Student Engagement in the Digital University challenges mainstream conceptions and assumptions about students' engagement with digital resources in Higher Education. While engagement in online learning environments is often reduced to sets of transferable skills or typological categories, the authors propose that these experiences must be understood as embodied, socially situated, and taking place in complex networks of human and nonhuman actors. Using empirical data from a JISC-funded project on digital literacies, this book performs a sociomaterial analysis of student-technology interactions, complicating the optimistic and utopian narratives surrounding technology and education today and positing far-reaching implications for research, policy and practice.

This is an essential resource for anyone designing or facilitating online learning. It introduces an easy, practical model (R2D2: read, reflect, display, and do) that will show online educators how to deliver content in ways that benefit all types of learners (visual, auditory, observational, and kinesthetic) from a wide variety of backgrounds and skill levels. With a solid theoretical foundation and concrete guidance and examples, this book can be used as a handy reference, a professional guidebook, or a course text. The authors intend for it to help online instructors and instructional designers as well as those contemplating such positions design, develop, and deliver learner-centered online instruction.

Empowering Online Learning has 25 unique activities for each phase of the R2D2 model as well as summary tables helping you pick and choose what to use whenever you need it. Each activity lists a description, skills addressed, advice, variations, cost, risk, and time index, and much more.

This title is loaded with current information about emerging technologies (e.g., simulations, podcasts, wikis, blogs) and the Web 2.0. With a useful model, more than 100 online activities, the latest information on emerging technologies, hundreds of quickly accessible Web resources, and relevance to all types and ages of learners--Empowering Online Learning is a book whose time has come.

The academic profession faces new challenges everywhere. The pressures of mass higher education, accountability, fiscal constraints, distance education and the new technologies, and changing attitudes concerning academic work have combined to place unprecedented strains on the professoriate. This book brings together some of the best analysts of the academic profession in a wide ranging comparative analysis of the changing academic workplace. The stress here is on middle income and developing countries, but the issues discussed are relevant everywhere. This book, precisely because of its comparative and international perspective, is useful worldwide. Among the topics considered in the case study chapters are: the changing demographics of the academic profession, including the role of gender in the professoriate, new developments in academic appointments, including the terms of academic work, evaluation of professors, and the tenure system, external pressures on the academic profession, including demands for accountability and threats to academic freedom, the changing nature of academic work, including patterns of teaching and evaluation of students and increases in teaching responsibilities, the role of research in a changing academic environment, the impact of the new technologies and distance education, and future prospects for the professoriate.

Parents can teach their children to read--no expertise required! Parents can take charge of their children's literacy with this updated, easier-to-use edition of the classic jargon-free phonics guide. Too many parents watch their children struggle with early reading skills - and don't know how to help. Many phonics programs are too often complicated, overpriced, gimmicky, and filled with obscure educationalese. The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, Revised Edition cuts through the confusion, giving parents a simple, direct, scripted guide to teaching phonics and reading- from short vowels through supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. A new layout makes understanding and teaching the concepts even easier. With the accompanying Student Book, parents will have everything they need to take their children from the basics all the way to a fourth-grade reading level. Features a new introduction by Dr. Susan Wise Bauer.

Open and distance learning (ODL) is now a well established complement to traditional campus-based learning and numbers of participating students are on the rise. However, a growing concern for all those involved in recruiting and teaching in ODL is keeping these students. Retention rates for online courses are often worse than for conventional learning, and a recent study has suggested that over 70 percent of distance learning students drop out of courses.;There is increasing recognition that student retention is the responsibility of the actual institutions running the courses, rather than being out of their hands, as previously thought. Institutions need to retain greater numbers of students without compromising academic standards.;Providing an analysis of strategies for increasing retention, this book includes case studies and examples to illustrate how these strategies can change institutional policy and practice.

In Issues in Technology, Learning, and Instructional Design, some of the best-known scholars in those fields produce powerful, original dialogues that clarify current issues, provide context and theoretical grounding, and illuminate a framework for future thought. Position statements are introduced and then responded to, covering a remarkably broad series of topics across educational technology, learning, and instructional design, from tool use to design education to how people learn. Reminiscent of the well-known Clark/Kozma debates of the 1990s, this book is a must-have for professionals in the field and can also be used as a textbook for graduate or advanced undergraduate courses.

Making Sense of Lifelong Learning looks beyond the rhetoric about lifelong learning (LLL), and asks long overdue questions such as, Who is actually in need of LLL? What are the motives of institutions, employers and the Government in promoting LLL? and, Who says what is and what is not LLL?
In the context of the previous government attempts to enhance the economic strength of the country, the author also makes suggestions as to what might be done to encourage wider participation in LLL, particularly with regard to the increasing economic and social gaps in today's society. The considerable demographic changes to the workplace have affected the entire population, and yet employers, the government and the individual all have very different expectations from LLL. It is this previously unchallenged 'mismatch' that is one of the central themes to the book.

Learning is a critical worldwide problem for humans, essential to create a peaceful and happy world. We have serious problems in learning in both wealthy and poor areas. New approaches to learning are needed, as the current system may not rise to the new challenges. This book proposes a new strategy for learning, worldwide and for all ages of students. Computer-based distance learning would be the major delivery mechanism, with very large numbers of students. The very frequent interactions between the student and the computer would be like that with a skilled human teacher. These interactions would take place in the student's native language, in both directions. A typical interaction would be a question to a student, and a free-form student response. Both voice and keyboard student input would be possible. The learning programs would work with each student until mastery is achieved, adapting to the needs of each. Students would be active learners. The book begins with the problems and goals of learning. It considers possible forms of distance learning, looking at the variables involved, current examples of distance learning, and possible future forms including examples from science fiction. It then investigates student interactions, considering both frequency of interactions and the quality of each interaction. Programs developed in the Educational Technology Center at the University of California, Irvine, illustrate the critical idea of tutorial learning with computers. Production of tutorial learning material and costs for a student hour of learning is discussed. The book ends with suggestions for future progress. Current hardware and software is fully adequate for the tasks described. Development of all required learning units is a major activity. After this development, both better quality of learning and lower costs are very likely. Further experimental work is essential to understand the possibilities.

Charlotte Mason was a late nineteenth-century British educator whose ideas were far ahead of her time. She believed that children are born persons worthy of respect, rather than blank slates, and that it was better to feed their growing minds with living literature and vital ideas and knowledge, rather than dry facts and knowledge filtered and pre-digested by the teacher. Her method of education, still used by some private schools and many homeschooling families, is gentle and flexible, especially with younger children, and includes first-hand exposure to great and noble ideas through books in each school subject, conveying wonder and arousing curiosity, and through reflection upon great art, music, and poetry; nature observation as the primary means of early science teaching; use of manipulatives and real-life application to understand mathematical concepts and learning to reason, rather than rote memorization and working endless sums; and an emphasis on character and on cultivating and maintaining good personal habits. Schooling is teacher-directed, not child-led, but school time should be short enough to allow students free time to play and to pursue their own worthy interests such as handicrafts. Traditional Charlotte Mason schooling is firmly based on Christianity, although the method is also used successfully by secular families and families of other religions. Here in one affordable volume is her complete Homeschooling Series: Home Education: Six lectures by Charlotte Mason about the raising and educating of young children (up to the age of nine), for parents and teachers. She details how lessons in various school subjects can be done using her approach. She concludes with remarks about the Will, the Conscience, and the Divine Life in the Child. Parents and Children: A collection of 26 articles from the original Parent's Review magazines to encourage and instruct parents. School Education: Thoughts about the teaching and curriculum of children aged 9-12, either at school or at home. Ourselves: A character curriculum book written directly to children. Book I, Self-Knowledge, is for elementary school students; Book II, Self-Direction, is for older students. Formation of Character: Includes case studies of children (and adults) who cured themselves of bad habits; reflections on subjects including both schooling and vacations (or "stay-cations" as we now call them); various aspects of home schooling, with a special section detailing the things that Charlotte Mason thought were important to teach to girls in particular; and examples of how education affected outcome of character in famous writers of her day. Towards a Philosophy of Education: Charlotte Mason's final book, written after years of seeing her approach in action. This volume gives the best overview of her philosophy, and includes the final version of her 20 Principles. This book is particularly directed to parents of older children, about ages 12 and up, but is a valuable overview for parents of younger children as well, covering both theory and practice.

Distance learning is becoming an increasingly popular way of studying, and most universities now provide courses using these methods. Today's students, though, are demanding high quality, consumer-focused and flexible courses and learning resources and active learner support. This means that providers of distance education need to reconsider key issues about their learner support systems, ensuring that this is delivered appropriately and effectively.
This book considers the changing needs and demands of distance education students. It draws together contributions from the UK, USA, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, South Africa and Botswana, to offer an international perspective on:
*The challenges and opportunities of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
*Quality assurance, commercialisation and the learner as consumer
*The impact on learners of cultural differences on internationalised curricula
*The implications for learner support of a wider range of learners
This book should be read by all those involved in developing and delivering distance education courses.

The major shift going on today in the technologies of reading and writing raises important questions about conventional conceptions of literacy and its role in education, society, and culture. What are the important characteristics of electronic forms of reading and writing distinguishing them from printed forms? To what extent and in what ways is literacy being transformed by new technologies? This central question is addressed in this volume from diverse, multidisciplinary perspectives. The contributing authors focus on a guiding question in one of the following areas, which correspond to the major sections of the book: *Transforming Texts. What are the new differences between printed and electronic texts, and what are the implications of new textual forms for defining literacy, especially in regard to teaching and learning in schools? *Transforming Readers and Writers. How do electronic reading and writing change conceptualizations of literacy development from childhood through adulthood? *Transforming Classrooms and Schools. What are the effects of introducing new reading and writing technologies into schools and classrooms? *Transforming Instruction. How can instruction be adapted in response to the changing literacy landscape, and how can teachers and students exploit forms of reading and writing to enhance teaching and learning? *Transforming Society. What are the broad societal implications of the increasing prevalence of electronic forms of reading and writing? *Transforming Literacy Research. What are the questions that must be addressed as digital reading and writing become more common, and what approaches to research will be most useful in addressing those questions? This volume is the result of an interactive process. The contributors met as a group to discuss drafts of their chapters at a one-day meeting convened and sponsored by the National Reading Research Center, and had read each others' chapters prior to this gathering. That meeting was followed by a two-day conference attended by approximately 180 researchers, educators, and policymakers who responded to an open invitation to present papers and to attend sessions focusing on the six major themes of the book. Contributors then revised their chapters based on interactions with fellow contributors, conference participants, and volume editors. Thus, this work is more than just a compilation of the individual authors' views. Rather, it represents a synthesis of a broad range of current thinking about how literacy is being and may be transformed by technology.

Published in Association with the Online Learning Consortium E-learning has entered the mainstream of higher education as an agent of strategic change. This transformation requires e-learning leaders to develop the skills to innovate successfully at a time of heightened competition and rapid technological change. In this environment e-learning leaders must act within their institutions as much more than technology managers and assume the prime role of helping their institutions understand the opportunities that e-learning presents for faculty, for students, and for client organizations in the community. They need to prepare to participate in policy development around these opportunities. They must understand the multiple dimensions of practice in the field-operations, administration, and working within the complex culture of a higher education institution-while also functioning as scholars of the field who can bring the best ideas from other institutions to help shape policy around e-learning. The second edition builds on the success of the first edition and presents both the collective expertise of veterans who have pioneered the field for 20 years, and of a rising generation of e-learning leaders that are transforming online programs at their own institutions, to address these challenges. This edition has been updated and expanded to reflect the increasing complexity of the field. New and updated topics include: The evolving role of the chief online learning officer Issues of diversity as more women and minorities enter leadership roles in the field The increasing role of learning analytics and data-based decisions The potential tensions involved in cohort-based versus individualized instruction. The increasing need for faculty professional development The affordances of cloud computing, adaptive learning, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and mobile learning to the field The open educational resources movement and the implications for institutional policy and practice The challenges of an increasingly complex competitive environment Accessibility There are few comparable positions in higher education than that of e-learning leaders who work across multiple academic and support units and whose work fundamentally affects the institution as a whole. This volume is written for them.

Essentials for Blended Learning provides a practical, streamlined approach for creating effective learning experiences by blending online activities and the best of face-to-face teaching. Effective blended learning requires rethinking of teaching practices and a redesign of course structure. Suitable for instructors in any content area, this book simplifies these difficult challenges without neglecting important opportunities to transform teaching. The revised second edition is more streamlined and easier to use, and includes more real-world examples of blended teaching and learning, the latest technologies, and additional research-based learning activities.

The 60-Year Curriculum explores models and strategies for lifelong learning in an era of profound economic disruption and reinvention. Over the next half-century, globalization, regional threats to sustainability, climate change, and technologies such as artificial intelligence and data mining will transform our education and workforce sectors. In turn, higher education must shift to offer every student life-wide opportunities for the continuous upskilling they will need to achieve decades of worthwhile employability. This cutting-edge book describes the evolution of new models-covering computer science, inclusive design, critical thinking, civics, and more-by which universities can increase learners' trajectories across multiple careers from mid-adolescence to retirement. Stakeholders in workforce development, curriculum and instructional design, lifelong learning, and higher and continuing education will find a unique synthesis offering valuable insights and actionable next steps.

Introduces the Multiple Resource Learning Framework, which explicitly links the learner characteristics and processes jointly involved in learning from both multiple representations and multiple perspectives, the contexts, tasks and resources that shape such learning, and the constructions that are developed as a result. Addresses the factors and mechanisms associated with learning from multiple representations and from multiple perspectives. Covers the characteristics and skills that learners need to be successful at each pursuit and the challenges and opportunities that they may encounter.

How to Be a Successful Student is a clear, concise, evidence-based guide to the habits that are scientifically proven to help people learn. Acclaimed educational psychologist Richard Mayer distils cutting edge research to focus on the 20 best study habits for college students, including habits for motivating yourself to learn, managing your learning environment, and effectively applying learning strategies. This accessible, practical book covers all three areas with evidence-based, approachable suggestions to help you become a successful student by developing effective study habits and rejecting ineffective ones.

Universities across the globe are attempting to change assessment practices to address challenges in student engagement and achievement and to respond to a global employability agenda demanding evidence of a broader range of skills and competencies. In the UK this has acquired urgency given the shift of higher education over the last 20 years from the prerogative of an elite minority to mass participation in a highly diversified market system. Integral to this interrogation of objectives for assessment is the identified need to develop and improve academics' assessment practice. Strategies frequently focus on attendance at formal Continuous Professional Development events and/or implementation of institutional blueprints. This book showcases how scholarship as part of academics' practice can be part of an academic toolkit for change that expands awareness and knowledge of the purposes and effects of the pedagogy of assessment. The case studies - ranging from assessment in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), to assessment design for students whose first language is not English, to the effectiveness of peer learning to support academic integrity and programme-level assessment strategies - are framed by an introduction that explores a 'communities of practice' approach to the institution-wide improvement of assessment. It argues - through a case study from The Open University (OU) - that academics' professional expertise is best deepened through participation in authentic activities of teaching and scholarship. The discussion identifies what is involved in such an approach including the role of an enabling principles-based framework, the constraints on implementation, and the implications for leaders of teaching and learning. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Open Learning journal.

With contributions from some of the world's leading practitioners in the field, this volume draws together contemporary experience in the application of technology to distributed learning. It offers an appraisal of the strategies and processes for managing change in open and distance learning and presents a progressive vision for all those involved in this widespread discipline. It can be used as a guide for those implementing Web-based learning.

This new addition to the respected Open and Distance Learning Series is an up-to-the-minute guide for educators wanting to come to terms with their support role in open and distance learning. Covering all aspects of student support from tuition and counselling through to the broad range of delivery methods available, the book offers practical solutions that are set within a sound theoretical framework.

There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition was published and its influence has been wide and deep. The report summarized insights on the nature of learning in school-aged children; described principles for the design of effective learning environments; and provided examples of how that could be implemented in the classroom. Since then, researchers have continued to investigate the nature of learning and have generated new findings related to the neurological processes involved in learning, individual and cultural variability related to learning, and educational technologies. In addition to expanding scientific understanding of the mechanisms of learning and how the brain adapts throughout the lifespan, there have been important discoveries about influences on learning, particularly sociocultural factors and the structure of learning environments. How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures provides a much-needed update incorporating insights gained from this research over the past decade. The book expands on the foundation laid out in the 2000 report and takes an in-depth look at the constellation of influences that affect individual learning. How People Learn II will become an indispensable resource to understand learning throughout the lifespan for educators of students and adults. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 Introduction 2 Context and Culture 3 Types of Learning and the Developing Brain 4 Processes That Support Learning 5 Knowledge and Reasoning 6 Motivation to Learn 7 Implications for Learning in School 8 Digital Technology 9 Learning Across the Life Span 10 Research Agenda References Appendix A: History of the How People Learn Studies and Their Use Appendix B: List of Relevant Reports Published by the National Academies Press Appendix C: Study Populations in Research on Learning Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies

Online Education is a comprehensive exploration of blended and fully online teaching platforms, addressing history, theory, research, planning, and practice. As colleges, universities, and schools around the world adopt large-scale technologies and traditional class models shift into seamless, digitally interactive environments, critical insights are needed into the implications for administration and pedagogy. Written by a major contributor to the field, this book contextualizes online education in the past and present before analyzing its fundamental changes to instruction, program integration, social interaction, content construction, networked media, policy, and more. A provocative concluding chapter speculates on the future of education as the sector becomes increasingly dependent on learning technologies.

Best Practices in Designing Courses with Open Educational Resources is a practical guide that assists faculty and institutions looking to adopt and implement open educational resources (OER) and to foster meaningful, effective learning experiences through the course design process. Chapters loaded with tips, case examples, and guidance from practitioners advise readers through each step necessary for sustainable OER initiatives, from preliminary planning and course redesign through teaching, learning, and faculty development. Written by two authors with direct experience in training higher education professionals to use OER, this is a comprehensive resource for faculty, instructional designers, course developers, librarians, information technologists, and administrators hoping to rethink and refresh their curricula by moving beyond traditional textbooks. An authors' website expands the book with resources, templates, and examples of implementation models, including faculty development workshop OER materials that can be adopted by readers.

With e-learning technologies evolving and expanding at high rates, organizations and institutions around the world are integrating massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other open educational resources (OERs). MOOCs and Open Education in the Global South explores the initiatives that are leveraging these flexible systems to educate, train, and empower populations previously denied access to such opportunities. Featuring contributors leading efforts in rapidly changing nations and regions, this wide-ranging collection grapples with accreditation, credentialing, quality standards, innovative assessment, learner motivation and attrition, and numerous other issues. The provocative narratives curated in this volume demonstrate how MOOCs and OER can be effectively designed and implemented in vastly different ways in particular settings, as detailed by experts from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific/Oceania, and the Caribbean. This comprehensive text is an essential resource for policy makers, instructional designers, practitioners, administrators, and other MOOC and OER community stakeholders.