Online discussion boards are often used in traditional courses, hybrid courses, and fully online courses. Online chats and discussions can be particularly useful in fully online courses, as these communication connections are often students' only means of connecting with each other and sharing ideas in an open forum. While traditional face-to-face…

This paper is situated in the re-visioning ethos that has been part of the genealogy of multicultural education. In the context of teacher education, the authors ask: where to now? In this paper, they reflect on their design and delivery of a new undergraduate unit offered by the School of Education, University of Western Sydney. The unit…

This article describes how third graders combine traditional literacy practices, including writer's notebooks and graphic organizers, with new literacies, such as video editing software, to create digital personal narratives. The authors emphasize the role of planning in the recursive writing process and describe how technology-based audio…

People who deal with at-risk teens say dropping out is not an event; it's a process. Youngsters miss school and get "backed up" in class, so they miss more school because they're bewildered or embarrassed, and fall further behind. In the three years the 75-seat Hampton Performance Learning Center (PLC) has been open, it claims to have…

Colleges offering 2-year diplomas to high-school graduates were among the forefront leaders in online learning however studies illustrating appropriate course construction for such student populations are scarce. Pharmacy Math (MATH16532) is a core course for students enrolled in the Practical Nursing (PN) and Pharmacy Technician (PT) programs at…

Creativity and knowledge management are both important competences that university students need to strive to develop. This study therefore developed and evaluated an instructional program for improving university students' creativity based on a blended knowledge-management (KM) model that integrates e-learning and three core processes of KM:…

A large number of teachers and tutors of English as a Second Language (ESL) lack professional-level preparation. The Basic Training and Resources for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (BTRTESOL) program is being developed to prepare untrained, novice, volunteer ESL teachers to be more successful. In contrast with previous programs…

The aim of this study is to characterize the current status of blended learning in Portugal, given that b-learning has grown exponentially in the Portuguese market over recent years. 38 organizations (representing 68% of all institutions certified to provide distance training by the Government Labour Office--DGERT-) participated in this study. The…

Susan Patrick is the president and chief executive officer of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL). She is the former director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. As director, she published the U.S. National Educational Technology Plan for Congress and managed research and…

This research paper investigates if the traditional lecture is no longer appropriate for Neomillennial Learning Styles and whether an alternative blended approach could/should be used? Over the past decade the lecture as we know it, has gradually been under attack from constructivists, Twigg (1999) for example argues that the lecture is in the…

The Classroom Community Scale (CCS) has been utilized in previous research to measure sense of community of learners including those learners in blended learning environments. In the current study, the CCS was examined with respect to its psychometric properties in the blended learning environment. Reliability analyses indicate an acceptable level…

This article examines how Moodle, as an open-source Learning Management System, can be made more interoperable. The authors tested two software standards, LAMS and RELOAD, compatible with socio-constructivism norms. The analysis showed that pedagogic activities created with the LAMS-IMS Learning Design Level A Format are useable with Moodle but…

Educators and students living in the digital age are faced with complex problems that are forcing them to seek collaborative solutions. These problems can be addressed through the successful application of digital technologies and pedagogies that enhance the educational, social and economic prospects of students. The main aim of this study was to…

The construct of Universal Design (UD) has been used in a number of fields such as engineering and architecture to design and produce products and services that are usable by people with a wide variety of characteristics. The field of UD supports a framework that can also be used to enhance the field of education. A number of constructs have been…

This paper begins with a brief introduction to blended learning (BL), recognising the important contributions to learning that can be obtained from the use of methods which combine the New Information and Communications Technologies (NICT) with more traditional methods. The paper goes onto describe the bases, tasks and methodology for developing…