The arrival of a new generation of students, known as the Net Generation (Junco, 2010), into colleges and universities has demanded changes to the traditional administrative and support services provided on campuses across the nation. In times of ever-changing technological advances, colleges and universities have begun to utilize new and…

The modern workplace environment is filled with interruptions due to the necessity of coworkers to communicate with each other. Studies have revealed that interruptions can disrupt the ability of a knowledge worker to concentrate on a task, which can impact task performance (TP). Communication interruptions are due, in part, to the unavoidable…

This qualitative research study is an exploration of the merit and shortcomings of using a combination of the music software GarageBand[TM] and an electronic bulletin board to facilitate musical and peer learning in a 3-month elementary music methods curriculum and instruction course. A pedagogical objective of this assignment was to increase the…

How can students in an online classroom of one, often sitting in solitude in front of a computer, experience community? The authors suggest that in part, the answer lies in creating invitational online educational spaces through the use of Artistic Pedagogical Technologies (ATPs), particularly Photovoice (PV) a teaching strategy. A Zen paradox (or…

The flexibility of open and on line learning in meeting different kinds of needs in a variety of ways and the need for planners to make appropriate choices, taking a number of factors into account indicates the need to find out more about the evaluation of teacher training through on line distance education. In recent years web 2.0 technologies…

Over the years, researchers have consistently reported that, regardless of the subject matter, students working in small groups tend to learn more of what is taught and retain it longer than when the same content is presented in other instructional formats (Beckman, 1990; Chickering & Gamson, 1991). The majority of these research studies have…

This study examines on-site facilitator practices and activities that support rural high school students taking online courses. We compare online instructors' perspectives of facilitator practices with facilitators' own reports of their practices and activities. A qualitative analysis of end-of-course interview data from instructors and…

While parental involvement benefits the learning performance of elementary students and the internet changes the learning environment, few studies have examined how parents are involved in the virtual world. This two-year project analysed the effects of parental involvement at home, in school and on internet use. The first stage of our research…

This paper reports the findings of three studies within a program of research designed to better understand the factors contributing to the academic achievement of students in online courses and the contributions of interaction to online learning. The first study compared the academic achievement of students in the online and face-to-face (F2F)…

Online information sources, such as pictures and animations on web pages are frequently used for complementing printed course material in educational contexts. The concurrent use of online and printed information sources by students, however, requires going back and forth between physically separated course material, such as a course book and a…

Communication is increasingly taking place through written messaging using online and mobile platforms such as email, instant messaging and text messaging. A number of scholars have considered whether these texts reflect spoken or written language, though less is known about the role of punctuation. In fact, it is commonly assumed that punctuation…

Larry Johnson has been the CEO of the New Media Consortium (NMC) for nearly a decade, and he has worked in higher education for more than twenty-five years. Before joining NMC, he served in roles that include faculty member, dean, provost, and president. In this interview, he talks about the position of NMC in distance education and the challenges…

In this essay, the author describes her own attempt at incorporating Web 2.0 technology into her teaching: a wiki project that she used in her English as a second language (ESL) composition course. The theme she traces throughout the rest of this essay is the wiki's ability (or inability) to make "connections" of various kinds. Like any text, the…

Using data collected in spring 2009 from students at a southern research university enrolled in either of 2 sections of a general education course that fulfilled a social/behavioral sciences graduation requirement, the present study examined whether participating in online assignments enhanced students' satisfaction with those assignments and with…

This survey study was intended to explore whether or not students supported the way a university course instructor provided timely and detailed e-feedback directly onto their online assignments and how the e-feedback facilitated their learning. Twenty pre-service teachers, who had experienced the process, participated in the study. The data were…