Images of the future for education? Videoconferencing: a literature review

In the past two decades, as new capabilities for video communication have emerged, their use in educational contexts has steadily increased. Initially located in higher education, the use of videoconferencing for a broad range of learning purposes is now established in many schools. Although a considerable body of literature exists that describes the experience of videoconferencing using traditional pedagogies, much less has been published on the contextual factors that lead to effective learning outcomes and innovative uses of videoconferencing. The purpose of this review is to establish a baseline for researchers interested in the area. In focusing on educational uses in both higher education and mainstream schooling, the review examines the affordances and barriers to effective teaching and learning, with what are increasingly robust and easy‐to‐use technologies. The paper concludes with a call for further research into the more innovative possibilities of videoconferencing.     

基于学习策略的英语教学中学习档案评价作用研究

教师如何帮助学生学习并培养其自主性,已成为第二语言教学领域的一个热点问题。本文主要研究如何将学习档案作为一种工具来促进学生语言学习并培养其学习自主性。本研究将学习档案融入到以策略为基础的外语教学的各个步骤中。通过测试了解学生英语水平,借助问卷收集其有关运用学习档案的想法和态度以及对自己学习风格倾向性的认识。研究发现,学习档案的运用可以提高学生对学习策略的使用意识,帮助其提高学习效率,优化学习过程,提高学生的自学能力。     

How a Learning Community Enhances Individual Learning in a Graduate Distance Education Program

Little empirical research is currently available on Jewish distance learning, a nascent but growing field of practice. By way of qualitative case study methodology, this research explored the learning experience of a group of adult learners participating in a Jewish education Master's degree program that is offered by way of videoconferencing technology. A key finding was that the learning community constituted an informal learning context, fostering openness to new perspectives, appreciation of collaborative learning, and critically reflective thinking. The study sheds light on the unique cultural vestiges that enhance Jewish learners' shared spirit or desire for community, and their motivation and ability to create it in a distance learning program, as well as on what facilitates and/or hinders learning. The principle recommendation was that to enhance learning, educators in videoconferencing programs should work toward making the learning community a visible entity, and should facilitate collaborative learning opportunities for students both within and across sites.     

Personal inquiry learning trajectories in geography: technological support across contexts

Student engagement in the design and implementation of inquiries is an effective way for them to learn about the inquiry process and the domain being studied. However, inquiry learning in geography can be challenging for teachers and students due to the complexity of scientific inquiry and the diversity of pupils' and teachers' knowledge and abilities. To address this, the Personal Inquiry project has designed a tool kit that includes nQuire, a Web-based tool to support students through the inquiry process. Here, we identify when, across five lessons comprising an inquiry into microclimates, nQuire was used by a teacher and a case study group of her 12 to 13-year-old students, and the ways in which they adopted nQuire as a tool to facilitate the creation of a coherent and cumulative inquiry learning experience over time. We found that students' use of nQuire supported them in capturing and representing their evolving understanding of inquiry, in defining and supporting their progression through the process of inquiry and in resourcing their cognitive engagement in data interpretation and representation. nQuire supported the students in accumulating and integrating new understandings across contexts and over time. In this way, nQuire successfully resourced and supported the students' learning journeys or trajectories. We conclude that nQuire can be an effective tool for supporting teachers' and students' understanding of the nature of inquiry and how to design and implement inquiries of their own.     

学生与辅导教师的在线交互研究(英文)

学习支持对于在线学习环境中的学习者的学习有着很重要的促进作用.印度尼西亚特布卡大学利用面对面教学、远程和在线的模式等各种方式为学习者提供学习支持服务.作为该校提供的一种学习支持服务方式,在线辅导旨在帮助学生更好地理解印刷材料.因为其"在线"的特征,在线辅导通过师生之间的异步交互和交流,以及学生之间互相的在线辅导,为学生提供了更灵活的学习途径.辅导教师在在线学习环境中的物理存在使得交互或对话变得更加客观、实用,使得交互聚焦于讨论话题."公共演讲"课程旨在培养学生向公众表达和传播观点的能力,该课程提供了印刷和非印刷学习材料,以帮助学生进行独立学习.学生通过印刷材料学习公共演讲方面的概念,并利用非印刷材料或者CD-ROM了解相关案例.在线辅导通过在线交互促进学生对概念的理解.本描述性研究试图探究在缺乏人际交流中的归属感、情感和控制等背景下,在线学习环境中辅导教师和学生之间的交互和交流,因而对2010年第一学期"公共演讲"课程的在线辅导活动进行了内容分析,研究发现,该课程的在线辅导活动中缺少礼貌,交流礼节也有所欠缺,另外,在线辅导教师需要加强学生在在线学习环境中的学习动机.     

文字聊天和视频会议对语意协商的影响

文字聊天和视频会议等实时交流工具为外语学习者提供了在真实语境中进行交流的机会。中日两国大学生的文字聊天记录和视频录像证实文字聊天和视频会议均能促进外语学习者进行语意协商,从而修正语言错误,提升文化意识。相对于视频会议,文字聊天能更有效促进词汇学习。     

Instructor-provided summary infographics to support online learning

Infographics are a visualisation tool that can be used to improve retention, comprehension and appeal of complex concepts. The rise of infographic use in education has facilitated new forms of application and design of these tools. Instructor-provided summary infographics are a new form of infographic, whereby key learning objectives and content are summarised in graphical form at the end of a lesson. However, it is unknown whether these types of infographics can support learning in online environments. This exploratory research investigates student perceptions, retention, applications and activity generation of instructor-provided summary infographics in a massive online learning environment. Using both post-course learner survey data (n = 1,899) and text mining analysis (n = 72,490 words), results present how learners perceived instructor-provided summary infographics as useful and appealing for retaining, clarifying and understanding learning concepts. The research contributes a novel understanding of summary infographics in online learning environments, and supports their use as a design tool for educational delivery in the online space.     

‘Isn’t It Just Like Our Situation?’ Engagement and Learning in an Online Story-Based Environment

Teamwork skills such as conflict resolution and communication strategies are challenging to teach. The use of stories may help develop these complex skills. Although engagement is generally seen as a key component of learning environments, what constitutes engagement has not been fully explored. The purpose of this study was to examine how graduate instructional design students engage with and learn from stories in an online environment. This WisdomTools Scenario (Scenario) was designed specifically to facilitate the development of teamwork skills. Students followed the experiences of two fictitious student teams and discussed what happened asynchronously with small dialogue groups. Through a qualitative case study analysis, four themes emerged which captured how students engaged with and learned from this environment. First, engagement was evident through students’ emotional reactions to the characters. Second, this engagement was affected by perceived credibility and relevance of the scenes. Third, students often reflected on their prior experiences and demonstrated an increased awareness of teamwork issues. Fourth, students reported various degrees of application of what they learned to their team practice. Implications for the design of story-based learning environments are explored.     

Extending Learning Communities: New Technologies,Multiple Literacies,and Culture Blind Pedagogies

Technologies such as videoconferencing used for distance education are creating ways for high schools to extend their learning communities to connect youth with professional communities of practice in ways that approximate the face-to-face interactions in traditional classrooms. These technologies are often touted as a way to augment course offerings and curricula, particularly those needed for college-going. The use of videoconferencing technologies alone, however, does not ensure that the desired forms of interaction will occur particularly given their reliance on traditional banking-model pedagogies and literacies. In this article, we focus on college bound Black and Latino/a youth from under resourced urban communities and their negotiations of new technologies, multiple literacies, and traditional pedagogies within a music education learning community extended through videoconferencing technologies. Employing a multicultural feminist critical theoretical framework, we unearth the ways Black and Latino/a youths identities as active learners and college-bound musicians shape, and are shaped, in the interplay of new technologies, multiple literacies, and traditional pedagogies within a music education classroom.     

Academic continuity through online collaboration: mathematics teachers support the learning of pupils with chronic illness during school absence

Recent applications of technology to mathematics education have been designed with cognitive and constructivist theoretical perspectives in mind, viewing mathematical learning as the acquisition of knowledge through the construction of meanings and connections between concepts. With the advent of increasingly flexible communication technologies, there is both the need and opportunity to consider how they might be utilised, particularly since emergent socio-cultural theories advocate learning in mathematics as an inherently social activity where understanding is developed and negotiated collaboratively. The need to examine effective technology-facilitated learning arose in the context of a research project, currently underway in a number of secondary schools in the state of Victoria and funded by the Australian Research Council. It is investigating the learning needs of pupils who are absent from school for prolonged or intermittent periods owing to chronic illness yet continue with their school studies. An emerging understanding of the significant difference between computer-mediated contact for mere information exchange and communication for teaching and learning has led to a consideration of socio-cultural perspectives on effective mathematical learning and a focussed investigation of technologies able to facilitate them. Early data have demonstrated the potential of videoconferencing, online whiteboarding and interactive whiteboard application sharing, but which require particular resources, aligned infrastructure and teacher support. This article explores issues surrounding the use of such technologies for collaborative mathematical learning in a context where online interaction is being considered for the learning support of pupils unable to attend school.     

幼儿教师网上学习资源管理策略调查研究

研究目的:通过对幼儿教师网上学习资源管理策略的调查,寻找存在的问题,为幼儿教师专业化发展和在职培训提供借鉴。研究方法:使用自编问卷《幼儿教师网上学习资源管理策略》对西安市幼儿园教师进行随机抽样调查。研究结论:(1)大部分幼儿教师会有专门时间上网,但网上学习时间有限;(2)较多地选择宿舍或家庭作为网上学习的外在环境;(3)网上学习主动性和自我调节监控、网络学习工具的使用、人力资源的利用等方面还需进一步加强培训指导。     

Towards flexible learning for adult learners in professional contexts: an activity-focused course design

This article argues for a flexible model of learning for adults which allows them to make choices and contextualise their learning in a manner appropriate to their own professional practice whilst also developing as a member of a learning community. It presents a design based around online ‘learning activities’ which draws on ideas of constructivism, collaborative learning and reflective practice. The model was developed for adult learning in Higher Education, and has been adapted and extended to a number of different programmes. Implementation of the model for the Teaching Qualification (Further Education) has been the subject of an interpretative evaluation using a multiple methods approach. Learners' experiences of this programme together with issues associated with the application of the model to other programmes are discussed.     

Broadband videoconferencing as a tool for learner-centred distance learning in higher education

This paper outlines the possibilities for using broadband videoconferencing within the larger context of changing the focus for teaching from the teacher to the learners. It also explores opportunities that might be created by this technology to facilitate learner‐centred engagement in learning and to provide new opportunities for collaboration and support for students studying by the distance mode. As part of the wider discussion, it presents a decision‐making framework for teachers to consider when integrating videoconferencing into their curriculum. The bandwidths possible from broadband Internet connection rather than the integrated services digital network transmission increase the richness of videoconferencing to a much closer approximation of natural communication, thus creating opportunities for more creative uses for the medium. The outcomes of trials undertaken at the University of New England during the last two years provide the basis for predicting the usefulness of the technology for learner‐centered interactions when the majority of students are learning from locations quite remote from the main campus.     

Student Responsible Learning: Getting Students to Read Online Discussions

Designing courses for optimal level student learning is dependent upon student participation. This study examined one way to encourage further student participation in online discussions. Of specific importance was how to encourage students to read their student-colleagues' online discussion responses: not just a minimum number of responses but the majority of the responses. Results illustrate that the method utilized, Thematic Analysis, is effective in increasing reading rates among students. But possibly even more interesting are the students' reports that the use of this learning tool encouraged them to think critically and that their learning occurred primarily through many of the tenets of social constructivist theory. Furthermore, students reported enjoying this process of learning.     

Curriculum at forty below: a phenomenological inquiry of an educator/explorer’s experience with adventure learning in the Arctic

Grounded in the theoretical approaches of experiential learning and inquiry‐based learning, adventure learning (AL) is a hybrid distance education approach that seeks to transform the experiences of students by having learners explore real‐world issues and pursue answers to their own questions in an authentic, anchor‐based environment. In this article we present a theoretical overview of AL, provide a brief summary of recently examined AL impacts in the classroom, and use a phenomenological lens to examine the experience of an educator/explorer who traveled by dogsled over 3000 miles across the Arctic to engage students and teachers from around the world in a truly authentic learning context. We conclude by offering recommendations for teachers who wish to embark on their own unique AL experiences with their students (without necessarily having to travel to the Arctic).     

“I am not simply learning and regurgitating information,I am also learning about myself”: learning portfolio practice and online distance students

This case study explored the experience of learning portfolio practice and whether learning portfolio practice facilitated the development of critical thinking skills among online distance students. Data were generated using the participant learning portfolio entries and two-time semi-structured interviews. Five themes were constructed in the data-led thematic analysis: being an online distance student, the experience of learning with a learning portfolio, my approach to learning, thinking critically in my learning portfolio, the sociology discipline context. Findings indicate that learning portfolio practice can enhance the nature of the learning experience by providing students with a personal space to evaluate their own learning, to process their thoughts and experience and to document their lives and learning in an authentic and meaningful way. The findings suggest that learning portfolio practice can facilitate the development of critical thinking skills within a disciplinary context.     

Educational software usability: Artifact or Design?

Online educational technologies and e‐learning tools are providing new opportunities for students to learn worldwide, and they continue to play an important role in anatomical sciences education. Yet, as we shift to teaching online, particularly within the anatomical sciences, it has become apparent that e‐learning tool success is based on more than just user satisfaction and preliminary learning outcomes—rather it is a multidimensional construct that should be addressed from an integrated perspective. The efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction with which a user can navigate an e‐learning tool is known as usability, and represents a construct which we propose can be used to quantitatively evaluate e‐learning tool success. To assess the usability of an e‐learning tool, usability testing should be employed during the design and development phases (i.e., prior to its release to users) as well as during its delivery (i.e., following its release to users). However, both the commercial educational software industry and individual academic developers in the anatomical sciences have overlooked the added value of additional usability testing. Reducing learner frustration and anxiety during e‐learning tool use is essential in ensuring e‐learning tool success, and will require a commitment on the part of the developers to engage in usability testing during all stages of an e‐learning tool's life cycle. Anat Sci Educ 10: 190–199. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.