Home Education consists of six lectures by Charlotte Mason about the raising and educating of young children (up to the age of nine), for parents and teachers. She encourages us to spend a lot of time outdoors, immersed in nature and handling natural objects and collecting experiences on which to base the rest of their education. She discusses the use of training in good habits such as attention, thinking, imagining, remembering, performing tasks with perfect execution, obedience, and truthfulness, to replace undesirable tendencies in children (and the adults that they grow into). 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. 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.

A volume in Teaching<~> Learning Indigenous, Intercultural Worldviews: International Perspectives on Social Justice and Human Rights Series Editor: Tonya Huber-Warring, St. Cloud State University, Minnesota The hybridity and dynamism of today's interconnected, interdependent and culturally diverse world pose challenges and opportunities for learning and communication. This book introduces an approach to facilitate global learning opportunities while facing these challenges. The approach is based on the cage painting metaphor for dialogic coconstruction of meaning and understanding of multiple perspectives. Resolving disorienting dilemmas or preconceptions requires a dialectic flow of thinking since the root of the problem may be situated deep within a person's beliefs and values. Such experiences might be transformative in their nature, involving: a change in the person's perspective; better understanding the culture of themselves and other people; reflection and bodymindful inquiry into one's worldview- third place learning. Misunderstandings are more prevalent when using technology-global reach-between people from distant locations or different cultures.To prepare people for these challenges, the authors offer a Web 2. 0-based instructional design blueprint. Depending on the context and content of the planned activities, the cage painting and global learning processes may be facilitated simultaneously or sequentially. The approach to improving intercultural/global communication and collaboration presented in this book has attracted the interest of educators in different disciplines as well as human resource leaders. This approach emerged from six years of studying ways in which authors and their colleagues from 25 different countries integrated global learning into classrooms in a range of discipline areas. In this book the authors explore the competences needed to communicate interculturally and to avoid the effects of preconceptions on communication and collaboration.

Instructional quality can make or break the learning experience, especially in digital environments where the expressional nuances of interpersonal communication are lost. The most effective distance education instructors and experts are those who recognize the educational needs of students and are able to address those needs through creative use of the technological tools available to them. Identification, Evaluation, and Perceptions of Distance Education Experts explores the current and future trends, needs, and priorities that affect the development of distance education in a postmodern world. This premier reference work will be of significance to those interested in online learning, teaching and training, communication, and education across multiple sectors such as universities, colleges, schools, profit/non-profit e-organizations, and e-commerce.

"Towards Learning and instruction in Web 3.0," which includes selected expanded papers from CELDA (Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age) 2010 (http: //www.celda-conf.org/) addresses the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes, innovative pedagogies, and technology-based educational applications in the digital age. The convergence of these two disciplines continues to increase and in turn, affects the academic and professional spheres in numerous ways. "Towards Learning and Instruction in Web 3.0 "addresses paradigms such as just-in-time learning, constructivism, student-centered learning and collaborative approaches which have emerged and are being supported by technological advancements such as simulations, virtual reality and multi-agents systems. This volume touches on both technological as well as psychological and pedagogical issues related to the developments of Web 3.0.

This book presents various video processing methodologies that are useful for distance education. The motivation is to devise new multimedia technologies that are suitable for better representation of instructional videos by exploiting the temporal redundancies present in the original video. This solves many of the issues related to the memory and bandwidth limitation of lecture videos. The various methods described in the book focus on a key-frame based approach which is used to time shrink, repackage and retarget instructional videos. All the methods need a preprocessing step of shot detection and recognition, which is separately given as a chapter. We find those frames which are well-written and distinct as key-frames. A super-resolution based image enhancement scheme is suggested for refining the key-frames for better legibility. These key-frames, along with the audio and a meta-data for the mutual linkage among various media components form a repackaged lecture video, which on a programmed playback, render an estimate of the original video but at a substantially compressed form. The book also presents a legibility retentive retargeting of this instructional media on mobile devices with limited display size. All these technologies contribute to the enhancement of the outreach of distance education programs. Distance education is now a big business with an annual turnover of over 10-12 billion dollars. We expect this to increase rapidly. Use of the proposed technology will help deliver educational videos to those who are less endowed in terms of network bandwidth availability and to those everywhere who are even on a move by delivering it effectively to mobile handsets (including PDAs). Thus, technology developers, practitioners, and content providers will find the material very useful.

This volume provides foreign language educators and classroom researchers with an introduction to online intercultural exchange, the activity of engaging foreign language learners in collaborative project work with partners from other cultures through the use of online communication tools such as email, discussion boards and videoconferencing. The authors use their extensive experience in both the practice and research of online exchange to present a clear overview of the pedagogical theory behind online exchange and its contribution to different aspects of foreign language learning, including communicative competence, intercultural awareness and learner autonomy. The chapters look at different ways of organising such projects, such as the Tandem and Cultura models, and also provide clear discussions on practical aspects of the area including task design, the choice of communication tools and the role of the teacher.

In recent decades, community colleges and universities have struggled with less funding, increased competition, and shrinking enrollment. Borderless online degrees offer opportunities to make higher education more accessible and to make foreign study without having to travel abroad an option. Lower cost, high retention, and reduced time to graduate are all key selling points for these degrees. Global Demand for Borderless Online Degrees is an essential research publication that provides the benefits, risks, and solutions for entering the borderless online degree market and discusses novel online approaches that are cost-effective for higher education institutions and affordable for customers at home and abroad. This book describes innovative pedagogy in fused learning classrooms that builds relationship and promotes retention and student satisfaction. Featuring a wide range of topics such as community college, accreditation, and international education, this book is ideal for university presidents, provosts, rectors, chancellors, international educators, administrators, academicians, policymakers, researchers, and students.

Assessing the Value of E-Learning Systems provides an extensive literature review pulling theories from the field of information systems, psychology and cognitive sciences, distance and online learning, as well as marketing and decision sciences. This book provides empirical evidence for the power of measuring value in the context of e-learning systems. ""Assessing the Value of E-Learning Systems"" offers a set of benchmarking tools, such as the Value-Satisfaction grids and LeVIS index, to help administrators of e-learning programs realize the key effective characteristics of their program. The book concludes with a ""cook book"" guidelines approach on how to implement the proposed theory and tools in the reader's own e-learning program.

The application of technology in classroom settings has equipped educators with innovative tools and techniques for effective teaching practice. Integrating digital technologies at the elementary and secondary levels helps to enrich the students' learning experience and maximize competency in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Improving K-12 STEM Education Outcomes through Technological Integration focuses on current research surrounding the effectiveness, performance, and benefits of incorporating various technological tools within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classrooms. Focusing on evidence-based approaches and current educational innovations, this book is an essential reference source for teachers, teacher educators, and professionals interested in how emerging technologies are benefiting teaching and/or learning efficacy.

Unlike most books regarding online education, this book is not about teaching; it is about effectively administering an online education program. Throughout the text, we provide case studies, examples, policies, and resources from actual institutions, which further enhance the value of this text. This book encompasses the issues and provides information on how to accomplish one specific task: successful online educational administration.

This volume addresses challenges that the field of English language teacher education has faced in the past several years. The global pandemic has caused extreme stress and has also served as a catalyst for new ways of teaching, learning, and leading. Educators have relied on their creativity and resiliency to identify new and innovative teaching practices and insights that inform the profession going forward. Contributors describe how teacher educators have responded to the specific needs and difficulties of educating teachers and teaching second language learners in challenging circumstances around the world and how these innovations can transform education going forward into the future. Paving the way to a revitalized profession, this book is essential reading for the current and future generations of TESOL scholars, graduate students, and professors.

In recent years, the use of information technologies, mobile devices, and social media, along with the evolving needs of students, professionals, and academics, has grown rapidly. New ways of bringing learning content to students, new learning environments, and new teaching practices are necessary to keep up with these changes. Assessing the Role of Mobile Technologies and Distance Learning in Higher Education provides a comprehensive understanding of m-learning processes by discussing challenges in higher education and the role of information technologies for effective learning. This reference book offers both real experiences and theoretical input for academicians, professionals, students, practitioners, policymakers, and managers.

Online Learning, Instruction, and Research in Post-Pandemic Higher Education in Africa, edited by Martin Munyao, brings together interdisciplinary authors to address online learning, teaching online, educational technology, online/remote research, institutional collaboration in online higher education, and teaching STEM online. This book argues that beyond survival, universities need to adapt to technology-mediated communication learning to thrive. Disruptive technologies have recently proved to be means of thriving for institutions of higher learning. This is what one contributor calls 'switching to SIDE-mode.' They call for not just teaching for the sake of it, but teaching to communicate and to achieve the desired learning outcomes that seek to transform the whole person. Effective technology mediated teaching for communication does exactly that. Because universities are also research hubs, this book also addresses remote research. It reflects on how change in teaching and learning in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) has impacted Africa through digital transformation. In particular, institutions are collaborating more now than ever before. Finally, this book addresses the challenges of teaching STEM programs online in Africa.

Virtual worlds offer engaging, rich visual and auditory experiences to their users. In them, players guide computer-based avatars through virtual landscapes filled with realistic buildings, objects, characters, and the avatars of other players. In the commercial realm, games and online virtual communities attract millions of devoted fans who spend large amounts of time and money in these worlds. In recent years, interest in virtual worlds as platforms for instruction and training has rapidly grown as researchers and designers focus on their potential power as learning environments. Educational virtual worlds are designed to incorporate situated learning concepts of collaborative knowledge building among communities of learners in contexts that closely mimic the real world.

In this, the first text written specifically on how to design virtual worlds for educational purposes, the authors explore: the history and evolution of virtual worlds (commercial and educational), the theories behind the use of virtual worlds for learning, the design of curricula in virtual worlds, design guidelines for elements experienced in virtual worlds that support learning, and design guidelines for learning quests and activities in virtual worlds. They also examine the theories and associated design principles used to create embedded assessments in virtual worlds. Finally, they offer a framework and methodology to assist professionals in evaluating off-the-shelf virtual worlds for use in educational and training settings.

Networked learning is learning in which information and communications technology (ICT) is used to promote connections: between one learner and other learners; between learners and tutors; between a learning community and its learning resources. Networked learning is an area which has great practical and theoretical importance. It is a rapidly growing area of educational practice, particularly in higher education and the corporate sector.

This volume brings together some of the best research in the field, and uses it to signpost some directions for future work. The papers in this collection represent a major contribution to our collective sense of recent progress in research on networked learning. In addition, they serve to highlight some of the largest or most important gaps in our understanding of studentsa (TM) perspectives on networked learning, patterns of interaction and online discourse, and the role of contextual factors. The range of topics and methods addressed in these papers attests to the vitality of this important field of work. More significant yet is the complex understanding of the field that they combine to create. In combination, they help explain some of the key relationships between teachersa (TM) and learnersa (TM) intentions and experiences, the affordances of text-based communications technologies and processes of informed and intelligent educational change.

This reissue, first published in 1980, is based on the experiences of the International Extension College in developing distance teaching. The volume begins by reviewing the world problems of educational quality and quantity, and then examines the ways in which print, broadcasts and group study have been used to train teachers, to improve classroom education, to teach by correspondence out of school, and to support rural development. It then considers how that experience can be used, perhaps by creating a network of radio colleges, to supplement and extend existing schools and colleges. Finally, the book includes a descriptive and annotated bibliography of over 100 distance teaching projects in 65 third world countries.

This is a volume in ""Perspectives in Instructional Technology and Distance Education Series"". Editors: Charles Schlosser and Michael Simonson of Nova Southeastern University. ""The Perfect Online Course: Best Practices for Designing and Teaching"" was edited under the assumption that a perfect online course can be delivered following different instructional methods and models for design and for instruction, and by implementing different teaching or instructional strategies. Such methods, models, and strategies are framed within quality educational guidelines and must be aimed towards attaining the online course's learning goals. The book seeks to make a contribution to the existing body of literature related to best practices and guidelines for designing and teaching distance courses, specifically online education. The process of selecting works suitable for this compilation included an extensive review of the journals ""Quarterly Review of Distance Education"" and ""Distance Learning"". The book begins by covering literature related to general approaches and guidelines, continues with proposed methods and models for designing and instruction, and ends with instructional strategies to achieve engagement through interaction. The book is divided into four independent, yet interrelated, parts and a concluding section: Part I: Introduction; Part II: Best Guidelines and Standards; Part III: Best Instructional Methods and Models; Part IV: Best Engagement Strategies; and the concluding section, And Finally..., with words from Simonson who delineates the structure of a perfect online course.

This edited collection, the first of its kind, marries the two fastest-growing movements in higher education: service-learning and eLearning. While these two innovative pedagogies are widely assumed to be incompatible, this collection highlights their complementary approaches as a new teaching method for 21st Century learners. The collection offers a new pedagogical model-service-eLearning-defined as an integrative pedagogy that engages learners through technology in civic inquiry, service, reflection, and action. Service-learning, which focuses on involvement with local needs and reflective thinking, appears to contrast with eLearning, that implies autonomous education through technology. The goal of this edited collection is to consider how these two educational innovations have and can combine to further encourage civic engagement while meeting the demands of an increasingly global, competitive, and diverse educational marketplace. This edited collection, defines and addresses the emergent blending of service-learning and eLearning to create a new integrated pedagogical model: service-eLearning.Service-eLearning: Educating for Citizenship starts a conversation about the marriage of two powerful educational innovations. While readers of this collection may be familiar with existing work on servicelearning and technology use, this book demonstrates the potential of a new model which acknowledges eLearning as a pedagogy within its own right. The new model presented here blends eLearning pedagogy with existing approaches to service-learning. The result is an integrated pedagogical approach: Service-eLearning. As the work presented herein highlights, service-eLearning responds to the challenges of today's rapidly-changing, technology-mediated reality.

From Laura Alvarez, one of the authors of Supporting Newcomer Students, a guide on how to continue to support multilingual students' language development and rigorous learning in a remote environment. In this QRG in the new set of Strategies for Distance Learning Guides, Alvarez provides questions to guide instructional planning and key teaching moves for English learners, within a framework of 4 principles for distance learning: Facilitate meaningful interactions Build relationships Use technology purposefully Hold an inquiry stance With extensive tips for how to maintain these goals in both synchronous and asynchronous learning activities, this guide will be a go-to resource for teachers of newcomers and English learners. Each 8.5" x 11" multi-panel guide is laminated for extra durability and 3-hole-punched for binder storage.