New and newly widespread communications technologies make it possible for students to enjoy many of the benefits of an ethnographic field school with less commitment of money and time, thereby expanding access to a valuable cross-cultural research experience. This article reflects on the challenges, successes, limitations, and lessons learned from…

This book explores a variety of facets of online learning environments to understand how learning occurs and succeeds in digital contexts and what teaching strategies and technologies are most suited to this format. Business, health, government and education are some of the core sectors of society which have been experiencing deep transformations…

In the article it was important to consider two basic moments i.e., impact mode of using virtual environment at training process within one faculty of the University, directly at training quality and what outcomes can be reached therewith. The work significance consists of studying the virtual environment effect instead of traditional educational…

It has been argued that online instruction is distinctive from the conventional classroom. If an effective online practice is to emerge, the roles, characteristics and dispositions of the educators themselves should be studied more closely. The aim of this paper was to present an online educator dispositions model that addresses the underlying…

Following the trend of increased interest by students to take online courses and by institutions to offer them, scholars have taken many different approaches to understand what makes one student successful in online learning while another may fail. This study proposes that using the situational theory of publics will provide a better understanding…

Using Fuller's concerns-based model for teacher development, this study identifies concerns and strategies experienced by 103 online instructors in a six-week online professional development course offered multiple times over a three-year period. The study reveals that online instructors identified concerns related to self, task, and impact. In…

This paper is a study of the author's experiences taking a six-week, asynchronous, online, faculty development class for educators at the secondary and postsecondary levels. Using autoethnography methods, the author details her learning and the ways her experiences support adult learning theories. Implications of this research suggest that adult…

In this 2011 investigation, a modified Delphi technique was introduced to determine whether an informed group of post-secondary online faculty and students could arrive at a consensus regarding the importance of previously recognized verbal immediacy behaviors. Two expert panels were presented with Gorham's (1988) Verbal Immediacy Scale and tasked…

The research reported in this paper is part of an ongoing investigation into the design of a technology-enhanced learning environment that draws from approaches embodied in the situated learning theory. In this learning context, Second Life machinima (animated artefact filmed in a 3D virtual environment) is used as an anchor to mediate authentic…

In this article we present a partially realized project for building a distributed learning environment for studying digital circuits Test and Diagnostics at TU-Sofia. We describe the main requirements for this environment, substantiate the developer platform choice, and present our simulation and circuit parameter calculation tools.…

This study evaluated preservice teachers' professional-knowledge transformation while they participated in simulated professional-development activities via a "Second Life" virtual classroom--an Internet-based multiuser virtual environment (MUVE). While a cohort of preservice teachers experienced the MUVE environment, the instrumental exploratory…

The development of computer-mediated communication enables teaching and learning to take place across geographical boundaries. An online synchronous learning environment with cyber face-to-face features affords students the sense of learning together online. This study reports a novel design of organizing a 16-week seminar for doctoral students…

Surely "massive open online course" (MOOC) has one of the ugliest acronyms of recent years, lacking the deliberate playfulness of Yahoo (Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle) or the droll shoulder shrug suggested by the word "snafu" (Situation Normal, All Fouled Up). The author is not a complete neophyte to online…

Purpose: In the process of the implementation of the eBologna program and the recent change of the university system, curricula at German universities have been redesigned; courses have been condensed and learning content has been re-structured into modules, each of which requires an evaluation. Simultaneously, skills required for working in…

Online learning has been rapidly developing in the last decade. However, there is very little literature available about the actual adoption of online synchronous assessment approaches and any guidelines for effective assessment design and implementation. This paper aims at designing and evaluating the possibility of applying online synchronous…