E-Learning and Digital Media
ISSN 2042-7530

Volume 4 Number 4 2007

CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text]

Editorial, page 383
Rebecca W. Black. Fanfiction Writing and the Construction of Space, pages 384‑397
J.C. Aczel & P. Hardy. Applying Future Studies Methods to Understanding the Impact of University Information and Communication Technology Studies on Learning, pages 398‑414
Cindy Xin & Andrew Feenberg. Pedagogy in Cyberspace: the dynamics of online discourse, pages 415‑432
Genevieve Marie Johnson. Functional Internet Literacy: required cognitive skills with implications for instruction, pages 433‑441
Michael F. Beaudoin. Dissecting the African Digital Divide: diffusing e-learning in sub-Saharan Africa, pages 442‑453
Susan Wray. Supporting Teacher Candidates during the Electronic Portfolio Development Process, pages 454‑463
Mahmoud M. El-Khouly. Web-Based Graduate Diploma in Computer Sciences, pages 464‑470
Robert Shaw. Pedagogic Thinking that Grounds E-Learning for Secondary School Science Students in New Zealand, pages 471‑481
Kar-Tin Lee & Jennifer Duncan-Howell. How Do We Know E-Learning Works? Or Does It?, pages 482‑496
Jennifer Jenson, Nicholas Taylor & Suzanne de Castell. Shifting Design Values: a playful approach to serious content, pages 497‑507

BOOK REVIEW VIEW FULL TEXT
The Digital Teaching Portfolio Workbook: understanding the digital teaching portfolio process (C. Kilbane & N. Milman), reviewed by Susan Wray, pages 508‑510
Books Available for Review, page 510 doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.508

GAME REVIEW VIEW FULL TEXT
Aaron Chia-Yuan Hung. The Virtual Construction of Cliques: a review of Bully, pages 511‑516 doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.511

E-REVIEW LINKS VIEW FULL TEXT
Michele Knobel, pages 517‑518 doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.517

Editorial

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.383

E-Learning completes its fourth volume with an issue that exemplifies the journal’s commitment to honouring the discursive richness and variety that characterizes e-learning in theory and in practice. Educational discourse generally ranges over conceptual and theoretical approaches and perspectives that are more or less skills-based, technology- or tools-oriented, practice-based, cognitivist, sociocultural, and so on, respectively. E-learning can be understood and approached with wider and narrower lenses. Thematic interests can range over developing or evaluating matters of practical ‘how to’, of evaluation, of model development, and the like, across formal, semi-formal and non-formal settings, whether ‘totally e’ or ‘partly e’ in nature. And much more besides.

Rather than adopting a particular party line, E-Learning aims to champion this diversity and encourage conversations within and across positions and viewpoints. In this issue, authors working in social and economic development sit alongside games theorists, philosophers of technology, cognitive skills theorists, future studies proponents, online course developers, and researchers with interests in electronic portfolio development, fanfiction as a locus of affinity spaces, and the effectiveness of e-learning programs.

The journal is now achieving critical mass in its reviews section. This issue features full-length book and games reviews as well as the regular e-review links column. Just as we solicit papers for publication, so we solicit reviews for publication. The journal has adopted two options. In one, we send books out for review to people interested in reviewing them. With this issue we begin a short column of ‘books available for review’ on a first come, first served basis. The second option invites reviews of books from anyone who has read a book they would like to review for publication. As always, we invite publishers to send us books for review. Equally, we invite readers to submit their proactive reviewing work for consideration.

We welcome new subscribers and warmly invite readers and authors to recommend the journal for their institutions’ library stocks. It goes without saying that building subscriptions is a sine qua non for keeping the journal alive as a publishing forum for e-learning researchers and scholars.

We thank our past and continuing authors for their contributions, and hope you will continue to see the journal as an attractive venue for your work. We also encourage new authors to send us work for consideration. The continuing growth in submissions rates has been very heartening, but there is still scope for growth.

E-Learning seeks to balance scholarly academic criteria and virtues with responsiveness to user needs and interests. For this reason, we keep communications channels open and welcome suggestions for new features, occasional features, and ideas for enhancement generally. Above all, if you have an idea for a guest issue, or an extraordinary issue, or if you have a conference or symposium you think would be appropriate for E-Learning, please contact us. Because electronic publishing is that quality does not have to be sacrificed at the altar of economic cost. If the quality is there, we will publish it, running to extraordinary issues as and when required.

Colin Lankshear & Michele Knobel
for the Editorial Team

Fanfiction Writing and the Construction of Space

REBECCA W. BLACK Department of Education, University of California, Irvine, USA

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.384

In this article, a spatial lens is used to look at a popular online culture-based writing website as a means of understanding how fan authors’ literacy practices and the design features of the site interact to shape a writing space that engenders affiliation with and facilitates access to literacy and language learning. Discussion also focuses on how the site, conceptualized as an affinity space, provides English-language-learning youth with multiple means of displaying expertise in and affiliating around popular culture, as well as of positioning themselves as capable and accomplished users of multiple social languages.

Applying Future Studies Methods to Understanding the Impact of University Information and Communication Technology Strategies on Learning

J.C. ACZEL Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
P. HARDY Department of Business Management and Social Sciences, University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.398

This article aims to explore the potential of certain future studies techniques to provide insight into the question of the impact of higher education information and communication technology (ICT) strategies on student learning. The approach is to consider three case studies of new universities in different countries, and to identify the main features of their ICT strategies, related variables, key change drivers and trends. Models representing ICT strategy and dimensions of student learning are then drawn together to produce a number of possible scenarios and testable hypotheses. Recommendations for refining the analysis are highlighted.

Pedagogy in Cyberspace: the dynamics of online discourse

CINDY XIN Learning and Instructional Development Centre, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada
ANDREW FEENBERG School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.415

This article elaborates a model for understanding pedagogy in online educational forums. The model identifies four key components. Intellectual engagement describes the foreground cognitive processes of collaborative learning. Communication processes operating in the background accumulate an ever richer store of shared understandings that enable the forward movement of the conversation. The collaborative process requires a moderator to coordinate communication and learning in a group. The moderator in online education is usually a teacher, who shares knowledge in the process of leading discussion. Finally, a successful discussion generates intrinsic motivations to participate, which keep the discussion going. This framework is designed to bring out the complexity of online discussion and to provide a basis for advising teachers, and evaluating applications and software.

Functional Internet Literacy: required cognitive skills with implications for instruction

GENEVIEVE MARIE JOHNSON Department of Psychology, Grant MacEwan College, Edmonton, Canada

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.433

Patterns of typical Internet use provide the basis for defining functional Internet literacy. Internet use commonly includes communication, information, recreation, and commercial activities. Technical competence with connectivity, security, and downloads is a prerequisite for using the Internet for such activities. Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive skills consists of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Such a hierarchy provides a structure by which to organize the intellectual requirements for effective online communication, information, recreation, and commercial activities, and the technical skills necessary to operate the equipment that mediates Internet use. Functional Internet literacy, conceptualized as a range of cognitive skills applied to common online activities, is best achieved in formal learning environments. The assessment of cognitive skill deficits associated with specific online activities targets instruction. Functional Internet literacy is not the ability to use a set of technical tools; rather, it is the ability to use a set of cognitive tools.

Dissecting the African Digital Divide: diffusing e-learning in sub-Saharan Africa

MICHAEL F. BEAUDOIN Education Department, University of New England, Biddeford, Maine, USA

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.442

Many countries identified with the developing world, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, have been recipients of aid programs over the past five decades totaling billions of dollars and aimed at fostering social and economic development to achieve global parity with the industrialized world. Much of this activity has been focused on building capacity in the higher education sector, especially through the introduction and implementation of distance education delivery systems to move from print to electronic resources for teaching and learning. The conventional wisdom is that, despite these efforts, success will ultimately be compromised by the lack of available and affordable technology. In fact, the constraints imposed by culturally driven traditional educational practices, as well as lack of strategic planning and effective management, are at least as powerful barriers to change in this arena. Unless both indigenous and expatriate advocates, consultants and managers of online learning are able to integrate new systems and structures, whether modest or ambitious, with new instructional approaches, the consequence of much of their efforts is likely to be an overlay of impressive instructional technology that largely masks the continuation of colonial-era, print-dependent educational practices.

Supporting Teacher Candidates during the Electronic Portfolio Development Process

SUSAN WRAY Department of Early Childhood, Elementary, and Literacy Education Montclair State University, USA

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.454

In recent years, there has been a movement in the USA towards performance-based evaluation of teachers. As a result, many schools, colleges, and departments of education have moved towards integrating performance-based approaches into their programs. This has involved many promising practices, but none have caught on more than the use of teaching portfolios, and especially electronic or digital teaching portfolios. As a follow-up to an earlier article in E-Learning on portfolio implementation issues, this article will address the logical next step when considering using electronic portfolios with teacher candidates: supporting students during the development of their electronic teaching portfolios. An overview of issues to consider specific to the implementation and support of electronic portfolios is discussed. Methods of supporting the portfolio development process represented in the research literature are addressed and critiqued as to their effectiveness specific to various purposes attributed to teaching portfolios in general. The article concludes with a call to integrate technological needs and conceptual issues into any effective support plan so that the complex and critical attributes of teaching portfolios are realized.

Web-Based Graduate Diploma in Computer Sciences

MAHMOUD M. EL-KHOULY Egyptian Educational Bureau, London, United Kingdom

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.464

With support from the Higher Education Enhancement Project Fund (HEEPF), the Faculty of Science at Helwan University (Egypt) has constructed a number of online courses in support of the graduate diploma in computer sciences programme. All courses in the diploma have a web presence, and the course offerings are now moving towards a much more interactive mode of learning, utilising online testing systems and collaborative learning, and incorporating elements of active learning. Starting from web-based learning, the site is preparing for the advent of ‘distance education’ by creating a multimedia CD for each course in the diploma programme.

Pedagogic Thinking that Grounds E-Learning for Secondary School Science Students in New Zealand

ROBERT SHAW The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand & the Carter Observatory, New Zealand

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.471

Course designers adopted a language-learners approach to the online teaching of New Zealand secondary school students in the subject of astronomy. This was possible because the curriculum for astronomy that was in 2004 established as a part of New Zealand’s national curriculum was specifically designed to engage underachieving students in science and technology. A criterion-referenced assessment regime was established and an Internet platform was built specifically to facilitate this form of assessment. This platform contrasts with the norm-referenced assessment programmes that are most frequently used with online instruction. In this situation – where the essential task is to reward students for learning basic vocabulary and to motivate them to further study – the theory of psychologist William James assisted the teachers to develop their online pedagogy. The article concludes with a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet to deliver science courses to secondary school students.

How Do We Know E-Learning Works? Or Does It?

KAR-TIN LEE & JENNIFER DUNCAN-HOWELL School of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education Queensland University of Technology, Australia

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.482

E-learning is an accepted and commonly used component in tertiary education. However, success would appear to remain variable. Effective e-learning is a concept which sometimes eludes even the most reputable of online educators. It is an issue which plagues both the corporate and education fields and which is frequently aggravated by the numerous, often contradictory, studies on the subject. This article seeks to yield the merits of these studies in order to decipher some of the better means of effectively evaluating, designing and managing e-learning programmes and to accurately envisage what the future may hold for the development of online education in the tertiary education sector. It attempts to merge the experiences of the business and education sectors into an effective approach to be used in the design of such programmes and to present guidelines concerning the future of e-learning in tertiary education.

Shifting Design Values: a playful approach to serious content

JENNIFER JENSON & NICHOLAS TAYLOR Faculty of Education, York University, Toronto, Canada
SUZANNE DE CASTELL Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada

doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.497

This article documents the design and development of an online tutorial for student and practising teachers at York University, Canada, that familiarizes them with the ethical and legal aspects of teaching. In particular, it focuses on the key design decisions that were made, emphasizing how these were also deeply pedagogical considerations, including: (1) a modular menu and content structure which, in combination with a user-enabled progress tracking system, allows for non-linear, entirely student-directed progress through the site; (2) accessible and engaging, rather than dense and jargonistic content, redesigned around the spatial economy of the site; and (3) a series of animated legal case stories that moves content delivery from a narrowly propositional mode to one driven by narrative and play. The article concludes with a discussion of how these attempts at enacting ‘pedagogic interactivity’ – a unity of pedagogy and design – were undermined by the introduction of an evaluative component requiring students to achieve and submit a score. The ‘ELSE’ (Ethics and Legal Studies in Education) tutorial site illustrates what types of innovations in instructional design in what has been broadly termed ‘e-learning’ are made possible by subverting the conventional dichotomy between content and delivery.

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