While the use of Twitter for communication and assessment activities in online courses is not new, it has not been without its challenges. This is increasingly true of high enrolment courses. The use of a Twitter Evaluation application which leverages a Learning Management System's (LMS's) application programming interface (API) provides a…

The mission of Thompson Rivers University Open Learning (TRU-OL) can be understood in terms of three entities: the student, the faculty member and the curriculum content. Their conjuncture--when a TRU-OL student works with TRU-OL courseware and is supported by a TRU-OL faculty member--is where learning, assessment and, ultimately, credentialing…

Several years ago, the author's relocated their work as educators from middle and high school music classrooms to positions in teacher education at two Canadian universities. Recognizing that working in initial teacher education demanded a new level of theorizing their practices of music education, they questioned their professional knowledge,…

In delivering chemistry courses by distance, a key challenge is to offer the learner an authentic and meaningful laboratory experience that still provides the rigour required to continue on in science. To satisfy this need, two distance general chemistry laboratory courses appropriate for Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) students, including chemistry…

Within the current accountability context of education in the United States and Canada, there is a clear need to educate teachers on effectively using assessments to support, measure, and communicate student learning. Despite this need, assessment has historically been a neglected area in teacher education programs with comparatively little…

This paper offers an emerging interpretive framework for understanding the active role instructional designers play in the transformation of learning systems in higher education. A 3-year study of instructional designers in Canadian universities revealed how, through reflexive critical practice, designers are active, moral, political, and…

Online learning is expanding rapidly today in many Canadian universities. Fuelled by Canada's unprecedented broadband access, online teaching is creating new challenges for faculty and new responsibilities for educational developers. Although there is adequate literature with regard to faculty thinking about course planning in general, there are…

This year's E-Learn conference has numerous exciting presentations and keynotes. Many speakers will be discussing how education is changing in the forthcoming years. Among them are Dale Stephens who works with the social movement "Uncollege" that empower students to create their own education, Saul Carliner who talks about Massive Online…

Distance education, increasingly dubbed online learning and even e-learning, represents an important societal movement, as witnessed by the sudden emergence of a worldwide knowledge industry in which universities play a central role. Many universities, in implementing e-learning, have undertaken a process whereby faculty are being encouraged to…

Instructional development, a systematic way of applying standards of critical thought to the design of instructional materials and programs, is advocated for its potential contribution to consistency of instructional purposes and actions, adaptability, and internal accountability. Steps in the systematic method, the evaluation problem, and choice…

Discussion of instructional design and instructional development focuses on four studies conducted in Newfoundland that examined instructional development knowledge, competency, and use among teacher-librarians, secondary school teachers, and elementary school teachers. Results are reported that indicate teacher planning is done using personal…

The Workshop on Instructional Development was one of a number of workshops organized on various issues concerning teaching and learning in the Ontario universities. It was held in an attempt to provide some exchange of information among the Ontario universities on the organized activities initiated on their campuses concerned with improving…

While the improvement of authoring systems and the development of knowledge-based rather than frame-oriented computer assisted instruction (CAI) systems are useful, a significant part of the courseware development problem lies in the inability of teachers (subject matter experts) to prepare material that promotes effective, efficient learning.…

Focusing on the role of the educational developer, the 19 essays in this collection provide a forum for educational developer practitioners: (1) to share their practices and insights; (2) to explore what it means to be an educational developer and instructional designer, and to give some philosophical reflection of the role; and (3) to clarify the…

This paper discusses methods used to differentiate the presentation of mathematics to gifted students in Ontario, Canada. Activities are described that help students to develop structured inquiry, reinforce categorization skills, develop efficient study habits, and encourage probing and divergent questions. (JDD)