Synchronous communication has a great potential to increase individual participation and group collaboration. Despite increasing use, scant research has been conducted on variables impacting successful synchronous learning. This study focuses on learner experiences in a real-time communication mediated by the Breeze web-based collaboration system.…

Science Across the World is an exchange programme between schools world-wide. It has two main components: existing resources for students (age 6-10) and a database with all participating schools. The programme exists since 1990. It is carried out in partnership with the British Association of Science Education (ASE) and international…

Higher education institutions around the world are increasingly turning to e-learning as a way of dealing with growing and changing student populations. Education for the knowledge society means new skills and knowledge are needed and it means that lifelong learning has become a necessity. Higher education institutions are looking to e-learning to…

In a face-to-face classroom, the instructor can easily diagnose students' motivational status by observing their facial expressions and postures, but such cues are absent in an online classroom. Therefore, online instructors often estimate students' motivational level based on their online behavior such as the number of messages they post, and…

Authentic learning designs have been explored for some time now and have frequently been shown to provide learning settings that provide many meaningful contexts for learning. These meaningful contexts provide not only encouragement for students to learn but also a raft of learning enhancements including higher-order learning and forms of learning…

With the rapid expansion of the transnational education market, more and more universities join the ranks of transnational education providers or expand their transnational education offerings. Many of those providers regard fully-online provision of their programs as an economic alternative to face-to-face teaching. Do transnational students…

In this paper the authors describe a novel "Virtual Research Environment" (VRE) based on the Sakai Virtual Collaboration Environment and designed to support education research. This VRE has been used for the past two years by projects of the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Teaching and Learning Research Programme, 10 of which…

Distance education makes use of the technologies of the Information Age to address the needs of a broader and more complex educational market than traditional methods. Because distance delivery does not follow the rigid structure of the traditional course, it can provide instruction to individuals whose location, personal circumstances, or family…

This paper describes various types of distance education technologies and their use in rural Australia. Communications and information technologies may be categorized as distributive or interactive. Correspondence education is a distributive form of distance education, involving the postal service and, at times, educational television or radio.…

The information highway is an exciting place for children and families to visit, explore, and learn together. This book teaches parents basic knowledge about the Information Highway and how to use it with children. The following topics are covered in this book: (1) What is the Information Highway? (2) What is Telecommunications?; (3) Why You &…

This paper discusses a vision of the transformation of the library from a repository of printed material to a digital library serving as a complete information center where distant learners can obtain support for their educational aspirations. Future information centers will be distant learner-centered. Factors discussed include: (1) distance…

Educators are finding new and interesting ways to use computers as tools to educate and learn. For students to compete in the global community, it is imperative that educators embrace and use the World Wide Web in their curriculum. Hillside Elementary School in Minnesota uses the Internet, in a project called Web66, as a medium for student…

Clinical supervision is a commonly accepted model used by supervisors of local school district teachers. Schools of Education at Harvard University (Massachusetts), the University of Virginia, and the University of Kansas, among others, have initiated clinical supervision projects using e-mail and the Internet, and have also created…

Students can make authentic contributions to the World Wide Web (WWW) and learn critical evaluation skills by publishing reviews of WWW resources. A project which served as a pilot study was implemented where high school students wrote and published reviews of resources they used as part of an inquiry-based science curriculum. Students were…

Along with the growth of electronic communication in higher education, is the rise of virtual classrooms. Virtual classrooms exist because of technologies such as electronic mail, listservs, chat rooms, and World Wide Web pages. This qualitative research study examined one graduate course which was offered entirely over the Internet. Data from…