Articles
Campus – based student perspectives versus online courses
Paola Fisher
Abstract:
This paper presents the results of a study on student attitudes toward campus-based and online courses in the master’s program at the School of Information Resources and Library Science at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The information was obtained from 17 students via an online survey between 2005 and 2009. The findings reveal that online courses were popular because of advantages in convenience, time flexibility, and location. However, some respondents considered the quality of online courses inferior to campus-based courses. Regardless of preference, respondents indicated that instructors, including their technical skills, play a crucial role in the success of both types of courses.
Audioblog analysis and suggestions for its recruitment and use in oral lessons
Perla Morton
Abstract:
Web 2.0 is a buzzword not only in the technological world, but also in the educational industry. The plethora of Web 2.0 tools presents affordances that have great potentials to be effectively used in the educational settings. While the options are abundant, appropriating Web 2.0 applications in learning and teaching requires informed decision for meaningful experiences. In order to achieve this, it is imperative that a thorough affordances analysis of the tool is performed so as to determine its potential for purposeful utilisation. This paper expounds the possible recruitment of an online audioblog tool, Podomatic, in oral lessons. It discusses three aspects of the affordances namely (i) pedagogy, (ii) social, and (iii) technology. Following that, it offers suggestions for (i) tackling issues that teachers and students faced, and (ii) for enhanced learning opportunities.
Online Faculty experience education immediacy
David Lloyd
Abstract:
The main purpose of this study was to explore best practice strategies in online instruction that effectively reduce perceptions of transactional or felt-psychological distance, and, in turn, promote socially and humanely rich online learning communities in higher education. From this perspective, this study adopted the construct of “instructional immediacy” from educational communications theory, and attempted to uncover applications of the construct in online teaching contexts. To better provide plausible techniques and strategies for online teaching practitioners, “instructional immediacy” was approached through rich narratives of the perspectives and experiences of online teaching practitioners as well as through narratives from students in these courses. Educationally meaningful strategies for enhancing instructional immediacy emerged from an analysis of instructors’ and students’ narratives. The patterns of strategies were categorized into four dimensions of online instruction: (1) affective interaction, (2) cognitive interaction, (3) technology adoption, and (4) course presentation and organization. This study opens the possibility of cultivating instructional immediacy in a text-based learning community which allows a promise for executing socially connected and engaging online instruction.