This qualitative study explores the process of implementing effective online teaching practices through interviews with thirty exemplary instructors. Emergent themes include providing students with constructive feedback, fostering interaction and involvement, facilitating student learning, and maintaining instructor presence and organization.…

The living component of soil is difficult for students to learn about and understand because students have difficulty relating to things they cannot see (beyond sight, beyond mind). Line drawings from textbooks help explain conceptual relationships but do little to stimulate an active interest in the living component of soil. Alternatively,…

A Web-based organic chemistry home work program, EPOCH is developed, whose two most important features are that students draw structures as responses to posed questions, and then students receive feedback tailored specifically to their responses. EPOCH is a tool that can have a real effect on student learning and provides one-to-one interaction…

Individualised open and distance learning at the university continuing education and post-graduate education levels is a central issue of today. The advanced information and communication technologies together with several applications offer new perspectives, such as the so-called virtual university. Simultaneously, to gain market share, several…

Many private colleges have begun offering courses or programs in technologically-mediated formats, specifically utilizing online or internet based programs. These programs provide opportunity and access to unique student populations, and the personal relationship element of private colleges is often challenged in these distributed programs. This…

This interim report produced by the Colorado State Board of Education Online Education Task Force examines key issues related to online education. Task force members agree that: (1) online education has become a viable element of Colorado's public education system; (2) the role of technology in educating our children will continue to grow; and (3)…

This study captured the perceptions of pre-service teachers as they relate to online instruction. Twenty-five preservice teachers enrolled in a graduate level introductory special education course responded to a questionnaire. The course was taught with WebCT. Findings indicate that pre-service teachers are satisfied with their online learning.…

Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, and social networking sites have impacted the Information Literacy (IL) curriculum at The American University in Cairo, where librarians teach LALT 101, a required, semester-long IL course. During fall 2005 and spring 2006, librarians used a Web 2.0 photo sharing tool, Flickr (www.flickr.com), to teach…

This report highlights distance delivery courses in Nebraska for the academic years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006. All six community colleges, the three state colleges, and the University of Nebraska campuses offer courses at distance; more than 40 degrees, endorsements and certificates are now offered completely by distance technology. The total number…

The authors analyzed online interactions in hybrid and blended courses to: (a) investigate if constructs from micro-sociology, such as self-talk, norms, and front-back-stage performance, provide a theoretical context for online interaction, and (b) compare courses with more versus fewer online components in terms of online interaction patterns.…

Online delivery of programmes of Higher Education typically involves a distributed community of students interacting with a single university site, at which the teachers, learning resources and administration of the programme are located. The alternative model, of a fully "Virtual University", which assumes no physical campus, poses…

This article details the development of the Library Instruction Wiki (http://instructionwiki.org): an effort to develop a web-based, knowledge-sharing resource. Though some library instruction is specific to a given institution or class, much of what instruction librarians teach is similar. Library instructors have repeatedly expressed the desire…

ICT tools have been developed to facilitate web-based learning through and learning about argumentation. In this paper we will present an example of a learning activity mediated by Digalo--software for knowledge sharing through visually supported discussion--developed in a university setting. Our aim is to examine, in particular, socio-cognitive…

Reading in a second language (L2) is important for a variety of reasons. Reading authentic materials, in particular, allows L2 learners to engage with native speaker content, and ultimately the target culture. One body of authentic materials is that of literary texts, including those of more traditional prose fiction, poetry, and drama, but also…

The paper describes a classification system for adaptive methods developed in the area of adaptive educational hypermedia based on four dimensions: What components of the educational system are adapted? To what features of the user and the current context does the system adapt? Why does the system adapt? How does the system get the necessary…