ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Quality of e-Learning: An Analysis Based on e-Learners' Perception of e-Learning
Author: Elango, Rengasamy
Date: 2008-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Quality,Electronic Learning,Student Attitudes,College Students,Higher Education,Foreign Countries,Educational Attitudes,Course Content,Educational Benefits,Hypothesis Testing,Questionnaires,Likert Scales,Statistical Analysis,Factor Analysis,Componential Analysis,Demography,Nonparametric Statistics,Compliance (Psychology),Gender Differences,Comparative Education,Statistical Significance,Holistic Approach

e-Learning, of late, has been witnessing an unprecedented expansion as an opportunity for higher education. This expanding alternative mode calls for ensuring and imparting a sound and qualitative education. The present study made an attempt to investigate the issues related to the quality dimensions of e-learning. Our results revealed the presence of both strengths and weaknesses in the e-learning system. It is interesting to note, that the e-learners have expressed diverse opinions with regard to administrative issues, instruction materials, instructors' support, viper sessions (VIPER, Voice Internet Protocol Extended Reach is a software which helps interactive learning through the Internet) , grading and assessment. The findings of the study further demonstrate that if the concept of e-learning is imparted with a better approach and perspective, the reach will be phenomenal. This study reiterates the relevance of imparting qualitative education through e-learning.
Implementing International Virtual Elementary Classroom Activities for Public School Students in the U.S. and Korea
Author: O'Neill, Eunhee Jung
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Virtual Classrooms,Students,Public Schools,Foreign Countries,Elementary School Students,Student Exchange Programs,International Educational Exchange,Cross Cultural Studies,Information Technology,Technology Integration,Technology Uses in Education,Cultural Awareness,Educational Technology,Integrated Learning Systems,Grade 5,Grade 6,Principals,Teachers,Pilot Projects,Interviews,Qualitative Research,Observation

In today's global society, individuals with an understanding of different cultures that have the ability to apply this understanding to real world problem solving are more likely to become leaders. Preparing students for a global society is becoming a significant part of education. While many international online exchange projects have been conducted at schools to help expose students to the world and experience international collaborations, few studies have focused on both developing intercultural competence for elementary school students and discovering practical ways of implementing a cross-cultural exchange program into the public elementary school systems as well. This study, International Virtual Elementary Classroom Activities (IVECA), planned to explore how American and Korean students can develop culturally meaningful interactions through asynchronous online communications in a content management system (CMS), Blackboard; and investigate the factors or strategies useful for integrating IVECA into public school curricula. Data were collected using observation and interview methods, and also included reviewing students' journals. The data analysis involved interpretive analytic induction. Findings indicated that IVECA (a) promotes students' intercultural competence; (b) developed their social interaction skills both in the regular classrooms and the virtual classroom; (c) facilitated diverse students' motivations for learning at school; (d) enhanced writing and reading skills; and (e) engaged learning disabled students in the classroom activities. Additional findings from this study indicate that (a) a systematic support system for teachers' technology use and instructional design is necessary, and (b) school administrators' positive perception toward cross-cultural exchange activities and their coherent connections between state learning standards and IVECA objectives are important. Further considerations are addressed and the different influences of IVECA on the U.S. students and Korean students and its implementation, which takes into consideration such influences, will also be discussed.
Initial Evaluation and Analysis of Post Graduate Trainees' Use of a Virtual Learning Environment in Initial Teacher Training
Author: Hramiak, Alison
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Virtual Classrooms,Case Studies,Teacher Education,Longitudinal Studies,Trainees,Information Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Cooperative Learning,Group Dynamics,Teaching Methods,Comparative Analysis,Models,Interviews,Synchronous Communication,Qualitative Research,Statistical Analysis,Surveys

This paper describes the initial findings of a longitudinal case study that investigates the use of a virtual learning environment to enhance the placement experience for full time postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) students. Geographically separated trainees can feel very isolated on placement. The purpose of the VLE was to try to alleviate this by offering a way for trainees to maintain contact and offer mutual support while on placement. A preliminary analysis of the results is used to offer some insight into how this type of support might be improved for future students, by the construction of minimum pedagogical framework for initial teacher training.
A Nurse Prescribing Programme Incorporating e-Learning
Author: Burgess, Joan
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Nurses,Nursing Education,Theory Practice Relationship,Blended Learning,Electronic Learning,Nursing Students,Virtual Classrooms,Internet,Web Based Instruction,Distance Education,Information Technology,Student Evaluation,Evaluation Methods,Program Evaluation,Questionnaires

In order to become a UK Nurse Prescriber, a First Level Registered Nurse must undergo an approved University based educational programme, which consists of theory, and a period of practice supervised by doctors. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) requires nurses undertaking this programme to have some formal university attendance and to be assessed in practice. Successful students are recorded on the national NMC register. Since October 2004, the University of Winchester has used blended learning incorporating e-learning for the delivery of the Nurse Prescribing Programme using online material developed by Emap Publishing in conjunction with the University of Stirling. This paper discusses the effectiveness of the programme and the evaluation of the initial six cohorts (&quot;127 students&quot;) who studied the Nurse Prescribing Programme undertaken by e-learning through the University of Winchester.
The Purpose of Focus Groups in Ascertaining Learner Satisfaction with a Virtual Learning Environment
Author: Tainsh, Yana I.
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Focus Groups,Student Attitudes,Satisfaction,Virtual Classrooms,College Students,Mixed Methods Research,Questionnaires,Likert Scales,Case Studies,Computer Literacy,Instructional Design,Cognitive Style,Learning Modalities

This paper examines the contribution of focus groups in evaluating learner satisfaction with a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It explores the views of a group of introductory level Post Compulsory Education learners that have a history of disaffection, impoverished learning and challenged written and communication skills. The outcome of this study will be used to inform future VLE material design for inclusion in a School policy document. Additionally, the findings will contribute to the development of both a broader range of discrete ICT programs delivered by a VLE and embedded ICT within a range of vocational qualifications across the Post Compulsory Education Vocational Curriculum.
Exploring Virtual Opportunities to Enhance and Promote an Emergent Community of Practice
Author: Courtney, Kathy
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Communities of Practice,Electronic Learning,Community Development,Virtual Classrooms,Synchronous Communication,Learning Activities,Web Sites,Foreign Countries,Higher Education,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Likert Scales,Questionnaires

This paper gives an account of an attempt by an educational developer to support and strengthen an emergent Community of Practice (CoP) (Wenger 1998a). This community consists of members of staff associated in different capacities with the Centre for Interprofessional e-Learning (CIPeL), a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), based at Coventry University and Sheffield Hallam University. The support is specifically targeting CIPeL Secondees who are recruited to CIPeL on a part-time basis, for the purpose of creating interprofessional Learning Objects (LOs). While Secondees receive individual support, there is little formal contact between Secondees. An online CIPeL Community site was created, in order to provide a space where CIPeL members could meet virtually and share problems and experiences relating to the construction of LOs. Initially, the key question appeared to be how online participation by members of the community could be encouraged. Using Wenger's (1998a) CoP theory of learning, and after exploring how the Community site was being used, the focus of attention shifts to an exploration of reified objects and the role they play in guiding practice, which in this case relates to the creation and use of interprofessional LOs. This in turns leads to the difficult question of how relevant reified objects may be identified and built, and it is advocated that existing CIPeL LOs should be exploited as reified objects for the purpose of guiding the construction of new LOs. It is felt that invoking constructs from Wenger's (1998a) CoP theory of learning has resulted in a more detailed picture of the nature of the challenges involved in moving from an emergent CoP to more established practice. The approach has simultaneously helped clarify how support for an emergent CoP might be more effectively focused. As a final point, it is suggested that it may be fruitful to explore parallels between CIPeL as an emergent CoP and interprofessional practice (IPP) itself, based on the view that IPP is also an emergent practice.
Agent-Based Collaborative Affective e-Learning Framework
Author: Neji, Mahmoud
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Electronic Learning,Cooperative Learning,Affective Behavior,Nonverbal Communication,Virtual Classrooms,Emotional Response,Programming Languages,Models,Computer Software

Based on facial expression (FE), this paper explores the possible use of the affective communication in virtual environments (VEs). The attention of affective communication is examined and some research ideas for developing affective communication in virtual environments are proposed. We place an emphasis on communication between virtual entities, which make use of other data apart from the information being communicated. In particular, we explore the capacity of VEs to communicate affective states, i.e. those aspects of communication concerned with emotional response, and discover how agents within VEs can model and use affective states to enhance the realism of the VEs. Moreover, we discuss the social intelligence that renders affective behaviours of software agents and its application to a collaborative learning system. We argue that socially appropriate affective behaviours would provide a new dimension for collaborative e-learning systems.
Reinventing Papert's Constructionism--Boosting Young Children's Writing Skills with e-Learning Designed for Dyslexics
Author: Levinsen, Karin Tweddell
Date: 2008-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Dyslexia,Writing Skills,Electronic Learning,Technology Uses in Education,Educational Technology,Foreign Countries,Teaching Methods,Elementary School Teachers,Elementary School Students,Computer Software,Grade 2,Instructional Effectiveness,Writing Instruction

Since the consent to the Salamanca Statement on special needs education from 1994, e-learning developers have focused on tools aimed to support dyslexic learners. The importance of these efforts is on display every year in the Special Aids exhibition area at the BETT-event in London. ICT and e-learning is now widely used in the special needs education for dyslexics. However, the Salamanca Statement also inspired the vision of &quot;The Spacious School&quot; and the idea that children with learning disabilities should be transferred from special classes and included in the ordinary classes in primary schools. In the beginning of this process, the children with special needs were present in the classroom with their compensational aid, e.g. e-learning, ICT and special teacher support, and they were rarely included in the socially organised learning activities. Consequently, class teachers and subject teachers were not aware of the existence and potentials of the special compensational e-learning and ICT tools. In recent years in Denmark, ICT has changed from being present in schools to becoming an available, everyday resource. That is, ICT and computers move out of the computer rooms and into every school room. I.e. most pupils use ICT, e-learning and computers in various contexts whenever it seems convenient. The increasing use of ICT in schools has paved the way for new ways of including the children with special educational needs and while knowledge of dyslexic compensational e-learning and ICT tools was earlier restricted to the special teachers, teachers in general have now become aware of the existence of these tools. Within the frame of a large scale research project in primary schools in Denmark (Project IT and Learning--PIL), this change of awareness led to teacher-initiated experiments with the Danish e-learning special needs-software &quot;CD Ord&quot; in first and second grades. The teachers wanted to see whether these tools could inspire normal children as well as children with special educational needs to start writing their own stories. The paper presents the research findings from the empirical studies of experiments in Second grade. The paper concludes that most children in the experiments wrote longer and more complex stories than normally expected from this age-group. The children with a visual learning style in particular demonstrated a significant progress.
Lecture Recording: Structural and Symbolic Information vs. Flexibility of Presentation
Author: Stolzenberg, Daniel
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Electronic Learning,Technology Uses in Education,Educational Technology,Video Technology,Lecture Method,Interaction,Web Browsers,Computer Software

Rapid eLearning is an ongoing trend which enables flexible and cost-effective creation of learning materials. Especially, lecture recording has turned out to be a lightweight method particularly suited for existing lectures and blended learning strategies. In order to not only sequentially play back but offer full fledged navigation, search and inspection of the recorded lecture, chapter marks and search indices have to be embedded. To solve this, two basic approaches for lecture recording tools can be identified--both of them having certain advantages and drawbacks. On the one hand there are systems based on symbolic representation of common slideshow formats like MS PowerPoint. Therefore, they preserve structure and symbol information contained therein, but are lacking flexibility of supported dynamic and interactive formats. On the other hand there are systems based on pixel representation and screen grabbing technologies. While supporting any presentation content, structural and symbolic information cannot be extracted directly and thus has to be post-processed from the recorded video. This paper discusses a perspective of combining these approaches by widening the slide-metaphor to a more flexible scene-based presentation, preserving both the structural and symbolic information. One possible attempt for this is identified by introducing a browser-based scene concept. Symbolic information can be directly extracted from the XHTML source code and structural information derives from switching through scenes. The browser itself is capable of presenting a wide range of dynamic and interactive formats, thus offering more flexible presentations. For approving the proposed concepts, a prototype called &quot;Virtual Overhead&quot; was developed and evaluated.
A Data Warehouse Model for Micro-Level Decision Making in Higher Education
Author: van Dyk, Liezl
Date: 2008-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Higher Education,Information Technology,Decision Making,Educational Researchers,Integrated Learning Systems,Case Studies,Foreign Countries,Data,Learning Activities,Regression (Statistics),Teaching Methods,Instructional Design,Teacher Effectiveness,Correlation,Feedback (Response),Cognitive Style,Data Analysis,Educational Indicators,Electronic Learning,Colleges,Surveys,Likert Scales,Statistical Analysis

An abundance of research, by educational researchers and scholars of teaching and learning alike, can be found on the use of ICT to plan design and deliver learning activities and assessment activities. The first steps of the instructional design process are covered quite thoroughly by this. However, the use of ICT and quantitative methods to close the instructional design cycle by supporting sustainable decision making with respect to the evaluation of the effectiveness of teaching processes hold much unleashed potential. In this paper a business intelligence approach is followed in an attempt to take advantage ICT to enable the evaluation of the effectiveness of the process of facilitating learning. The focus is on micro-level decision support based on data drawn from the Learning Management System (LMS). Three quantifiable measures of online behaviour and three quantifiable measures of teaching effectiveness are identified from literature to arrive at a 3x3 matrix according to which 9 measures of e-teaching effectiveness can be derived by means of pair-wise correlation. The value and significance of information are increased within context of other information. In this paper it is shown how the value of LMS tracking data increases within context of data from other modules or others years and that useful information is created when this tracking data is correlated with measures of teaching effectives such as results, learning styles and student satisfaction. This information context can only be created when a deliberate business intelligence approach if followed. In this paper a data warehouse model is proposed to accomplish exactly this.
Seven Years of Linking Scottish Schools and Industry with SSTN
Author: Whittington, Gary
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Science Course Improvement Projects,Integrated Activities,School Business Relationship,Electronic Libraries,Educational Resources,Program Descriptions,Guidelines,Teaching Guides,Web Based Instruction,Computer System Design,Courseware,Lesson Plans,Teaching Methods

The Scottish Science and Technology Network (SSTN) is a major collaboration between Careers Scotland and Scottish industry to promote science and technology via an on-line and integrated learning programme. An initial two-year pilot project has grown considerably and has now been running for over 7 years. The SSTN programme is a web-based application that supports teachers with automatic identification of learning resources, course planning tools, classroom-based delivery (within the 5-14 curriculum) and mentoring support. This paper presents a summary of this project and examples of typical usage scenarios. We present our project findings from this 7 year programme and details of our further development plans. Findings presented include lessons learnt, our best practice guidelines, effective user interface design for learning, integration learning resources and strategies for hiding complexity.
A Sociological Inquiry into Time Management in Postgraduate Studies by e-Learning in Greece
Author: Vryonides, Marios
Date: 2008-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Time Management,Electronic Learning,Graduate Students,Adult Students,Interviews,Marital Status,Family School Relationship,Student Journals,Gender Differences

This paper presents the findings from a small scale sociological investigation which studied the way mature students manage their time while attending to postgraduate studies by e-learning. Thirty postgraduate students from the University of the Aegean, Greece, were asked to record their daily activities using a semi-structured time-use diary over a period when the demands of the course were at their peak. Follow-up interviews with the students were conducted once they handed in their diaries whereby they were asked to reflect on their recorded activities. Two groups of students have emerged from analysing the diaries as having distinctive patterns of time usage; namely, married women with children and married men and single individuals. Policy implications are discussed, as the disparities in the experience of attending to e-learning programmes while at home constitute a severe source of resistance to the stated aim of e-learning programmes, which is to overcome social and geographical marginalisation.
Volunteer Program Assessment at the University of Nebraska at Omaha: A Metropolitan University's Collaboration with Rural and Spanish-Speaking Volunteers
Author: Scherer, Lisa L.
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Student Volunteers,College Students,Metropolitan Areas,Service Learning,Outreach Programs,Rural Areas,Inclusion,Spanish Speaking,Translation,Volunteer Training,Nonprofit Organizations,Public Agencies,Partnerships in Education,Advocacy,Program Evaluation,Satisfaction,Community Involvement,Consultation Programs

The Volunteer Program Assessment at UNO (VPA-UNO), a faculty-led student group, partners with nonprofit and governmental agencies to provide free assessments and consultations to enhance volunteer engagement, organizational commitment and retention. Three recent initiatives are discussed representing an intentional effort of a metropolitan university to extend love of place to love of state through outreach efforts to rural volunteers and to promote inclusivity to Spanish-speaking volunteers by translating the VPA assessment into Spanish.
Pedagogical Approaches and Technical Subject Teaching through Internet Media
Author: Olufemi, Olubodun
Date: 2008-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Electronic Learning,Internet,Teaching Methods,Constructivism (Learning),Teacher Role,Student Participation,Learning Processes,Guides

This is a comparison of Instructivist and constructivist pedagogical approaches and their applications in different situations, which make clear the comparative advantages of both approaches. Instructivist learning, places the teacher in authority while the constructivist shifted authority to no one in particular but shared responsibilities between learner and teacher in such a manner that the teacher no longer assumes the responsibilities of the passage of information/knowledge to the learner but only guides him to discover the &quot;objective truth&quot; out there and in the attainment of learning objectives. Teaching and Learning process was redefined in the light of &quot;new&quot; understanding in teaching and learning and practical applications of these pedagogical approaches were considered. I presented a study guide (Appendix 1) as an example of socio-constructivist pedagogy where emphasis in on learning rather than on teaching.