In 2005 the Australian Council for Computers in Education (ACCE) was successful in obtaining a grant from National Centre of Science, Information and Communication Technology and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia (SiMERR) to undertake the Computing Studies Teachers Network Rural and Regional Focus Project. The project had five…

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a comparative and descriptive study that examined the relationship and effects of incorporating students' learning styles in the design of instruction and the outcome of students' learning, including their attitude and satisfaction. The paper will first explain how the literature on learning…

The objective of this research was to compare the quality and quantity of teacher and student interaction in an on-line versus face-to-face learning environment. A Master's level course on nursing theories was taught by the same professor by both methods. Transcripts of the face-to-face class and on-line postings were analyzed to identify…

Based on Bandura's (1977) social learning theory, the purpose of this study is to identify the relationship of preservice teachers' perceptions of faculty modeling of computer-based technology and preservice teachers' intent of using computer-based technology in educational settings. There were 92 participants in this study; they were enrolled in…

This research started with the design and implementation of an online digital video database, followed by a study of how three student teachers used it in building a virtual learning community that enabled the sharing of teaching practices during their first teaching practicum in the teacher education program. The student teachers made use of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to inform international student study strategies as well as course design and instructional approach. Design/methodology/approach: Multiple research methods are applied, starting with exploratory data analysis, principal component analysis, confirmatory ordinal factor analysis, then recursive regression.…

The potential of online language learning has received much attention recently. This paper reports the design of an online writing system featuring learning support for non-native students during their writing process. The central premise is that in the online writing situation, students are in great need of writing aids. The proposed system…

The popularity of web-based learning systems has encouraged researchers to pay attention to several new issues. One of the most important issues is the development of new techniques to provide personalized teaching materials. Although several frameworks or methods have been proposed, it remains a challenging issue to design an easy-to-realize…

In this paper, we consider an approach to developing critically thoughtful e-Learning communities of practice--where participants are deliberate about the use of specific intellectual tools supporting critical thinking. We address Garrison & Anderson's (2003) argument that such critical thinking should play a central role within the ecology of…

This paper presents qualitative research completed in two groups of hospitals in the United Kingdom, as part of a larger mixed methods study. It involved eight qualified nurses caring for patients with gastro-intestinal cancer in general surgical wards. It explored the nurses' experiences of using an online programme and their perceptions of the…

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),…

This essay is entitled "The 'I' of the Storm" in order to stress the very personal nature of teaching in the immediate, post-Katrina semester of Fall 2005. The University of New Orleans (UNO) was the only university in the city to open that semester, and many traumatized instructors, the author included, were serving the thousands of…

Globalization has stretched the scope of the online learner population from a homogeneous profile of mostly adult, mostly employed, place-bound, goal-oriented, and intrinsically motivated to one that is heterogeneous, younger, dynamic, and responsive to rapid technological innovations. This paper describes the emerging characteristics of the…

"Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006--Southern Edition" is based on data collected for the fourth annual report on the state of online education in U.S. higher education. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and based on responses from over 700 southern colleges and universities, this year's study, like…

Attrition continues to be a major issue in higher education. Attrition rates for classes taught through distance education are 10-20% higher than classes taught in a face-to-face setting. Educators should engage students early and often, using different learning strategies customized to the class content and the students' pre-existing knowledge.…