In good faith: benefits and challenges of a secular NGO working with Melanesian communities of faith

Christian belief across the Pacific region of Melanesia is almost universal. Resulting primarily from missionary activity that in many instances predated colonial interactions, Christian beliefs and institutions are tightly embedded in the political and social domains of these countries (Leach et al. 2013). Melanesian countries, such as the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, also experience constraints to economic development due to limited comparative advantage, poor terms of trade, small and dispersed populations, and geographical disconnectedness (both internal and external). As such, they are highly dependent upon foreign assistance (Feeny and McDonald 2015).

Wikis, blogs and podcasts - using Web2 technologies in teacher education

This paper presents a reflection on the infusion of Web2 technologies into a teacher education program. It explores issues surrounding the use of a range of Web2 technologies including wikis, blogs and podcasts. Web2 technologies are currently being taken up at amazing speed. This paper draws on the experience of using these new technologies in two units of a pre-service education course. As part of their assignment requirements pre-service education students were immersed in these new technologies as they grappled with issues to do with learning how to use these technologies as well as reflecting on how and why, or why not, they might they might use them in primary schools including the potential for democratic collaborative communities of learners. The opportunities the Web2 technologies afford educators as well as the consequences of such educational use of social technologies will be considered.

Trends in professional education programs for teachers

Increasingly, politicians, bureaucrats, the business community, members of our communities and even members of the teaching profession, are asking questions about professional preparation for teachers, questions like: What is the value of teacher education? What should beginning teachers know and be able to do? How can we make judgements about what they know and are able to do? How can teacher preparation contribute to the retention of high quality beginning teachers who continue to grow and learn?

In this paper, I examine these issues and examine how effective teacher preparation has attempted to respond to these issues, particularly in graduate teacher education programs. I argue that we need to be cognisant of the following aspects when developing and implementing high quality professional education of teachers:

• Connect teacher education to the first year of teaching;
• Prepare teachers who investigate their professional practice within communities of learners
• Prepare teachers with a strong professional knowledge base that helps them make informed professional judgments
• A cohort model that builds strong relationships and professional networks
• Early, regular and sustained school experiences that systematically build professional knowledge and skill. Closely monitored by suitably qualified university personnel and supervising teachers
• Professional standards for beginning teaching and a capstone teacher performance assessment

Through the looking glass : teaching and learning in blended immersive multiuser virtual and real world environments

This paper reports on the participation of higher education students and educators in blended immersive multi user virtual (MUVE) environments and real life teaching and learning experiences. Selected next generation technologies engage students and educators within the virtual socially networked elearning landscape of Deakin Arts Education Centre , and support the interaction of communities of learners in multiple modes, ranging from text and images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system to the "through the looking glass" virtual world in which the user’s creative imagination transports them to the “other side“ of their computer screens.

These constructed environments enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools, and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and participate in collaborative art learning.

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in mixed reality virtual and real world environments

Selected ubiquitous technologies encourage collaborative participation between higher education students and educators within a virtual socially networked e-learning landscape. Multiple modes of teaching and learning, ranging from real world experiences, to text and digital images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system and a constructed virtual world in which the user’s creative imagination transports them to the “other side” of their computer screens is discussed in this paper. These constructed environments support interaction between communities of learners and enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and engage in collaborative art learning. A narrative interpretative research approach was used to profile the 21st century higher education student learner, to investigate the lived experience and multiple art learning perspectives documented in student visual journal entries and art educator observations to ascertain if an e-technology rich augmented learning environment resulted in the establishment of more effective e-learning communities of practice.

Magával ragadó interfészek Art Education tanítás és tanulás vegyes valóság virtuális és valós környezetben

How selected next generation technologies support collaborative participation between higher education students and educators within a virtual socially networked e-learning landscape and encourage the interaction of communities of learners in multiple modes, ranging from text and images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system to a constructed virtual world in which the user’s creative imagination transports them to the “other side” of their computer screens is discussed in this paper. These constructed environments enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and engage in collaborative art learning.

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in virtual and real world learning environments

Immersive interfaces for art education teaching and learning in virtual and real world learning environments

Selected ubiquitous technologies encourage collaborative participation between higher education students and educators within a virtual socially networked e-learning landscape. Multiple modes of teaching and learning, ranging from real world experiences, to text and digital images accessed within the Deakin Studies Online learning management system and a constructed virtual world in which the user's creative imagination transports them to the “other side” of their computer screens is discussed in this paper. These constructed environments support interaction between communities of learners and enable multiple simultaneous participants to access graphically built 3D environments, interact with digital artifacts and various functional tools and represent themselves through avatars, to communicate with other participants and engage in collaborative art learning. A narrative interpretative research approach was used to profile the 21st century higher education student learner, to investigate the lived experience and multiple art learning perspectives documented in student visual journal entries and art educator observations to ascertain if an e-technology rich augmented learning environment resulted in the establishment of more effective e-learning communities of practice.

Learners and their workplaces: towards a strategic model of flexible delivery of training in the workplace

Although the flexible delivery of training in the workplace has become a favoured policy position for training authorities in both Britain and Australia, this article reviews research that indicates neither learners nor their workplaces are well prepared. Drawing on the author's own research and that from the broader literature, the article develops a model for the preparation of learners and workplaces for flexible delivery of training. Deriving from the proposed model, the article suggests a wide range of strategies that may be used in preparing learners and workplaces for successful engagement with the flexible delivery of training.

The effect of focus on form in the written work of adult learners of Arabic

One of the key debates within SLA research circles concerns grammar
- whether and hov to include it in second language (L2) instruction. 'Noninterventionist' approaches to language leaching, which centre on focus on meaning (FonM) , have been found to be neither economical nor expedient in terms of use of learners' classtime (Long & Robinson, 1998). This paper is a study of the effects oj direct grammatical instruction within a communicative context (Focus on Form - FonF) on the accuracy rate of the use of noun-adjective agreement in the written work of adult learners of Arabic. Learning the systems oj noun/adjective agreement in Arabic presents problems for beginners since. unlike languages such as English. Arabic needs to be modified for gender, number. definiteness and case. Through teaching material and methods, first-year university English speaking students of Arabic were directly exposed to morpho-syntactic inflections relevant to noun-adjective agreement. In post-tests over an extended period. instructed students showed a higher accuracy rate of some forms than their uninstructed colleagues. suggesting focusing on form is beneficial to the Arabic learner and does not need to interrupt the communicative flow in the classroom (Ellis et al. 2001).

Converged learning environment to support all learners

Universities face an uncertain future unless they significantly alter their teaching and learning approaches and become more client focused. They need to reach more and more students who do not fit the standard residential degree. This has meant that lecturers have had to facilitate learning for on-campus students on local and overseas campuses as well as for off-campus students based locally and globally. Given the context, flexibility has been recognised as a key idea making it imperative to explore innovative models for flexibility that bring together and accommodate and support all learner groups.

This paper describes a project to support students of an undergraduate Business Law unit via the development of such a converged learning environment. It attempts to draw together the different communities of students (on-campus and off-campus based locally and overseas) enrolled in that unit. In order to assist others interested in supporting flexible learning in a similar way, the paper shares details of formative evaluation and planned summative evaluation, together with reflections on lessons learned by the teaching academic and educational designer during its development process.

Interconnecting networks of practice for professional learning

The article explores the complementary connections between communities of practice and the ways in which individuals orchestrate their engagement with others to further their professional learning. It does so by reporting on part of a research project conducted in New Zealand on teachers’ online professional learning in a university graduate diploma program on ICT education. Evolving from social constructivist pedagogy for online professional development, the research describes how teachers create their own networks of practice as they blend online and offline interactions with fellow learners and workplace colleagues. Teachers’ perspectives of their professional learning activities challenge the way universities design formal online learning communities and highlight the potential for networked learning in the zones and intersections between professional practice and study.
The article extends the concepts of Lave and Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice social theory of learning by considering the role participants play in determining their engagement and connections in and across boundaries between online learning communities and professional practice. It provides insights into the applicability of connectivist concepts for developing online pedagogies to promote socially networked

Learning in social action : the informal and social learning dimensions of circumstantial and lifelong activists

This paper explores the informal and social learning dimensions of activists as they learn skills and knowledge through participating in social action. In doing this I draw on Lave and Wenger's epistemology of situated learning and Bourdieu's theory of "habitus". I argue activists learn an array of community development skills in the social environment of activism. I claim activists' learning is cognitive, embodied and situated in practice. This paper is based on empirical research in Australia, where in-depth interviews were conducted with activists to uncover their important pedagogy. It explores the learning dimensions of two groups of activists. "Lifelong activists" who have generally been involved in student politics and have participated in activism over many years, and "circumstantial activists" who become involved in protest due to a series of life circumstances. This paper claims that while both groups' learning is social and informal, lifelong activists tend to develop their skills incrementally by being involved in the fertile site of student politics. On the other hand, circumstantial activists, not having had the benefit of early immersion in a community of practice, are rapid learners. They are frequently taken out of their comfort zone as activists and need to acquire new knowledge and skills urgently in order to practise effectively. Some circumstantial activists remain on the periphery of activism and never fully immerse themselves in the practices of activism. I argue there is much to be gained from understanding learning in social action, an epistemology of adult learning which deserves greater prominence in current adult education discourse.

Analysis of psycholinguistic processes and topics in online autism communities

Current growth of individuals on the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) requires continuous support and care. With the popularity of social media, online communities of people affected by ASD emerge. This paper presents an analysis of these online communities through understanding aspects that differentiate such communities. In this paper, the aspects given are not expressed in terms of friendship, exchange of information, social support or recreation, but rather with regard to the topics and linguistic styles that people express in their on-line writing. Using data collected unobtrusively from LiveJournal, we analyze posts made by ten autism communities in conjunction with those made by a control group of standard communities. Significant differences have been found between autism and control communities when characterized by latent topics of discussion and psycholinguistic features. Latent topics are found to have greater predictive power than linguistic features when classifying blog posts as either autism or control community. This study suggests that data mining of online blogs has the potential to detect clinically meaningful data. It opens the door to possibilities including sentinel risk surveillance and harnessing the power in diverse large datasets.

Uncertainty and reluctance in teaching taboo language: a case study of an experienced teacher of English as an additional language

Despite its ubiquitous employment by users of English to achieve authentic communicative goals, taboo language has received little attention in the education literature. Even less focus has been placed on such language in English language teaching - specifically, in teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL). Given the multiplicity of communicative struggles experienced by EAL learners surrounding the use of taboo language in authentic communication, meaningful consideration of this aspect can be seen as crucial in EAL instruction. Classroom learning could prepare learners for navigation and negotiation of taboo language use they will inevitably encounter in social interactions in target language communities of practice. However, EAL teachers' uncertainty or reluctance to introduce taboo language in classroom instruction is a key impediment in developing learners' sociocultural knowledge regarding such language use. We foreground one case of such uncertainty and reluctance surrounding the introduction of taboo language in EAL instruction derived as interview data from an experienced EAL teacher.