Category Archives: Publications

Publications

mLearn 2012: International Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning 2012 Proceedings

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The proceedings from mLearn 2012: Mobile and Contextual Learning Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning 2012: Helsinki, Finland, October 16 -18, 2012, are now available online in full text for free.

Edited by Marcus Specht, Mike Sharples, Jari Multisilta

Table of Contents

Full Papers

Short Papers

Showcases

Posters

Doctoral Consortium

Preconference Workshops

Via: CEUR-WS.org/Vol-955 – International Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning 2012.

Publications

NMC Horizon Report 2013 Higher Ed Edition

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NMC Horizon Report 2013 Higher Ed Edition

The NMC Horizon Report > 2013 Higher Education Edition is a collaborative effort between the NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), an EDUCAUSE Program, and is slated to be released in February 2013.

The tenth edition will describe annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, a decade-long research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in higher education. Six emerging technologies are identified across three adoption horizons over the next one to five years, as well as key trends and challenges expected to continue over the same period, giving campus leaders and practitioners a valuable guide for strategic technology planning.

The 2013 Horizon Project Higher Education Advisory Board initially voted on the top 12 emerging technologies — the result of which is documented in this a interim report: the NMC Horizon Project Short List > 2013 Higher Education Edition. This Short List then helped the advisory board narrow down the 12 technologies to six for the full publication. Those results are available in the official Preview. View the work that produced these findings at www.horizon.wiki.nmc.org.

Download the Short List PDF
Download the Preview PDF

Publications

Book Review: “Essentials of Online Course Design”

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Book cover

The book “Essentials of Online Course Design” from Majorie Vai and Kristen Sosulski is one I have heard about from a few people recently, and one I felt would be worth reading, and at a reasonable £22 from Routledge it’s a fair investment … not to mention the accompanying companion website.

The book is described as a “fresh, thoughtfully designed, step-by-step approach to online course development.” The core of the book is a set of standards that are based on ‘best’ practices (I prefer the term ‘good practice’ as ‘best practice’ implies there is no room for improvement) in the field of online learning and teaching. “Pedagogical, organizational and visual design principles are presented and modeled throughout the book and users will quickly learn from the guide’s hands-on approach. The course design process begins with the elements of a classroom syllabus which, after a series of guided steps, easily evolve into an online course outline” (this last bit was taken from the promotional text).

Read More: Book Review: “Essentials of Online Course Design” – Technology Enhanced Learning Blog.

Buy the Book: Essentials of Online Course Design: A Standards-Based Guide

Publications

Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning

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Cover

Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning: An Annual Review of Policy and Practice (2012) is the latest in a series of annual reports that began in 2004 that examine the status of K-12 online education across the country. The report provides an overview of the latest policies, practices, and trends affecting online learning programs across all 50 states.

Keeping Pace is researched and published as a service to the educational and governmental communities through the generous support of our sponsors. Distribution of the report and graphics for presentations are free.

Free Download: Reports & Graphics « Keeping Pace.

Publications

Call for papers on research into blended and online learning

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Students gathered round a laptop (i)

The Canadian Journal of Higher Education is a publication of the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher Education. It has issued a call for papers for a special issue on: ‘Blended and online higher education: teaching and learning in a wired world.’

Topics

This special issue will ‘present research on education access and quality learning experiences afforded by online education delivery, in addition to research on the use of the Internet for interaction and collaborative engagement previously unattainable to teachers and students.’

Guest editors and submission of articles

Martha Cleveland-Innes, Athabasca University

Heather Kanuka, University of Alberta

Submit before December 31, 2012 to either editor.

Full Text: Call for papers on research into blended and online learning.

Publications

Education Week: Evaluating What Works in Blended Learning

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Cover image (i)

Blended learning—the mix of virtual education and face-to-face instruction—is evolving quickly in schools across the country, generating a variety of different models. This special report, the second in an ongoing series on virtual education, examines several of those approaches and aims to identify what is working and where improvements are needed.

Read Evaluating What Works in Blended Learning as a free digital edition—online or on your mobile device.

Full Text: Education Week: Evaluating What Works in Blended Learning.

Publications

Book: e-Learning and Social Networking Handbook: Resources for Higher Education

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By Frank Rennie & Tara Morrison

Digital resources—from games to blogs to social networking—are strong forces in education today, but how can those tools be effectively utilized by educators and course designers in higher education? Filled with practical advice, the e-Learning and Social Networking Handbook, Second Edition  provides a comprehensive overview of online learning tools and offers strategies for using these resources in course design, highlighting some of the most relevant and challenging topics in e-learning today, including:

  • using social networking for educational purposes
  • designing for a distributed environment
  • strengths and weaknesses of delivering content in various formats (text, audio, and video)
  • potential constraints on course design
  • implementation, evaluation, induction, and training

Illustrated by short, descriptive case studies, the e-Learning and Social Networking Handbook, Second Edition also directs the reader to useful resources that will enhance their course design. This helpful guide will be invaluable to all those involved in the design and delivery of online learning in higher education.

$39.95

Pre Order (Dec 2012) e-Learning and Social Networking Handbook: Resources for Higher Education

Publications

Universal instructional design principles for Moodle

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The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 11, No 2 (2010)

Tanya Elias, Athabasca University, Canada

Abstract
The paper identifies a set of universal instructional design (UID) principles appropriate to distance education (DE) and tailored to the needs of instructional designers and instructors teaching online.  These principles are then used to assess the accessibility level of a sample online course and the availability of options in its LMS platform (Moodle) to increase course accessibility.  Numerous accessibility-sensitive plug-in modules are found to be available to Moodle users, though relatively few features were included in the sample course analysed. This may be because they have not been made available to instructors at the institutional level.  The paper offers a series of recommendations to improve the accessibility of online DE to learners with diverse abilities, disabilities, and needs.

Full Text: Universal instructional design principles for Moodle | Elias | The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning.

Publications

The Blended & Virtual Learning Frontier Special Report

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BlendedLearningReport

A Research Report from the Centre for Digital Education and Converge.

These are inTeresTing Times in the education field, and a bit hectic for education leaders at all levels. The digital revolution has hit full force and a whole new education frontier is emerging.

It is important to remember, however, that the revolution in banking took under a decade. The ATM greatly improved convenience for users and significantly lowered costs for banks. I can’t even remember the last time I went to a field branch. Similarly, the peak of evolution in education with blended and online learning has been the fundamental restructuring of the delivery mechanism. It will continue to evolve into the future, like in other fields. Banking, for instance, is now personalized online in so many ways and there is even micro-banking and micro-lending.

The Center for Digital Education sees that schools everywhere are grappling with the rather vast new frontier of blended and virtual learning. As such, we wanted to start defining the territory. This Special Report describes the various terms in blended and virtual learning, and gives education leaders more than a few ideas of what their peers are already doing in this new frontier.

Download: Blended and Virtual Learning 101

Publications

Conflicted: Faculty and Online Education, 2012 White Paper

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Conflicted: Faculty and Online Education, 2012 White Paper | Sonic Foundry

Sonic Foundry sponsored Inside Higher Education and Babson Survey Research Group to conduct online learning surveys of faculty and academic technology administrators. The surveys garnered responses from representative samples of 4,564 faculty members and 591 administrators, from all types of institutions. For an in-depth view of what’s on the minds of these instructors and administrators regarding online education, download your copy of the study report today.

Full Text: Conflicted: Faculty and Online Education, 2012 White Paper | Sonic Foundry.

Publications

Student Insight Hot Topics – Portrait of a Transnational Education Student

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This report is the latest in a series of publications that reports on the responses given in in-depth on-line surveys and highly focused interviews, and presents a comprehensive analysis of the attitudes of present and prospective students, as well as administrators and alumni, towards the growing phenomenon of transnational education (TNE).

The report begins with an overview of the evolving TNE concept – which is ot as new as many believe – and clarifies what TNE encompasses: for many, TNE means simply ‘distance learning’, however this report introduces the idea of a much larger and more complex concept, and one that is demanding the attention of students, parents and higher education providers around the world. The current market situation is then explored and changing levels of student interest are given as supporting evidence of the developing nature of the TNE market.

The report then presents a series of indicators that highlight the similarities between students within the worldwide TNE community. These indicators cover interest in and experiences of both undergraduate and postgraduate TNE programmes. By analysing and presenting the feedback given by a wide range of respondents, from secondary-school graduates to employed professionals, this report is able to create a portrait of the TNE student that challenges both the narrower perception TNE and the more widely held understanding of the importance of institution branding and reputation.

The indicators assessed are broken into two main areas. The first presents the characteristics of a TNE student by compiling data on the age, employment status and subject interests of respondents, broken down by interest in TNE programmes offered locally and overseas. The second and largest section addresses the motivations and priorities of TNE students, covering the crucial factors of course availability and ease of admission, time commitment, the quality of teaching, mode of delivery and relevance of the qualification, the reputation of the institution, and the overall TNE student experience.

This comprehensive analysis presents useful insights drawn from a growing body of data and carefully sourced qualitative information on the experiences of TNE students today. The findings should be of value to any provider interested in learning more about its TNE demographic or keen to take advantage of the burgeoning TNE market, as well as any person interested in exploring an area of education that is becoming of interest to a broadening spectrum of prospective students.

Purchase: Student Insight Hot Topics – Portrait of a Transnational Education Student | Internationalising Higher Education.