Introduction to Problem-based Learning teaches students how to work with the problem-based learning method, which requires mainly self-directed learning. Particular attention is given to the necessary skills to apply this method effectively. Why Introduction to Problem-based Llearning? * comprehensible introduction in the problem-based learning method * enables students to experience the full potential of this concept * discusses the use of digital devices Introduction to Problem-based learning provides students with the necessary skills to operate within as well as outside problem-based groups. It discusses issues like: How do you take on a problem? How do you collaborate with others? How do you deal with cultural diversity? How do you lead a tutorial group? How can you organize your studies best? Special attention is given to the use of computers, tablets and internet in a problem-based environment.

As more postsecondary faculty become engaged in designing online learning environments, research conducted on distance education program quality becomes increasingly important. Measurements in Distance Education is a concise, well-organized guide to some of the many instruments, scales, and methods that have been created to assess distance education environments, learners, and teachers. Entries are organized according to the qualities these measures attempt to gauge-such as engagement and information retention-and provide summaries of each instrument, usage information, the history of its development, and validation, including any reported psychometric properties. Offering more than 50 different surveys, tests, and other metrics, this book is an essential reference for anyone interested in understanding distance education assessment.

Blended learning provides the flexibility to accommodate the varied requirements of pedagogies, disciplines and levels of course, together with the needs of a wide variety of learners. However, anyone concerned with the integration of online tutoring to support students appropriately may need to reassess current practice. This book adopts a pragmatic and common-sense approach to blended learning by situating the use of online media within a well-grounded teaching and learning strategy. It provides practical ideas for the successful implementation of blended strategies, including good practice in both asynchronous and synchronous tutoring, appropriate assessment design for developing successful blended learners, and innovative approaches to professional development for distance tutors. It is illustrated with a wide variety of examples and comments from students and practitioners in both distance and campus-based environments in 13 different countries. Since the first edition was published in 2006, there has been great interest in Web 2.0 technologies and their potential for use in an educational environment. This second edition has therefore incorporated many new examples of good practice, making use of a combination of tried and tested tools as well as blogs and wikis for supporting students. There has also been a recent rise in the use of activity-based learning and interest in its potential for supporting students in distance and online environments. The new edition incorporates many new exemplars of learning activity design in Part Three, to illustrate approaches to the development of critical, independent learners.

Learning Theory and Online Technologies offers a powerful overview of the current state of online learning, the foundations of its historical roots and growth, and a framework for distinguishing between the major approaches to online learning. It addresses pedagogy (how to design an effective online environment for learning), evaluation (how to know that students are learning), and history (how past research can guide successful online teaching and learning outcomes).

An ideal textbook for undergraduate Education and Communication programs as well as Educational Technology Masters, Ph.D., and Certificate programs, Learning Theory and Online Technologies provides a synthesis of the key advances in online education learning theory and the key frameworks of research, and clearly links theory and research to successful learning practice. This revised second edition updates data on digital media adoption globally, adds a new chapter on connectivism as a learning theory, and updates the chapter on online collaborative learning, renaming the theory as collaborativism and considering the challenges that arise with the growth of artificial intelligence.

Table of Contents

Introduction to Learning Theory and Technology

Historical Overview of Learning and Technology

Behaviorist Learning Theory

Cognitivist Learning Theory

Constructivist Learning Theory

Connectivism as an Online Learning Theory

Collaborativist (aka Online Collaborative Learning) Theory

Collaborativist (aka Online Collaborative Learning or OCL) Pedagogies in Practice

Collaborativist Scenarios: Online Communities of Practice

Conclusions: In Retrospect and In Prospect

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated growth in online education across the world. While the online classroom experience has been written about extensively, the outside of class experience and student services for those learning remotely has received little attention. This book provides College and university personnel with research, theoretical foundations, and best practice to support and engage online learners. In this edited collection, authors from across the globe present case studies in various contexts including a large state university system, a growing public master's degree, two private institutions, and a Scottish institution. Various theoretical constructs are provided to help inform practices for supporting online students including Wenger's 'communities of practice', Garrison's 'communities of inquiry', and the Dynamic Student Development Metatheodel. Understanding that all students encounter different challenges, the volume also covers the different needs of specific student populations throughout their online experiences and concludes with a discussion about the importance of inclusion for students with disabilities.

In April 2003, The Association for Learning Technology (ALT) celebrated its tenth anniversary and this book has been produced in order to commemorate this landmark achievement. It represents a collaboration between key members of ALT and members of ALTs' sister organisations: SURF in Holland and ASCILITE in Australia. The aims of the book are to use the topic of "institutional implementation" to present a review of the impact of learning technology on tertiary education over the past few years; and to highlight and discuss key changes and developments that are shaping present and future activities and consider the implications for individual enthusiasts who work in the field of learning technology. The book outlines the context in which individual enthusiasts have operated and institutional implementation has occurred over the last ten years. Four key themes are highlighted throughout the book: * the individual enthusiast and their role in institutional implementation; * the institutional enthusiast and their role in local and global e-learning initiatives; * finding the evidence to justify enthusiasm and underpin implementation; * reinventing the individual enthusiast.

What if the most powerful education our students ever receive occurs when they study off-campus? This book takes as its premise that the powerful potential to de-center and dislocate students' preconceptions that off-campus study can stimulate and the urgent need for students to gain a broad understanding of the interconnectedness of our world, requires us to question and rethink how we deliver undergraduate education. The authors ask whether we should strive to make this experience available to all our students - as a necessity rather than as a supplement or interlude -- using it to fuel their education and inspire their careers. They make the case that effective off-campus study (whether study abroad or study away) begins and ends on the home campus, requiring its integration into the curriculum, entwining on-campus and off-campus experiences, and making them mutually reinforcing. They offer evidence that off-campus study, when properly designed and implemented, can have a multiplier effect on learning, particularly when combined with other high-impact practices; asserting it can provide access to complex cultural and scientific problems in their natural context, adding practical and experiential components to classroom learning, and serve as a springboard for more advanced study and research when students return to their home campus. This book proposes that faculty or departments go beyond the generally episodic ways that currently link on-campus curricula to off-campus experience. It aims to speak, beyond specialists in international or intercultural education, to faculty, deans and provosts who may have little direct experience of study abroad, and feel unprepared to address an issue that is assuming a growing importance as disciplines and institutions address the complexities of our rapidly changing world. The goal of this book is to fuel such conversations.

What if the most powerful education our students ever receive occurs when they study off-campus? This book takes as its premise that the powerful potential to de-center and dislocate students' preconceptions that off-campus study can stimulate and the urgent need for students to gain a broad understanding of the interconnectedness of our world, requires us to question and rethink how we deliver undergraduate education. The authors ask whether we should strive to make this experience available to all our students - as a necessity rather than as a supplement or interlude -- using it to fuel their education and inspire their careers. They make the case that effective off-campus study (whether study abroad or study away) begins and ends on the home campus, requiring its integration into the curriculum, entwining on-campus and off-campus experiences, and making them mutually reinforcing. They offer evidence that off-campus study, when properly designed and implemented, can have a multiplier effect on learning, particularly when combined with other high-impact practices; asserting it can provide access to complex cultural and scientific problems in their natural context, adding practical and experiential components to classroom learning, and serve as a springboard for more advanced study and research when students return to their home campus. This book proposes that faculty or departments go beyond the generally episodic ways that currently link on-campus curricula to off-campus experience. It aims to speak, beyond specialists in international or intercultural education, to faculty, deans and provosts who may have little direct experience of study abroad, and feel unprepared to address an issue that is assuming a growing importance as disciplines and institutions address the complexities of our rapidly changing world. The goal of this book is to fuel such conversations.

Students who know how to collaborate successfully in the classroom will be better prepared for professional success in a world where we are expected to work well with others. Students learn collaboratively, and acquire the skills needed to organize and complete collaborative work, when they participate in thoughtfully-designed learning activities. Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn uses the author's Taxonomy of Online Collaboration to illustrate levels of progressively more complex and integrated collaborative activities. Section I introduces the Taxonomy of Online Collaboration and offers theoretical and research foundations. Section II focuses on ways to use Taxonomy of Online Collaboration, including, clarifying roles and developing trust, communicating effectively, organizing project tasks and systems. Section III offers ways to design collaborative learning activities, assignments or projects, and ways to fairly assess participants' performance. Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn is a professional guide intended for faculty, curriculum planners, or instructional designers who want to design, teach, facilitate, and assess collaborative learning. The book covers the use of information and communication technology tools by collaborative partners who may or may not be co-located. As such, the book will be appropriate for all-online, blended learning, or conventional classrooms that infuse technology with "flipped" instructional techniques.

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.

New to the Revised Edition, this Student Book contains all the text your child will need for the lessons in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, Revised Edition. Created and designed based on feedback from parents and teachers over the past 20 years, the Student Book allows children to focus only on the material they are using, without being distracted by additional text in the Instructor Book. From "a" to "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," these pages are the doorway to a whole lifetime of reading.

Challenging the current understandings of equity and social justice in the field of online education, The Hidden Curriculum of Online Learning analyses how cultural hegemony creates unfair learning experiences through cultural differences. It argues that such inequitable learning experiences are not random acts but rather represent the existing inequities in society at large through cultural reproduction. Based on an ethnographic work, the book discusses the concept of social absence (in relation to social presence) to discuss how individuals perform their identities within group contexts and to create awareness of social justice issues in online education. It draws upon critical pedagogy and cultural studies to show that while online learning spaces are frequently promoted by local or federal governments and higher education institutions as overwhelmingly inclusive and democratic, these premises do not operate with uniformity across all student cohorts. The Hidden Curriculum of Online Learning It will be of great interest to academics, post-graduate students, and researchers in the fields of digital learning and inclusion, education research, and cultural studies.

This book addresses the need to explore user interaction with online learning repositories and the detection of emergent communities of users. This is done through investigating and mining the Khan Academy repository; a free, open access, popular online learning repository addressing a wide content scope. It includes large numbers of different learning objects such as instructional videos, articles, and exercises. The authors conducted descriptive analysis to investigate the learning repository and its core features such as growth rate, popularity, and geographical distribution. The authors then analyzed this graph and explored the social network structure, studied two different community detection algorithms to identify the learning interactions communities emerged in Khan Academy then compared between their effectiveness. They then applied different SNA measures including modularity, density, clustering coefficients and different centrality measures to assess the users' behavior patterns and their presence. By applying community detection techniques and social network analysis, the authors managed to identify learning communities in Khan Academy's network. The size distribution of those communities found to follow the power-law distribution which is the case of many real-world networks. Despite the popularity of online learning repositories and their wide use, the structure of the emerged learning communities and their social networks remain largely unexplored. This book could be considered initial insights that may help researchers and educators in better understanding online learning repositories, the learning process inside those repositories, and learner behavior.

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.

In Going Online, one of our most respected online learning leaders offers insights into virtual education-what it is, how it works, where it came from, and where it may be headed. Robert Ubell reaches back to the days when distance learning was practiced by mail in correspondence schools and then leads us on a tour behind the screen, touching on a wide array of topics along the way, including what it takes to teach online and the virtual student experience. You'll learn about: how to build a sustainable online program; how to create an active learning online course; why so many faculty resist teaching online; how virtual teamwork enhances digital instruction; how to manage online course ownership; how learning analytics improves online instruction. Ubell says that it is not technology alone, but rather unconventional pedagogies, supported by technological innovations, that truly activate today's classrooms. He argues that innovations introduced online-principally peer-to-peer and collaborative learning-offer significantly increased creative learning options across all age groups and educational sectors. This impressive collection, drawn from Ubell's decades of experience as a digital education pioneer, presents a powerful case for embracing online learning for its transformational potential.

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.

Countries in the Arab Gulf are currently experiencing some of the fastest rates of growth and progress in the world. Transforming Education in the Gulf Region argues that education systems in these countries need to use innovative pedagogies and best practices in teaching and learning to educate all citizens so that they obtain the knowledge and skills to be productive members of society. This book will contribute to the transformation of education in the Gulf countries by suggesting best practices, research outcomes and case studies from experts in the Gulf region. It has become increasingly evident in recent years that Gulf countries need to use emerging learning technologies to cater for the needs of learners and to provide maximum flexibility in learning. There is also a growing practical need to use electronic technologies, since learning materials are more widely available in electronic formats than in paper-based formats. This book focuses on the role of emerging technologies and innovative pedagogies in transforming education in six Gulf countries in the region (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain). With contributions from experts around the world, the book argues that the time is right for Arab Gulf countries to make the transition to electronic learning and that they need to implement the outcomes of research and adopt best practices to transform and revolutionize education to prepare learners in the Gulf region for the 21st Century. The book should be of interest to academics and students in the areas of higher education, learning technologies, education policy and education reform. It should also be of interest to educators and policymakers in the Gulf region.

This book explores the state of open education in terms of self-directed learning on the African continent. Through a combination of conceptual, systematic literature review and empirical chapters, readers will get a research-based impression of these aspects in this area. Apart from presenting existing wider trends regarding open education, this book also reports on effective open practices in support of self-directed learning.

This book analyses higher education's digital transformation and potential disruption from a holistic point of view, providing a balanced and critical account from a variety of interdisciplinary viewpoints. It looks at case studies on educational and emerging technology, their impact, the potential risk of digitalization disrupting higher education, and also offers a glimpse into what the future of digitalization will likely bring. Researchers and practitioners from countries including New Zealand, Russia, Eswatini, India, and the USA, bring together their knowledge and understanding of this rapidly evolving field. The contributors analyse academia's digitalization along the broad topics of the sector's general digital (r)evolution. The book looks at changes in instructional formats from the Massive Open Online Courses to Small Private Online Courses and artificial intelligence. This work also provides analysis on how skills, competences and social networks demanded by future jobs and job markets can be further integrated into higher education.

This book analyses higher education's digital transformation and potential disruption from a holistic point of view, providing a balanced and critical account from a variety of interdisciplinary viewpoints. It looks at case studies on educational and emerging technology, their impact, the potential risk of digitalization disrupting higher education, and also offers a glimpse into what the future of digitalization will likely bring. Researchers and practitioners from countries including New Zealand, Russia, Eswatini, India, and the USA, bring together their knowledge and understanding of this rapidly evolving field. The contributors analyse academia's digitalization along the broad topics of the sector's general digital (r)evolution. The book looks at changes in instructional formats from the Massive Open Online Courses to Small Private Online Courses and artificial intelligence. This work also provides analysis on how skills, competences and social networks demanded by future jobs and job markets can be further integrated into higher education.

This open access book focuses on making the transition from in-person, classroom education to other feasible alternative modes and methodologies to deliver education at all levels. The book presents and analyzes research questions to explore in this arena, including pedagogical issues relating to technological and infrastructure challenges, teacher professional development, issues of disparity, access and equity, and impact of government policies on education. It also provides unique opportunities and vehicles for generating scholarship that helps explain the varied educational needs, perspectives and solutions that arise during an emergency and the different roles educational institutions and educators may play during this time. Developed from a highly successful Presidential Session at the annual meeting of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), this edited volume presents AECT and its membership as the premier organization focusing on the provision of educational communications and technology leadership. In addition, it functions as a contemporary document of this global crisis as well as a rich resource for possible future emergency scenarios in the educational arena.

An administrator who knows how to use technology effectively can increase productivity and connection. However, anyone who is not able to harness its power will struggle due to its prevalence. It has become a staple of school administration, from evaluations to communication. Gary and Dana's book Technologies to Lead Schools gets educational leaders started on the path of harnessing the power of technology to effectively impact schools.

Designing Adaptive and Personalized Learning Environments provides a theoretically-based yet practical guide to systematic design processes for learning environments that provide automatic customization of learning and instruction. The book consists of four main sections: In "Introduction and Overview," the concepts of adaptivity and personalization are introduced and explored in detail. In "Theoretical Perspectives with Example Applications," various theoretical concepts underlying adaptive and personalized learning are discussed, including cognitive profiling, content-based adaptivity, exploration-based adaptivity, and mobile and ubiquitous settings. In "Practical Perspectives with Example Applications," the implementation process for adaptive and personalized learning environments is described, followed by application in various contexts. In "Validation and Future Trends," various evaluation techniques for validating the efficiency and efficacy of adaptive and personalized learning systems are discussed. This final section concludes with a discussion of emerging trends in adaptive and personalized learning research. Based on cutting-edge research, Designing Adaptive and Personalized Learning Environments is appropriate as a primary textbook for both undergraduate and graduate courses focused on the design of learning systems, and as a secondary textbook for a variety of courses in programs such as educational technology, instructional design, learning sciences, digital literacy, computer based systems, and STEM content fields.