The twenty-first century has seen the rapid emergence of wireless broadband and mobile communications devices which are inexorably changing the way people communicate, collaborate, create and transfer knowledge. Yet many higher education campus learning environments were designed and built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries prior to…

The latest developments of information and communication technologies (ICT) and its large penetration in different sectors of our society pose new challenges and demands in the field of education. This special issue entitled "Designing Nordic technology-enhanced learning (TEL)", presents and discusses how researchers in the Nordic…

Various studies have demonstrated an advantage of auditory over visual text modality when learning with texts and pictures. To explain this modality effect, two complementary assumptions are proposed by cognitive theories of multimedia learning: first, the visuospatial load hypothesis, which explains the modality effect in terms of visuospatial…

In this article, the authors explore the corpus of literature on creative thinking and applied creativity in higher education to help composition teacher-scholars and writing center practitioners improve the application of creativity in written, visual, and multimodal composing practices. From studies of creative thinking investigated across…

This study examined student preferences of learning environment in three separate learning modalities (traditional, online, and hybrid) in an English 102 course at three community colleges in central Arizona. The basis for the study revolved around the constructivist theory, which implies that students learn from their own experiences. The…

The theory of learning multimodality is receiving greater attention. Its application in language learning classes is also increasing in number. Since Chinese-speaking EFL learners are likely to be visual learners, as an instructor of Taiwanese EFL students, I have come to believe that arts integrated, multimodal projects help less confident and…

The importance of critical reflection in higher education highlights the importance of creating rich learning opportunities for students. Expressive arts (e.g., poetry, drama) ignites such opportunity drawing from more than students' logical-cognitive understandings to include students' creative, multi-modal and experiential capacities. This paper…

It is currently unknown whether statistical learning is supported by modality-general or modality-specific mechanisms. One issue within this debate concerns the independence of learning in one modality from learning in other modalities. In the present study, the authors examined the extent to which statistical learning across modalities is…

Over the past decade postsecondary education has been moving increasingly from the classroom to online. During the fall 2010 term 31 percent of U.S. college students took at least one online course. The primary reasons for the growth of e-learning in the nation's colleges and universities include the desire of those institutions to generate…

The use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education is now central to facilitating links between learners, resources and instructors. Regardless of whether it is used in distance education or "educational objects," ICT enables educators to package education opportunities in an increasing number of alternative ways so…

This mixed methods study examines 126 community college students enrolled in developmental reading courses at a mid-sized Southwestern community college. These students participated in a survey-based study regarding their reading experiences and practices, social influence upon those practices, reading sponsorship, and reading self-efficacy. The…

This article describes the thinking behind the development of "Scholar," a "social knowledge" technology developed as part of a series of research and development projects at the University of Illinois. Seven pedagogical openings are identified in this article, possibilities for the creation of innovative learning environments…

Recent initiatives in WAC/WID and CxC/CAC programs have emphasized the need to support multimodal composing in writing studies and in other academic disciplines. This ethnographic case study examines the academic multimodal composing practices of undergraduate students in the visually-based discipline of architecture. The results of this study…

The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in 19 preservice chemistry teachers' understandings of the structure of matter, including the aspects of the physical states of matter, the physical composition of matter, and the chemical composition of matter, before, immediately after, and months after they received a specific instruction.…

Technology resources such as podcasts allow users to connect to the World Wide Web to download audio files to listen to anytime and anywhere and are slowly being introduced in classrooms as an educational tool and as a resource in the e-learning environment. Past studies have examined the relationship between the use of technology as a teaching…