergraduate students who excelled, passed, or failed an online course in scientific/technical writing |
| WILLIAM WEST, B.R. SIMON ROSSER, SALMA MONANI & LAURA GURAK University of Minnesota, USA |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.534 |
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| Online classes appear increasingly popular, making it critical in each discipline to study the advantages and disadvantages of learning online. Following up on anecdotal impressions that scientific/technical writing students appeared to do either better or worse in an online course than an offline equivalent (unpublished data), it was decided to study the impact of learning style and experience in using the Internet on grades. The 60 students who participated in an online course on scientific/technical writing were emailed post-course evaluations which included questions on learning styles. Of these, 37 (62%) returned the evaluations, revealing a clear and significant pattern of results. While the groups did not differ in hours spent studying online, or in total hours spent online, students who excelled in online learning reported spending significantly more hours per week online for work, and less hours online contacting families/friends than students who passed or students who failed. Students who excelled differed significantly from other students in their learning strategies and study habits and frequency with which they contacted the instructor. Students who excelled in this online class appear more experienced both in working online and have study habits conducive to the online environment. Curiously, students who performed marginally or failed were more likely to rate themselves as making good use of study time, and may spend significantly longer online on assignments than the moderate students. The need to design courses that elicit specific habits or to teach students study habits specific to online learning appear critical tasks to improve the success and retention rates in online courses. |
| The Limits of ‘Blackboard’ are the Limits of My World: on the changing concepts of the university and its students |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.544 |
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| This article focuses on the changing concepts of the university student and teacher, of learning and teaching, and of the university as such because of the use and integration of electronic learning environments. This mode of digital learning implies important changes in established practices in which students and teachers inevitably take part. Hitherto familiar practices are at stake. The way we understand these changing practices suggests that the implementation of the digital learning environment encompasses more than just a mere instrumental change in the processes of teaching and learning. What at first sight only seems to be a simple material intervention puts a number of familiar concepts and noble intentions under stress. Without wanting to decline the use of information and communications technology in higher education, the authors argue that it is far from self-evident to accept an electronic learning environment as effectively supporting a student’s self-tuition, or as stimulating learning as a critical and sustained activity. |
| Teachers’ Professional Development for the Technology-Enhanced Classroom in the School of Tomorrow |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.552 |
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| This article discusses the following general questions: (1) what is the role of the teacher in the technology enhanced classroom; and (2) how are teachers prepared for the use of new technology in the classroom? The answers will differ among European countries due to, among other reasons, resources, national initiatives and available infrastructure. The overall goal of using technology in education also needs to be clarified. Is the driving force primarily of an economic nature to make education cheaper? Is the overall goal rather to improve the quality of learning? Is it about increasing student experiences? Is it about attracting more students? Does it have to do with increasing the prestige of teachers? Is it introduced in order to increase flexibility in time, place and organisation of learning? Or is it something else? This article is based on results from two European Union projects, E-watch and Schoolforesight, as well as innovative ideas and examples of teacher training and development. The European Union project E-watch investigated national policies for e-learning in Europe; the Schoolforesight project included among other activities an essay contest about students’ visions of the future school. A study of teachers’ visions of the future school was also conducted. No definite answers to the above questions are given, but a number of suggestions, opportunities and inspirational ideas are presented on how to organise the technology enhanced classroom and teachers’ professional development. |
| Internet Use and Cognitive Development: a theoretical framework |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.565 |
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| The number of children and adolescents accessing the Internet as well as the amount of time online are steadily increasing. The most common online activities include playing video games, accessing web sites, and communicating via chat rooms, email, and instant messaging. A theoretical framework for understanding the effects of Internet use on cognitive development is presented. The proposed framework, based on the cognitive information processing model, the sociocultural perspective, the PASS cognitive processing model, and the neurological orientation, organises previous research in terms of the cognitive consequences of common online activities. From a cognitive-developmental perspective, the Internet is a cultural tool that influences cognitive processes and an environmental stimulus that contributes to the formation of specific cognitive architecture. |
| Can Organisational Vision Be Aligned to Management Processes for Engaging with E-learning? A Case Study for a Recasting Dialogue as Central to Infrastructure Development |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.574 |
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| This article provides an account of how one manager considered the alignment of an organisational vision with an implementation strategy for creating an effective organisational infrastructure. The discussion reported in the article provides a manager’s view, a case, of how one institution introduced online learning initiatives. Critical to this case is the development of suitable and sustainable organisational processes that were in alignment with the organisational vision. This discussion could aid managers of virtual learning environments in higher education institutions by (a) modelling an approach to linking institutional vision and Laurillard’s Conversational Framework as an implementation strategy for e-learning and, (b) improving managers’ understanding of the processes of and necessity of strategic alignment. |
| Distance Education in Brazil and in the United States: a comparative view |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.583 |
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| This article provides an overview of distance education in Brazil and compares it with that in the United States. It presents a brief historical perspective of private and public initiatives in Brazil and concentrates on present governmental projects and educational policies guiding distance education, with emphasis on higher education. Deficits of higher education are discussed and e‑learning is presented as a partial solution to the problem of supply and demand of higher education in the country. |
| A Smooth Passage toward an Online PhD |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.593 |
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| There is a need for research into understanding students’ learning barriers and cognitive style of learning before they embark on an online PhD program. Online university students in the School of Education express success and difficulties electronically as they navigate through a spectrum of courses, Learning Agreements, Knowledge Area Modules (KAMs) and a dissertation. To better understand how the online student learns, Cleeton’s ‘Research Barrier Questionnaire’ and Riding’s ‘Cognitive Styles Analysis’ were administered to online students in their first online course at an online university. Results obtained might by useful in the construction of a curriculum model to integrate faculty–student perception and reality of best practices in teaching an ‘Introductory Course’ at an online university from the perspective of the online student. This model would be descriptive, diagnostic and prescriptive. Advice in terms of online support may then be given to students and faculty, to smooth the passage of online learning and increase its penetration rates. |
| An Innovative Junior Faculty Online Development Programme |
doi: 10.2304/elea.2006.3.4.599 |
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| This study examines whether two online courses offering educational support for junior faculty have a positive effect on their attitudes to learning and curriculum and teaching capacities (CTC). The data used in the analysis are from two 2005 online university training courses. The tasks the online courses assign to faculty, the resources they provide, the learning environment they create, and the conversations they provoke proved to be consequential in shaping faculty’s attitudes. The results also indicate that junior faculty who participate in individual and collective online developing activities, such as constructing teaching episodes and communicating with other colleagues, are more likely to gain a better understanding of how to teach their scientific disciplines. |
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