This paper is a report of a cross-cultural online collaboration between two cohorts of pre-service teachers in Hong Kong, China and an American university in St. Paul, Minnesota. It explicates the pedagogical design and implementation of online tools for group collaboration and students' perceptions of the benefits and challenges. Multiple…

The paper reports on a collaborative project on fostering cross-cultural online discussion between two universities with one in Hong Kong and the other in Taiwan. Two online platforms--Moodle as a formal channel for course-related discussion and Facebook as an informal channel for social-oriented interaction--were employed. The study pays special…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a blended learning approach--involving the thesis, analysis, and synthesis key (TASK) procedural strategy; online Edmodo discussions; online message labels; and writing models--on student argumentative writing in a Hong Kong secondary school. It also examined whether the application of digital game…

This paper reports on a collective case study of three blended courses taught by different instructors in a higher education institution, with the purpose of identifying the different types of blend and how the blend supports student learning. Based on the instructors' and students' interviews, and document analysis of course outlines, two major…

A synchronous blend of online learning and "face-to-face" teaching is becoming a feasible instructional approach in higher education with the advent of technology. Although this learning mode is not new in higher education, little research has been done to contextualise social presence experiences in which effects of interactions were…

With the growing importance of interactive multimedia in our society, it is increasingly essential to equip students with knowledge of and skills in multimedia production. However, as the traditional lecture based instruction on this emerging subject area is not effective for students in achieving the expected learning outcomes, a seven stage game…

These proceedings contain the papers of the 12th International Conference on Mobile Learning 2016, which was organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society, in Vilamoura, Algarve, Portugal, April 9-11, 2016. The Mobile Learning 2016 Conference seeks to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of…

Research findings in recent years provide compelling evidence of the importance of encouraging student control over the learning process as a whole. The socially based tools and technologies of the Web 2.0 movement are capable of supporting informal conversation, reflexive dialogue and collaborative content generation, enabling access to a wide…

E-learning has become a significant aspect of training and education in the worldwide information economy as an attempt to create and facilitate a competent global work force. "Cases on Successful E-Learning Practices in the Developed and Developing World: Methods for the Global Information Economy" provides eclectic accounts of case…

In Hong Kong and Canada, indeed globally, slogans about learning to learn and teaching for 21st-century knowledge and skills are common. However, there are few examples of how teacher education courses or programs are responding to these new demands. In this paper, we propose a framework for designing teacher education premised on the theoretical…

User-centered design (UCD) is gaining popularity in both the educational and business sectors. This is due to the fact that UCD sheds light on the entire process of analyzing, planning, designing, developing, using, evaluating, and maintaining computer-based learning. "User-Centered Design of Online Learning Communities" explains how…

We describe the design of a knowledge-building environment and examine the role of knowledge-building portfolios in characterizing and scaffolding collaborative inquiry. Our goal is to examine collaborative knowledge building in the context of exploring the alignment of learning, collaboration, and assessment in computer forums. The key design…

These proceedings contain 75 papers from information sessions that address important human factors in distance education from several perspectives, including implementation planning, management and policy, instructional design, teaching methods, faculty development, learning environments, learner supports, and evaluation. Among the papers are:…