The widening participation agenda was instigated by a government seeking to develop skilled workers in the global economy, yet it has consistently refused to fund the burgeoning student population adequately. Managers and academics within the HE sector have to reconcile requirements for the implementation of policies with an increasing "audit"…

As graphically driven, animated, interactive applications offer educators new opportunities for shaping course content, new avenues for research arise as well. Along with these developments comes a need to study the effectiveness of the individual tools at our disposal as well as various methods for integrating those tools in a classroom setting.…

Engagement of the online learner is one approach to reduce attrition rates. Attrition rates for classes taught through distance education are 10-20% higher than classes taught in a face-to-face setting. This paper introduces a Model for Engagement and provides strategies to engage the online learner. The Model depicts various opportunities where…

This paper reports on research that has been carried out into the use, process, and effectiveness of an asynchronous online seminar within an undergraduate sports studies degree programme. Contemporary sources are used to justify the use of technology supported learning (TSL) in higher education and to inform a reflective and critical account of…

YouTube, Podcasting, Blogs, Wikis and RSS are buzz words currently associated with the term Web 2.0 and represent a shifting pedagogical paradigm for the use of a new set of tools within education. The implication here is a possible shift from the basic archetypical vehicles used for (e)learning today (lecture notes, printed material, PowerPoint,…

This article features Dallas Baptist University (DBU), a private, Christian, liberal arts institution located in the DFW Metroplex. With just over 5,200 students, DBU provides both traditional undergraduate, adult and graduate degrees with the enrollment almost equally divided between the three student groups. Today, DBU offers 34 degree programs…

The introduction of virtual learning environments (VLEs) has been regarded by some as a panacea for many of the problems in today's mass numbers modular higher education system. This paper demonstrates that VLEs can help or hinder student engagement and performance, and that they should be adapted to the different types of learner. A project is…

This article discusses a study of three Australian middle-years teachers who deployed Learning by Design principles and practice to support multiliteracies learning through students' production of digital/multimodal texts. The aim of the research was to develop an understanding of how three teachers embraced new e-learning pedagogical designs for…

In this paper we report on the successes and challenges of a creative project involving museums, schools and interactive technologies. The MuseumScouts project is EU Comenius 2.1 funded and involves teachers, teacher educators, museum staff, students and researchers from five European countries: Germany (Berlin and Munich), Lithuania (Vilnius),…

The answer to massification in higher education lies not in paper-behind-glass style e-learning. Such courses lack the necessary interaction to ensure success. There are perceived upper limits to where e-learning can be up scaled to accommodate large classes. The Community of Inquiry framework provides a convenient instrument to assess the quality…

Learning objects are interactive web-based tools that support the learning of specific concepts by enhancing, amplifying, and/or guiding the cognitive processes of learners. Research on the impact, effectiveness, and usefulness of learning objects is limited, partially because comprehensive, theoretically based, reliable, and valid evaluation…

When visualization tools utilized in computer programming education have been evaluated empirically, the results have remained controversial. To address this problem, we have developed a model of short-term effects of program animation, and used it in a series of experiments. In the current experiment, we varied visual representation of an…

This article is a review of the pedagogical experience obtained with systems for algorithmic animation. Algorithms consist of a sequence of operations whose effect on data structures can be visualized using a computer. Students learn algorithms by stepping the animation through the different individual operations, possibly reversing their effect.…

This article describes what interactive, group driven distance learning can be and what it can produce. It provides a solution to one of the primary concerns facing distance learning today, which is to find ways to increase the amount of student involvement and thus maintain student interest in what they are learning. The learning needs of today's…

This case study offers a strategic model of methods and services resulting in relatively high student success rates as defined by course completion of introductory first and second semester online courses. This strategic model is presented in the context of Sloan-C's "Five Pillars of Quality Online Education."