Will Stewart's List: e-Learning

Neelu Sinha, Laila Khreisat, and Kiron Sharma describe how learner-interface interaction promotes active learning in computer science education. In a pilot study using technology that combines DyKnow software with a hardware platform of pen-enabled HP Tablet notebook computers, Sinha, Khreisat, and Sharma created dynamic learning environments by integrating classroom and computing environments. Results of the pilot study indicate that the learner-interface interaction provided by this versatile learning environment, which is based on a hands-on approach with real-time feedback, has enabled active learning for face-to-face computer science courses from introductory to advanced levels. These new technologies facilitate the creation of a nonthreatening, flexible, and challenging learning environment with a focus on practical applications, potentially narrowing the perceived gap between theory and practice in computer science education and aiding in student and teacher recruitment and retention.

Before an audience of his peers at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference in October 2008, Barron Koralesky, the associate director of Information Technology Services at Macalester College, began to define a problem. As he noted: "[It] wakes me up at night and gets me in to work in the morning." His problem? Encouraging faculty adoption and innovation in teaching and learning with information technology.

After months of spirited discussion, the EDUCAUSE community has identified their top five challenges in teaching and learning with technology.

1. Creating learning environments that promote active learning, critical thinking, collaborative learning, and knowledge creation.
2. Developing 21st century literacies (information, digital, and visual) among students and faculty.
3. Reaching and engaging today's learner.
4. Encouraging faculty adoption and innovation in teaching and learning with IT.
5. Advancing innovation in teaching and learning with technology in an era of budget cuts.

The aim of this module is to enable participants to further their professional development as educators by undertaking self-evaluation against frameworks and models attempting to describe effective teaching, gaining insights into the processes which support the development of teaching expertise, focusing on their own priorities (derived from self-evaluation) and on key contexts for practice (particular clinical settings, interprofessional education).

Empire State College was founded in 1971 to meet the needs of adult and other nontraditional student populations in the state of New York. Its initial delivery model was individualized instruction with a student working with a full-time faculty member to develop a unique plan of study and learning contracts to support that plan. By 1979, the College established the Center for Distance Learning, which developed and still offers structured, print-based courses to students with no requirement for on-site meetings. It began to experiment with computer-supported learning activities in the late 1980s, employing professional staff to support the exploration of technology and to provide assistance to faculty in instructional design. However, it was not until 1994, with the formal creation of the Center for Learning and Technology, that the development of online courses and programs was systematically pursued. This article outlines the development of online programs since that time, emphasizing the issues and challenges faced by the institution in seeking to provide quality, cost-effective distance education.

ABSTRACT: The paper presents a case study of the educational exploitation of group blogging for the implementation of a “learning by design” activity. More specifically, a group of students used a blog as a communication and information management tool in the University course of ICT-enhanced Geometry learning activities. The analysis of the designed learning activities, the blog content and log files, as well as the points of view of the students (via a questionnaire and a group interview) expressed upon completion of the activity gives significant findings supporting the researchers’ initial hypotheses about the potential of blogs’ educational applications. Blogs combined with a proper pedagogical approach such as ‘learning by design’ enable teachers to offer high quality learning experiences to their students.