Online distance education models and research implications

As a form of education, distance education is influenced by educationaltheories and ideologies. Hence, over time its various theoretical modelshave reflected varying emphases on students, both individually and ingroups, on content and process, and on administration and costs, and itsguiding philosophies have ranged from knowledge replication to knowledge creation, and from teacher direction to learner engagement. Its founding purpose was the provision of education to populations who were not able to access available residential education. The reasons were not only based on the individual situation, such as, geographic location, family commitments,work commitments, or cost factors, but also included state issues such as insufficient institutions or a lack of enrolment places, full-time funding, or sufficient staff. These factors have contributed in various ways to the growth of distance education, both historically as when distance education was a major focus in many European countries after WWII, and as a current imperative in many countries where the need and desire for education outstrips the supply through residential institutions, regardless of their fiscal capacities. Education is seen by both individuals and states as essential for the development of a better socio-economic environment, hence, distance education has become the cost-affordable means of provision for millions worldwide.Distance education, then, is framed within larger socio-economic andpolitical contexts. These are not only reflective of societal characteristics like those identified by Keegan (2000): immediacy, globalization, privatization, and industrialization, to which we added professional learning, but also reflective of current social, political, and economic circumstances, such as the sequence of global economic crises this century.Within these contexts then, the provision of distance education seldomarises from the desire of an institution alone; rather there are likely to becomplex national, local, and individual aspirations where distance education is seen as the best solution. The realization of this provision depends on the issues being addressed and the various influences on the particular configuration of design and provision. It may be publicly or privately funded; it may seek to emulate or extend educational provision in residential institutions; its focus may be on increasing access or openness or convenience.Models or designs for distance education, then, have generally arisen from consideration of these instances, in part to provide a framework for researchers and in part to provide a means to reflect on issues that the models themselves have tried to resolve and sometimes inadvertently create.

An internet-supported physical activity intervention delivered in secondary schools located in low socio-economic status communities : study protocol for the activity and motivation in physical education (AMPED) cluster randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: School-based physical education is an important public health initiative as it has the potential to provide students with regular opportunities to participate in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Unfortunately, in many physical education lessons students do not engage in sufficient MVPA to achieve health benefits. In this trial we will test the efficacy of a teacher professional development intervention, delivered partially via the Internet, on secondary school students' MVPA during physical education lessons. Teaching strategies covered in this training are designed to (i) maximize opportunities for students to be physically active during lessons and (ii) enhance students' autonomous motivation towards physical activity. METHOD: A two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial with allocation at the school level (intervention vs. usual care control). Teachers and Year 8 students in government-funded secondary schools in low socio-economic areas of the Western Sydney region of Australia will be eligible to participate. During the main portion of the intervention (6 months), teachers will participate in two workshops and complete two implementation tasks at their school. Implementation tasks will involve video-based self-reflection via the project's Web 2.0 platform and an individualized feedback meeting with a project mentor. Each intervention school will also complete two group peer-mentoring sessions at their school (one per term) in which they will discuss implementation with members of their school physical education staff. In the booster period (3 months), teachers will complete a half-day workshop at their school, plus one online implementation task, and a group mentoring session at their school. Throughout the entire intervention period (main intervention plus booster period), teachers will have access to online resources. Data collection will include baseline, post-intervention (7-8 months after baseline) and maintenance phase (14-15 months after baseline) assessments. Research assistants blinded to group allocation will collect all data. The primary outcome will be the proportion of physical education lesson time that students spend in MVPA. Secondary outcomes will include leisure-time physical activity, subjective well-being, and motivation towards physical activity.
DISCUSSION: The provision of an online training platform for teachers could help facilitate more widespread dissemination of evidence-based interventions compared with programs that rely exclusively on face-to-face training.

The representation of engineering education as a social media topic on Twitter

Online social media systems have created new ways for individuals to communicate, share information and interact with a wide audience. For organisations, social media provide new avenues for communication and collaboration with their stakeholders. The potential value of social media tools to assist in the successful communication and marketing inside and outside of engineering organisations has been identified. In the context of engineering education, the potential of social media to open new modes of communication, interaction and experimentation between students and teachers has also been identified, and a limited number of examples can be found documented in the literature. One of the most widely-used social media tools is the ‘microblogging’ service Twitter. This research presents an analysis of nearly 19,000 tweets relating to ‘engineering education’ collected over a period of almost a year. Social network analysis is used to visualise the Twitter data. The Twitter social media communication is examined to identify who is active on this topic, who is influential, and what is the structure of the online conversations relating to engineering education. This work provides insights regarding how engineering education is currently represented in social media internationally, and offers a methodology to those interested in related future research.

Complexities of active learning implementation in higher education in Aceh: beliefs and cultures

 This research explores the discourses embedded in the beliefs the teacher educators hold and practices of active learning in higher education in Aceh, Indonesia

Young people, online gaming culture, and education

The capacity of video games to engage and challenge players through increasingly complex and demanding stages and the range of cognitive, linguistic, and sociocultural practices generated by games and game play have led to increased interest in the use and study of video games in schools. Views of digital games as “hard fun” or “serious play” have important implications for education, problematizing assumptions about what students can and might be asked to do, about teaching and learning, and about the ways in which curriculum is resourced and organized. To fully capitalize on games’ potential to enrich learning, the nature of play, the kinds of play entailed in playing games of varying genres, the experience of game play in and out of school, and the relationship between them all need to be carefully considered and explored.

Adopting an active learning approach to teaching in a research-intensive higher education context transformed staff teaching attitudes and behaviours

The conventional lecture has significant limitations in the higher education context, often leading to a passive learning experience for students. This paper reports a process of transforming teaching and learning with active learning strategies in a research-intensive educational context across a faculty of 45 academic staff and more than 1000 students. A phased approach was used, involving nine staff in a pilot phase during which a common vision and principles were developed. In short, our approach was to mandate a move away from didactic lectures to classes that involved students interacting with content, with each other and with instructors in order to attain domain-specific learning outcomes and generic skills. After refinement, an implementation phase commenced within all first-year subjects, involving 12 staff including three from the pilot group. The staff use of active learning methods in classes increased by sixfold and sevenfold in the pilot and implementation phases, respectively. An analysis of implementation phase exam questions indicated that staff increased their use of questions addressing higher order cognitive skills by 51%. Results of a staff survey indicated that this change in practice was caused by the involvement of staff in the active learning approach. Fifty-six percent of staff respondents indicated that they had maintained constructive alignment as they introduced active learning. After the pilot, only three out of nine staff agreed that they understood what makes for an effective active learning exercise. This rose to seven out of nine staff at the completion of the implementation phase. The development of a common approach with explicit vision and principles and the evaluation and refinement of active learning were effective elements of our transformational change management strategy. Future efforts will focus on ensuring that all staff have the time, skills and pedagogical understanding required to embed constructively aligned active learning within the approach.

Enhancing the learning environment for distance education students

This paper reports on the development of an asynchronous learning  environment for the teaching of introductory macroeconomics to    approximately 200 distance education students. The research supports evidence in the current literature that computer mediated communication and in particular, collaborative learning, can make a positive difference to the educational experience of some students. These findings are based on both quantitative and qualitative data gained from student evaluations,  participation levels, staff interviews and an analysis of the online communication. The discussion centres on the extent of collaboration, the role of assessment, adaptation of curriculum and pedagogy and the students' attitudes to economics.

Organizational factors in the diffusion of an industry standard: implementing an online documentation system for Australian exporters

At present, governments in many countries are actively engaged in the development of electronic trading and certification standards to enable the smooth operation of export markets. Standards and their usability underpin confidence in the operations of markets and their effective functioning. In institutional markets, an important role for government agencies lies in developing the initial specifications for standards for interoperable systems. Once these specifications are accepted, governments can then facilitate the eventual diffusion of a standard to the B2B marketplace. Acceptance of an industry standard can determine demand, which defines the viability of that market. In this paper, we describe an initiative by a government agency, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS), in developing EXDOC, a standard for export documentation and the role that AQIS played in its implementation and diffusion. Our case study illustrates a successfully facilitated B2G implementation. It demonstrates how a standard can be supported and promulgated for the effective functioning of markets in the transition from manual to online export documentation. Once the overarching specifications for related industries have been established and diffused by government, opportunities arise for private sector markets to develop across these industries. Government agencies can promote the effective operation of standards for electronic markets. The EXDOC implementation and its iterations provide an exemplar of active engagement in the development of electronic trading and certification standards for an institutional market. Its successful diffusion provides a model of the implementation process for other export sectors and agencies.

Longitudinal study of computer usage in flexible engineering education

A longitudinal analysis of computer usage by commencing students in Deakin University's undergraduate engineering and technology programs over the period 1998 to 2001 revealed that; access to computers was at high levels; mean computer usage for off campus students had not changed significantly, but had risen significantly for on campus students; while access to the Internet / WWW had not increased significantly, reported regular use of the Internet / WWW had risen significantly; while most students continued to report their source of Internet / WWW access as either home or university, the proportion reporting home as their source of access had risen significantly; and the reported regular use of email rose significantly. Other results are also presented.

These results imply that commencing engineering and technology students are well placed to adopt online delivery and support of teaching and learning. However, while it might now be reasonable to assume that all students have access to computers and the Internet, the experiences of on campus students in computer laboratories with broadband network access will be different from off campus students accessing the Internet via a dialup modem connection. A small proportion of commencing students were unaware of the computing facilities provided by the university; an orientation program covering computing facilities and services would benefit all commencing students.

The evolution of online teaching and learning in engineering at Deakin University

This paper presents a brief history of the use of online technologies in the support of teaching and learning in the School of Engineering and Technology at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. It addresses the following topics: flexible engineering programs at Deakin University; computer-based learning in the School of Engineering and Technology; progression from individual efforts to formal, centralized control of the World Wide Web (Web); the costs of information technology; experiences with grant funded development projects; managing the development of online material; student access and equity; and staff development and cultural change. A sustainable online content development model is proposed to carry the School’s online initiatives in support of teaching and learning activities into the future.

Globalisation and the restructuring of higher education for new knowledge economies: new dangers or old habits troubling gender equity work in universities?

This article undertakes a feminist critique of the restructuring of the modern university in Australia. It considers the interaction of the processes of globalisation, corporatisation (through the twin strategies of marketisation and managerialism) and the social relations of gender, and their implication for gender equity work in the academy. The paper locates the reform of Australian universities within their Western context, and considers the gendered effects of the new disciplinary technologies of quality assurance and online learning on the position of women academics. It concludes with some comments about the shift in language from equity to diversity which has accompanied corporatisation, and how this has effectively coopted women's intellectual labour to do the work of the entrepreneurial university.

A problem-based approach to clinical education in dietetics

Developing the clinical skills and knowledge of dietetic students provides a challenge for both universities and health care agencies. Deakin University has recently adopted a group learning model using problem-based learning to deliver the clinical component of the Master of Nutrition and Dietetics course. This approach was designed to enhance integration of clinical theory and practice, develop closer links between on-campus and off-campus learning environments and provide students with more active learning experiences. The impact of the new approach was evaluated using student questionnaires, academic and competency outcomes, and a focus group convened with hospital supervisors. The evaluation indicated that students generally thought that this method of learning had helped to integrate their basic knowledge with dietetic case management. There was no difference in academic scores from the previous year and an apparent reduction in the number of students requiring additional placement time to mee t competency standards. Hospital supervisors were supportive of the changes, although they had some reservations regarding the time and structure of clinical placements. As a result of this evaluation, recommendations for future development of the program include introducing problem-based learning to students earlier in their course, providing additional placement days during the block and increasing the amount of time dedicated to more complex topics. Based on the evaluation results obtained, this collaborative learning using a problem-based approach will continue to be used in the clinical education program at Deakin University.

Enhancing quality in online learning : scaffolding planning and design through proactive evaluation

A major issue confronting educators is the extent to which they wish to conform to so-called paradigm shifts in teaching and learning. In the contemporary world of tertiary education these shifts embrace both pedagogy (from instructivist to constructivist) and technology (from classroom to online). As teachers and learners are faced with the potential of these new learning environments, the extent to which learning outcomes are achieved remains a high priority and subject to a wide range of evaluation strategies. Conventionally, evaluation has been positioned at the end of the instructional development cycle, to assess first whether or not the creative effort achieved the original product goals and second whether or not the desired learning outcomes were realized. In the context of online teaching and learning environments, however, the level of understanding teachers, learners and developers have of the medium can impact the ultimate effectiveness of the product. This paper articulates an additional dimension to post-development evaluation processes in proposing proactive evaluation, a framework that identifies critical online learning factors and influences that will better inform the planning, design and development of learning resources. This notion of proactive evaluation advocates resource development being undertaken where all planning activities are assessed against the evaluation criteria that would normally be applied during formative assessment. By performing these evaluation checks proactively, online learning resources will, in principle, work first time as all relevant factors and issues will have been considered and resolved. More importantly, for those participants who are new to online environments, proactive evaluation will perform a scaffolding and professional development role by enhancing online teaching or learning competencies.

Social presence online: networking learners at a distance

This paper draws on two studies which researched the use of online small group environments where collaborative learning is a central structure for learning. The establishment of social presence is facilitated through the socio-affective aspect of small group interaction which contributed to the effectiveness of learning online. Social presence, the ability of online learners to project themselves into a textual environment which has few visual or contextual cues, will be explored as an important element in facilitating effective online learning. The teacher's role in helping students project their online social presence and in establishing an environment for learning within the larger group computer conference will also be discussed.

Teaching organisational theory in undergraduate management programmes: an exercise in facilitated theory testing for active experimentation

This paper argues that there is an opportunity to improve the way that social science theory is taught by introducing an exercise in facilitated theory testing through active experimentation. This paper describes a learning experience that enables students to discover the dynamic nature of theoretical discoveries. This idea is grounded in the notion that students will gain much from learning about and testing theory experientially using real world data. A data based exercise is outlined and illustrated to reveal a learning experience that provides an opportunity to improve the way social science is taught by linking theory to empirical data. We argue that this provides an opportunity to offer a more holistic learning experience for theory teaching. The paper will be of special interest to those teaching theory in management, commerce, business and organisational studies courses. It will also be of interest to a more general audience because it provides a framework that can be modified whenever forging a connection between theory and 'the real world' is a primary learning objective.