Video games are pervasive in today's culture, and the time kids spend playing them may seem, from a teacher's perspective, as time that is lost to education. Sometimes, sadly, this is true. But many good video games, although not explicitly educational in focus, provide powerful experiences that are rich fodder for subsequent instruction. Looking…

Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in the flipped classroom model, and many flipped programs have been funded and implemented to explore the effectiveness of this new model. However, previous studies centering on comparative assessment have indicated that it is not always entirely successful in terms of promoting students'…

Web 2.0 technologies are becoming more popular in the everyday lives of students. As a result, teachers and designers have begun to explore their use in formal education. This paper presents evaluation findings from a collective case study of six Web 2.0 implementations in Australian higher education. The research was undertaken as part of a…

The overarching question that guides this review is to identify the key components of effective teacher training in virtual schooling, with a focus on three-dimensional (3D) immersive virtual worlds (IVWs). The process of identifying the essential components of effective teacher training in the use of 3D IVWs will be described step-by-step. First,…

What makes games effective for learning? The authors argue that games provide vicarious experiences for players, which then amplify the effects of future, formal learning. However, not every game succeeds in doing so! Understanding why some games succeed and others fail at this task means investigating both a given game's design and the…

This study investigated the influences of learning styles/preferences, prior computer skills and experience with online courses on adult learners' knowledge acquisition in a web-based special education course. Forty-six adult learners who enrolled in a web-based special education course participated in the study. The results of the study showed…

We examine the experiences of five teachers who traveled with a team of educators, scientists, and explorers on circumpolar Arctic expeditions to deliver adventure learning (AL) programs to K-12 students at a distance. Results highlight the personal and professional impacts this opportunity had on teachers, including their empowering, fulfilling,…

This article focuses on Italy's Higher Education reforms and hotly debated developments. These developments are experience credits and online universities. The reform replaced the existing degree system, in which most undergraduate programs lasted four years--although the average graduate actually took more than seven years to earn a degree--with…

This paper describes the pedagogical principles that underpin the design of the Master of Engineering Practice, a distance education program offered by the University of Southern Queensland. This innovative program enables experienced engineering technologists to use their workplace learning to assemble portfolios that demonstrate their…

This paper briefly identifies a number of contemporary pressures for change which condition the way universities will behave and which provide both opportunities and threats for the future; it then goes on to consider the implications for distance education universities. Pressures on universities include such factors as the growth of other…

The U.S. military has made numerous important contributions to the development of adult and continuing education. As in civilian adult education, military innovations in education have consistently used workplace learning. The educational benefits produced by the GI Bill democratized education by exploding the myth that "common" people…

This document contains 43 papers from a conference on researching inclusion. The following are among the papers included: "Include Me Out: Critique and Contradiction in Thinking about Social Exclusion and Lifelong Learning" (Paul Armstrong); "The Linking of Work and Education To Enable Social Inclusion" (Dave Beck);…