The paper outlines the TTPTE project (2010-2011) which was based on the need for innovative and effective ideas for increasing the efficiency of teachers' in design and technology daily work. The project was aimed at finding new ways of how to support in-service teachers in design and technology education and how teachers themselves can upgrade…

The study reported in this article was conducted in 2009-2010 at the University of Helsinki Language Centre. Its purpose was to produce new information on the use of learning environments, specifically in a university language centre. Data collected from student questionnaires were analysed and interpreted. The study reveals that the central…

Recent studies of online learning environments reveal the importance of interaction within the virtual environment. Abrami, Bernard, Bures, Borokhovski, and Tamim (2011) identify and study 3 types of student interactions: student-content, student-teacher, and student-student. This article builds on this classification of interactions as it…

Even as higher education institutions offer more distance education courses, the attrition rate in these courses remains higher than face-to-face courses. One of the most cited reason by students who drop out of distance education classes is the lack of social interaction. Educational technology researchers have studied this problem from a sense…

Sebastian Thrun gave up tenure at Stanford University after 160,000 students signed up for his free online version of the course "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence." The experience completely changed his perspective on education, he said, so he ditched teaching at Stanford and launched the private Web site Udacity, which offers…

Despite the old-fashioned view of the academic library as a static institution, libraries can and do change in response to the needs of users and stakeholders. Perhaps the most dramatic shift in services has been the transition from a purely physical to a combination physical/virtual or even virtual-only environment. This article examines how…

Increasingly, educators from all disciplines are using blogs, social networking sites, VLEs and wikis to encourage academic discourse between students. However, a common problem experienced by educators is how these important learning experiences can be assessed and because of this difficulty many are not assessed. For some time now, I have been…

Technology offers many opportunities for educators to support teaching, learning and assessment. This paper introduces a project to design and implement a virtual environment (SAVE Science) intended to assess (not teach) middle school students' knowledge and use of scientific inquiry through two modules developed around curriculum taught in middle…

This paper presents the design and application of a major individual assessment task created in part to develop students' capacity for lifelong assessment, a key element of lifelong learning. Additionally the task contributes to fostering a sense of community in asynchronous online learning environments. The task is a supra disciplinary report,…

In recent years, e-learning has been used in a chemical engineering subject in the final course of a mining engineering degree, a subject concerned with fuel technology. The low results obtained by students in this subject have led the teacher to search for new strategies to increase grades. Such strategies have consisted of incorporating into the…

"Sense of place" no longer applies only to the physical library. All students are distance learners to one extent or another, and all distance services must be considered as a single virtual learning commons. Librarians at Bucks County (PA) Community College implement and integrate current teaching, learning, virtual reference, and mobile access…

In the past decade, virtual worlds have progressed from isolated sectors of the Internet, inhabited by computer and fantasy role-playing enthusiasts, to one of the fastest growing sectors in the gaming industry. In the process, they have established themselves as promising venues for the delivery of online instruction. Unfortunately, during that…

The aim of this study is to scrutinize the characteristics of conceptual meaning making when students engage with virtual worlds in combination with a spreadsheet with the aim to develop graphs. We study how these tools and the representations they contain or enable students to construct serve to influence their understanding of energy resource…

Virtual school programs--especially online high school courses--are gaining traction in school districts around the country. While offering online courses was once the exclusive province of large state, nonprofit and for-profit organizations and companies, districts and even individual schools are now starting virtual schools of their own. Not…

It is now possible to create flexible learning environments without time and distance barriers on the internet. However, research has shown that learners typically experience isolation and alienation in online learning environments. These negative experiences can be reduced by enhancing social presence. In order to better facilitate the perceived…