Online students : relationships between participation, demographics and academic performance

Using information technology to support teaching and learning is becoming ubiquitous in tertiary education. However, how students participate and perform when a major component of the learning experience is conducted via an online learning environment is still an open question. The objective of this study was to investigate whether any relationships existed between the participation, demographics and academic performance of students in an information technology course that was taught wholly online. Tracking data generated by the online learning environment was collected throughout the semester. Through a detailed analysis of this tracking data it was found that a relationship existed between students' participation in the online learning environment and their performance, as measured by final results in the course. Relationships also existed between gender, nationality, participation and performance. However, there was no relationship between age and performance and participation. These findings suggest that when designing online learning for a diverse population, student demographics should be taken into account to maximise the benefits of the learning experience. The results also suggest that the tracking data can be used as an early indicator of students who are likely to fail the course since lack of participation early in the semester is indicative of lower outcomes in the course. Being able to identify such students allows staff to take remedial action proactively rather than reactively in the latter part of the semester.

Virtual experts : who's online?

There will be between 30 and 80 million online students in the world by 2025. Globally, school systems are investing huge resources in the development of online education programs in order to meet this demand. Related implications for online teaching have been largely ignored despite evidence of the greatly increased workload for online teachers and widespread student dissatisfaction with online leaming experiences. Opportunities for improving the online experience for both leamers and teachers revolve around minimizing procedural inefficiencies in dealing with large numbers of individual students, as opposed to a single class, and of enhancing students' social and cognitive engagement with leaming. Intelligent software agents that can automate many routine online tasks and some aspects of leamer interaction have enormous potential to facilitate this. These agents that can act as a personal online coach, mentor or tutor to increase the individualisation of learning. The development of evidence-based agent personas is essential if agents are to fulfil specific educational roles. CUITently there is little progress being made in this area because of the lack of an agentrole model that can be used to implement specific educational personas in agents. In this paper we discuss key foundational elements of the nature and basis for implementing elements of educational expertise in software and how this could be used in developing agent persona models for specific educational roles and a model for implementing pedagogical constructs in intelligent educational software.

Accommodating culture and cultural diversity in online teaching

The term 'culture' has been in common use for a long time. However there is no universally accepted definition and hence it is important to define clearly what culture means in a particular research context. The research reported here is part of a project undertaken at a large Australian university in late 2005. The overall aim of the project was to identify the characteristics of culture and cultural diversity, and to consider how these manifested themselves when teaching and learning in an online environment. The article reports on particular outcomes from the second stage of the project. This involved conducting focus groups with experienced academics and educational developers of online units. The aim was to gain an understanding of culture and cultural difference in the online environment and to consider what strategies were effective in teaching a culturally diverse cohort of online students. The findings from the focus group sessions were benchmarked with other external faculty. The cultural factors of ethnicity and language, attitudes to educational learning, education and prior learning, learning styles and socio-economic background were well supported by the external faculty. However the factors of religion and gender were not supported. Practices for accommodating such cultural differences amongst students within the online class are presented.

From the Grassroot to the Tree Tops: How One Library has become Embedded in Online Learning

This presentation will show how a grassroots initiative has budded into the Florida International University (FIU) Libraries being an instrumental part of online learning. It will describe some of the marketing and outreach efforts that have been successful and share ideas on how to build alliances and networks with online faculty and students. Along with outreach efforts, the presentation will demonstrate some of the successful tools used to meet the needs of online students. Some of the these tools include becoming embedded in courses, building course and program specific Libguides, using Adobe Connect to reach students, creating simple YouTube videos, and creating more professional videos with FIU Online. The presentation will conclude with sharing some tips on how to keep the workload manageable when distance-learning programs are growing at the same time as library budgets and resources are shrinking.

How online learning in an engineering-physics course helped us flip the classroom

Distance education has developed in the past 25 years or so as a way of supplying education to people who would not have access to local college education facilities. This includes students who live in remote regions, students who lack mobility, and students with full-time jobs. More recently this has been renamed to "online learning". Deakin University in Australia has been teaching freshman engineering physics simultaneously to on-campus and online students since the late1990's. The course is part of an online Bachelor of Engineering major that is accredited by the Institution of Engineers Australia.* In this way Deakin answers the call to provide engineering education "anywhere, anytime."**The course has developed and improved with the available educational technology. Starting with printed study guides, a textbook, CD-ROMS, and snail-mail, and telephone/email correspondence with students, the course has seen the rise of websites, online course notes, discussion boards, streamed video lectures, web-conferencing classes and lab sessions, and online submission of student work. Most recently the on-campus version of the course has shifted from a traditional lecture/tutorial/lab format to a flipped-classroom format. The use of lectures has been reduced while the use of tutorials and practical exercises has increased. Primary learning is now accomplished by watching videos prepared by the lecturer and studying the textbook.Offering this course for several years by distance education made this process considerably easier. Most of the educational "infrastructure" was already in place, and the course's delivery to a non-classroom cohort was already established. Thus many elements of the new structure did not have to be produced from scratch. Improvements to the course website and all the course material has benefited all students, both online and on-campus.The new course structure was delivered for the first time in 2014, has run for two semesters, and will continue in 2015. Student learning and performance is being measured by assignment and exam marks for both on-campus and off-campus students. Students are also surveyed to gauge how well they received the new innovations, especially the video presentations on the lab experiments. It was found that student performance in the new structure was no worse than that in the older structure (average on-campus grades increased 10%), and students in general welcomed the changes. Similar transitions are being implemented in other courses in Deakin's engineering degree program.This presentation will show how physics is taught to online students, outline the changes made to support flipping the on-campus classroom, and how that process benefited the off-campus cohort.

Freshman residential schools for undergraduate on-campus and on-line engineering students

By means of evidence-based practice, this paper describes the residential-school component of an accredited online (distance education) undergraduate engineering program in Australia, with a particular focus on how the residential school program is implemented at freshman year. During these residential schools, activities were organised around the respective engineering courses undertaken by students during the semester. Elements considered suitable and worthwhile for inclusion in residential-school programs included: • In-person engagement with academic lecturers, • Practical and laboratory learning activities, • Presentations and interaction with guest speakers from industry, • Industry-based site visits, • Engagement in sole and group-based learning and assessment activities on campus, and • Social interaction with other students. After running pilot residential schools for two years, it was found that a workable format consisted in a two-week residential experience in the first semester, linked to two key freshman courses, Fundamentals of Technology Management, and Engineering Physics. On-campus and online students’ academic grades were compared for both courses over the years 2005 to 2012. We found that for physics lab, on-campus students’ grades tended to be higher than those for online students, and vice versa for technology management. We also conclude that when carefully designed, residential schools for online students do enhance learning for both online students and their on-campus counterparts.

Tools for enhancing oral proficiency and cultural understanding in teaching Arabic online to non-native speakers

One of the main challenges learners of Arabic as a foreign language face in Australia is the lack of opportunities to practice the language with native speakers of Arabic outside the classroom boundaries to enhance their language skills in general and their oral proficiency in particular. Learners have so little exposure to Arabic outside the classroom. This restriction in L2 exposure in the formal academic framework is due to the limited face-to-face learning time and, more significantly, is compounded by lack of exposure to the language’s authentic use settings. Students are often isolated from the target language’s authentic discourse communities and native speakers. This situation is exacerbated for Cloud (online) students studying in relative isolation. All of these factors make developing communicative oral fluency in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) more difficult and challenging for many learners, particularly for Cloud learners. Deakin University is the only university in Australia that offers Arabic in both Campus and Cloud modes of delivery. This paper discusses an innovative approach used at Deakin University to enable online learners of Arabic to practice their developing skills by listening, practicing, and experiencing directly how the language is used outside the classroom boundaries. In addition to providing Cloud learners with an Arabic online environment rich with interactive opportunities to practice the language, it was also necessary to provide the learners with tools such as the virtual classrooms, chat rooms, discussion forums and social media language partner programs, to practice their oral fluency and enrich their learning experience.

Social networks applied to training

In this article, we address the importance and relevance that social networks exhibit in their use as an educational resource.  This relevance relies in the possibility of implementing new learning resources or increasing the level of the participant's connectivity, as well as developing learning communities.  Also, the risk entailed from their use is discussed, especially for the students that have a low technological education or those having excessive confidence on the media.  It is important to highlight that the educational use of social networks is not a simple extension or translation of the student's habitual, recreational use, but that it implies an important change in the roles given to teachers as well as learners; from accommodative learning environments that only encourage memorization to other environments that demand an active, reflective, collaborative and proactive attitude, that require the development/acquisition of technological as well as social abilities, aptitudes and values.  It is also important to highlight that a correct implementation and adequate use will not only foment formal learning, but also informal and non-formal learning.

Virtual Office Hours Using Blackboard Collaborate

Virtual Office Hours are a possibility that any professor can take advantage of using Blackboard Collaborate. Why not cater to your online students by allowing them to have live chats with you as if you were face to face during regular office hours? Come learn about this innovative way to use Blackboard Collaborate with your students.

The effects of facilitation on punctuated equilibrium in e-collaboration projects

Information technology has transformed the “heartland” of education around the world. Classrooms are global, students international, but traditional methods and their adjacent challenges persist or are exacerbated in online schoolhouses. There is reason to believe that team performance of online students completing team projects can be significantly improved by the active participation of a facilitator. What could explain such improvement? Given the communication barriers that learners can experience using e-learning technologies, the skill of a teacher at facilitating an understanding of e-collaboration and the prescient need to facilitate collaborative skills at all times is essential to a successful educational result. There may also be generational learning style issues to consider. One practical, proven tool is progress reporting. This paper reviews the literature and reflects on author experiences in the online education of Management students at universities in the United States and Australia to draw theoretical connections with communication, leadership, and punctuated equilibrium relevant to contemporary educational practice. The implications of effective facilitation of student teams for Management education and management of student performance are explored.

Protecting Your Search Privacy: A Lesson Plan

Each year search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, complete trillions of search queries online. Students are especially dependent on these search tools because of their popularity, convenience and accessibility. However, what students are unaware of, by choice or naiveté is the amount of personal information that is collected during each search session, how that data is used and who is interested in their online behavior profile. Privacy policies are frequently updated in favor of the search companies but are lengthy and often are perused briefly or ignored entirely with little thought about how personal web habits are being exploited for analytics and marketing. As an Information Literacy instructor, and a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, I believe in the importance of educating college students and web users in general that they have a right to privacy online. Class discussions on the topic of web privacy have yielded an interesting perspective on internet search usage. Students are unaware of how their online behavior is recorded and have consistently expressed their hesitancy to use tools that disguise or delete their IP address because of the stigma that it may imply they have something to hide or are engaging in illegal activity. Additionally, students fear they will have to surrender the convenience of uber connectivity in their applications to maintain their privacy. The purpose of this lightning presentation is to provide educators with a lesson plan highlighting and simplifying the privacy terms for the three major search engines, Google, Bing and Yahoo. This presentation focuses on what data these search engines collect about users, how that data is used and alternative search solutions, like DuckDuckGo, for increased privacy. Students will directly benefit from this lesson because informed internet users can protect their data, feel safer online and become more effective web searchers.

Internet use, exposure to Internet pornography, and sexual behavior among middle school youth

The purpose of this study is to examine associations between adolescents’ Internet use, exposure to pornography online, and sexual behavior. This cross-sectional study examines data collected from an HIV, sexually transmitted infection, and pregnancy prevention program being evaluated in inner-city middle schools. Chi-squares were used to examine differences in Internet use and exposure to Internet pornography by gender, race/ethnicity, and sexual behavior. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to examine associations between Internet use, exposure to Internet pornography, and sexual behavior. Ninety-four percent of students have used the Internet. Sixty-two percent of students had accidentally seen pornography on the Internet and 35% had purposefully viewed pornography online. Students who experienced sexual solicitation and who purposefully viewed pornography online were more likely to report lifetime and current sexual behavior. Additional research is needed to understand the impact of Internet use and exposure to Internet pornography on adolescents’ sexual behavior.^

Innovation in language education: enriching Arabic language learner experiences and proficiency in 2D and 3D environments.

Abstract:-Global language and cultural communicative competency is an ever increasing requirement in our connected world. Learners of Arabic at the only five Australian universities where Arabic is taught have access to predominantly on-campus delivery modes. One of the main challenges learners face when learning another language (L2) in an academic setting in countries where that language is not actively used – so little L2 exposure – is that it is harder to provide meaningful contexts for learning. This restriction in L2 exposure in the formal academic framework is due to the limited face-to-face learning time and, more significantly, is compounded by lack of exposure to the language‟s authentic use settings. Students are often isolated from the target language‟s authentic discourse communities and native speakers. This situation is exacerbated for Cloud (online) students, studying in relative isolation. All of these factors make developing communicative oral fluency in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) moredifficult and challenging for many learners. This paper will discuss two innovative approaches used at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia to enable learners of Arabic at Deakin University to practice their developing skills by listening, practising, and experiencing directly how the language is used outside the classroom boundaries as well as allow learners to develop their oral and cultural communicative competency by engaging them in simulating and evolving authentic language scenarios with native Arabic speakers through the Virtual World (VW).