In England, 'Virtual Schools' oversee and support the educational progress of children in care. This paper reports on the analysis of 16 interviews with Virtual School headteachers that were part of two mixed methods research projects on the educational progress of children in care. These interviews explored their role; the types of support they…

The right to education for all children, including asylum-seeking children, is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, there is little research available to describe the educational provision provided to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) in England. Crucially, it is not known whether the educational needs are…

Research into virtual worlds demonstrates that to successfully use virtual world platforms in different disciplines, certain limitations and potential difficulties of these platforms must be overcome. The current study extends previous research by investigating problems in integrating virtual worlds in education with a longitudinal observation of…

In the absence of federal homeschooling guidelines, states regulate homeschooling through a patchwork of provisions. Homeschooling policies vary widely from one state to the next and families' homeschooling experiences will likely be very different depending on where they live. For example, some states have little or no homeschooling…

As face-to-face interaction between student and instructor is not present in online learning environments, it is increasingly important to understand how to establish and maintain social presence in online learning. "Student-Teacher Interaction in Online Learning Environments" provides successful strategies and procedures for developing…

This paper discusses the results of a feedback study for a remote laboratory used in the education of control engineering students. The goal is to show the effectiveness of the remote laboratory on examination results. To provide an overview, the two applications of the remote laboratory are addressed: 1) the Stewart platform, and 2) the quadruple…

This case study used qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate challenges of learning and teaching research methods by examining graduate students' use of collaborative technology (i.e., digital tools that enable collaboration and information seeking such as software and social media) and students' computer self-efficacy. We conducted…

Interaction is critical for successful teaching and learning in a virtual learning environment (VLE). This paper presents a web-based interaction-aware VLE--WebIntera-classroom--which aims to augment learning interactions by increasing the learner-to-content and learner-to-instructor interactions. We design a ubiquitous interactive interface that…

An interactive learning module was developed and implemented in a social psychology course to teach concepts of the "self" via self-exploration and game play using "The SIMS[superscript 3]." Students volunteered to play the computer video game throughout a 5-week summer session as a supplement to reading the chapter in the…

This article presents exploratory research into an education-based virtual mentoring provision, the Virtual Professional Learning and Development (VPLD) program, and uses the Elements of Value Pyramid to help frame findings in a way that highlights the participants' (mentors' and mentees') perceived value of working together. Participants were…

With the rapid development of the Internet and the popularization of mobile devices, participating in a mobile community becomes a part of daily life. This study aims the influence impact of social interactions on mobile learning communities. With m-learning content recommendation services developed from mobile devices and mobile network…

Interactive Virtual Environments (VEs) have the potential to increase student interest in soil science. Accordingly a bespoke "soil atlas" was created using Java3D as an interactive 3D VE, to show soil information in the context of (and as affected by) the over-lying landscape. To display the below-ground soil characteristics, four sets…

The purpose of this paper is to introduce educators to three types of applets that are compatible with smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers: screencasting applets, graphing calculator applets, and student response applets. The applets discussed can be seamlessly and effectively integrated into classrooms to help facilitate lectures, collect…

Children with autism have heightened risk of developing oral health problems. Interventions targeting at-home oral hygiene habits may be the most effective means of improving oral hygiene outcomes in this population. This randomized control trial examined the effectiveness of a 3-week video-modeling brushing intervention delivered to patients over…

Student voice data is a key factor as Manchester Metropolitan University strives to continually improve institutional technology enhanced learning (TEL) infrastructure. A bi-annual Institutional Student Survey enables students to communicate their experience of learning, teaching and assessment on programmes and specific units studied. Each cycle…