Learning entrepreneurs as experts

This paper concerns agricultural entrepreneurs involved in organizing their learning towards developing innovative and learning enterprises. In high-tech sectors, such as Dutch agriculture, this learning and innovative capacity is particularly essential for economic survival. Reviewing the literature we concluded that innovation can be seen as informal learning processes, in which social networks play an important role. Workers learn by sharing knowledge in the working team, and employers learn by creating networks of colleagues and advisors. The results of three research projects teach us that interactive learning and innovation should be analyzed from a perspective of uncertainty. Learning skills for interactive innovation, as part of the entrepreneurial craft, should comprise the capability of selecting impulses and combining newly selected impulses with existing skills and routines. Paradoxically, entrepreneurs need new impulses from weak, unknown networks to be continuously innovative. Innovative learning involves balancing the chaos of uncertainty and the old grooves of experience. Knowing how to escape this paradox forms the core competence of innovative entrepreneurship. In short, we conclude that agricultural entrepreneurs have to develop flexible expertise, based on a complex worldview to meet the demands of innovation in a changing world. Entrepreneurs should particularly be able to detect the irregularities in the world around them and to balance stability and flexibility.     

The roles of tutors and experts in designing online education courses

The aim of this paper is to focus on the roles and the process that characterise the design of online education courses, especially when the online tutors are not real experts in the course content domain and above all when the experts in that content are unable or unwilling to be involved online. In these cases, the tutors have to act as a sort of bridge between the expertise and the single attendee.

This problem has been highlighted in an Italian pilot project called Polaris, which studied the use of ICT in in‐service teacher training.

On the basis of that experience, this paper seeks to draw some simple guidelines for designers of online courses.     

管理经济学视角下创新人才培养问题

本研究试图从管理经济学的视角,深入研究高校培养创新人才的问题,以期从多学科研究的一个侧面来审视和解释高等教育的外部关系问题,并从方法论上论证多学科研究高等教育的合理性。     

Creating a model to examine motivation for sustained engagement in online communities

This paper considers factors that influenced long-term engagement in an online community. It draws on a case study of a 6 year online collaboration amongst a group of European teachers. The email interchange between these teachers was, with their agreement, saved and used as research data; intensive group interviews were also conducted, involving all the participants in the online group. Dynamic motivation models and Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of motivational flow were used to create a theoretical framework to analyse the email interchanges and group interview data so as to build an understanding of the teachers’ commitment to the online community. As a result of the analysis, the existing theoretical models were modified to produce a new combined model. This incorporates ideas grounded in the participants’ reasons for their sustained engagement in the collaboration. This combined model could provide a basis for planning future virtual interactions and for assessing their sustainability.     

Learning and design with online real-time collaboration

This paper explores the use of emerging Cloud technologies that support real-time online collaboration. It considers the extent to which these technologies can be leveraged to develop complex skillsets supporting interaction between multiple learners in online spaces. In a pilot study that closely examines how groups of learners translate two kinds of collaborative writing tasks, the paper critically investigates some of the positive individual- and group-based strategies that embody effective, genuine online collaboration. Taking into consideration the relationship between the elements of task design, learning experiences and the learning environment, the paper addresses need to come to a fuller understanding of how learners interact in real time and use this understanding to inform future designs in e-learning.     

Learning preferences and readiness for online learning

Using a sample of 314 Australian university students the Readiness for Online Learning questionnaire was tested for its technical characteristics of reliability and factorability, with results indicating the instrument has promise both for research and for practice. The factor analysis identified a factor associated with self‐management of learning, and one of comfort with e‐learning. These factors are interpreted and discussed within a framework of the broader literature on learning preferences associated with flexible delivery and resource‐based learning.     

网络课程中学习支持的研究与实践

网络课程中的学习支持包括两个方面一是内置式支持,二是外围支持.前者内置于学习材料中,为学习过程提供支持;后者是网络教育环境的一部分,从技术层面上提供对网络学习环境的支持.基于"计算机应用基础"网络课程,从学习支持的两个方面进行了设计与实践,取得了不错的教学效果.     

A triangular prism model: Using activity theory to examine online learning communities

This article illustrates how a triangular prism model (TPM) could help researchers examine challenging and successful factors to sustaining online learning communities (OLCs) for preservice and inservice teachers. The TPM was constructed on a review of the literature on activity theory. The TPM is a conceptual framework that guides empirical examination of OLCs’ ongoing development and their connections within a relevant context. This article highlights the application of this framework to two online learning communities (preservice and inservice teachers) and reviews the potential of a TPM as an analytical tool.     

Using methodological triangulation to examine the effectiveness of a mentoring program for online instructors

In this quasi-experimental mixed methods study, we examined the effectiveness of a faculty-to-faculty mentoring program to increase student success rates in online courses at an American university. Over one semester, 24 faculty mentees worked with 6 faculty mentors on improving course organization and implementing student engagement techniques. Using methodological triangulation, we found positive results for two of our effectiveness measures (i.e., mentor and mentee feedback and mentors’ ratings of mentees’ courses). However, in terms of our third measure (i.e., student learning data), although institutional data showed that there was a 4.1% aggregate increase in online student success after the intervention, the intervention group made no significantly greater gains than two control groups. Our findings highlight some benefits and shortcomings of these types of university initiatives and also emphasize the importance of using triangulation to integrate participant feedback with formal measures of student success.     

Learning as identity and practice through involvement in online moderation

For teachers working in a standards-based assessment system, professional conversations through organised social moderation meetings are a vital element. This qualitative research investigated the learning that occurred as a result of online moderation discussions. Findings illustrate how participating in social moderation meetings in an online context can support teachers to understand themselves as assessors, and can provide opportunities for teachers to imagine possibilities for their teaching that move beyond the moderation practice.     

在线学习系统的设计与实现

文中提出了一种基于ASP技术的在线学习系统方案，给出了系统设计和数据库设计过程，该方案易于实现，具有良好的系统开放性和可扩充性。