In this study, the authors explored differences in perceptions of skill development and the value of face-to-face interaction between students taking a business communication course offered online and in the traditional, on-campus classroom environment. They hypothesized that there would be no statistically significant difference in face-to-face…

Today's school libraries must meet student needs as both a physical and virtual space. Existing both offline and online, they must offer around-the-clock access as well as instruction and guidance that support the face-to-face interactions of students with librarians and classroom teachers. Although students are often technologically proficient,…

The Developing E-learning for Teachers (DEfT) project, a collaborative venture between UK and Chinese universities, has produced e-learning modules for master's level programmes for in-service high school teachers in China. E-learning offers Chinese teachers new and innovative forms of professional development and provides for transformative…

This paper reports a phenomenographic investigation into students' experiences of learning through discussion--both online and face to face (F2F). The study context was a second-year undergraduate course in psychology for social work in which the teacher had designed discussion tasks to begin in F2F mode and to continue online. A combination of…

If web-based technology is increasingly becoming the central plank of contemporary teaching and learning processes, there is still too little evidence to suggest that it is delivering purposeful learning activities beyond its widely perceived potential as a learning resource providing content and learning objects. This is due in part to the…

This paper explores high school students' and teachers' preferences towards constructivist Internet-based learning environments. The study proposes a framework, including two dimensions and five aspects, to illustrate the features of the Internet-based learning environments. Based upon this framework, the "Constructivist Internet-based…

Web-based learning environments are a great asset only if they are designed well and used as intended. The urgency to create courses in response to the growing demand for online learning has resulted in a hurried push to drop PowerPoint notes into Web-based course management systems (WBCMSs), devise an electronic quiz, put together a few…

The study explored the effectiveness of a discussion support taxonomy used in a course in which graduate students served as online discussion leaders. The students' ability to effectively use the taxonomy as a support tool to facilitate the discussions was examined. A content analysis of the discussion transcripts was conducted, and findings…

Professional Development is an ideal way to ensure that early childhood teachers have the skills and knowledge they need to improve student achievement. Unfortunately, many teachers report that the workshops and in-services typically offered are of minimal value because they often do not relate to what is actually going on in their classrooms…

Within the university the introduction of computers is creating a new criterion of differentiation between those who as a matter of course become integrated in the technocratic trend deriving from the daily use of these machines and those who become isolated by not using them. This difference increases when computer science and communications…

Distance Learning Providers serve large populations of learners, frequently offering the same course to different groups of learners over lengthy periods of time. This article argues that (re-) running e-learning courses with different combinations of learners and staff requires a distinction between abstract representations of courses and…

This study identifies and empirically tests factors that may influence learners' use of a computer-based training support system (TSS). The areas of research and theory were drawn from human-computer interaction, information and business management, and adult education. The factors suggested in the literature that may affect learner's use of a TSS…

Worldwide, electronic learning (E-learning) has become an important part of the education agenda in the last decade. The Suan Dusit Rajabhat University (SDRU), Thailand has made significant efforts recently to use Internet technologies to enhance learning opportunities. The results reported here are part of a pioneering study to determine the…

This article presents the concepts of interaction and immediacy and discusses their theoretical frameworks, implications, and relationship with one another. The authors propose the development of a new conceptual model and recommend additional antecedent research. (Contains 1 figure.)

This study compared costs and revenues of Illinois community colleges related specifically to online delivery systems in order, first, to determine cost-efficiency and second, to compare the results among online courses at selected community colleges in Illinois. The research question to be answered was: "To what extent are online courses…