Mobile devices are ubiquitous, but their potential for adaptive educational interventions remains largely untapped. We identify three key promises of mobile interventions for educational research and practice: 1) intervening when it is most beneficial (i.e., "just-in-time adaptivity"), 2) estimating causal effects of interventions in…

Connecting with text-weary students can be a challenge in the online instructional environment. Librarians have often developed screencast videos and integrated screenshots into online learning objects to teach students basic research skills. An alternative technology, graphical interchange format (GIF), may prove to be an excellent blend of the…

This paper builds on Grossman's notion of approximations of practice as scaled-down opportunities for preservice teachers to learn to teach by doing. The authors propose the use of media rich, collaborative web-authoring tools for preservice teachers to create, complete, or edit scenarios in which they practice particular activities of teaching,…

Canada does not have enough nurses with doctoral degrees. Such nurses fill important roles as researchers, educators, leaders, and clinicians. While a growing number of Canadian universities offer doctorate degrees in nursing, most institutions have only traditional on-campus programs, posing barriers for nurses who reside in places geographically…

Since the mid-20th century, instructional technologies and educational media in social work education have undergone significant development with the goals of improving learning and performance and enhancing access. This growth has been marked by technical advances in hardware and by innovations in media, or so-called soft formats. Current…

This paper is a mathematical (Boolean) analysis a set of cognitive maps called Thinking Maps[R], based on Albert Upton's semantic principles developed in his seminal works, Design for Thinking (1961) and Creative Analysis (1961). Albert Upton can be seen as a brilliant thinker who was before his time or after his time depending on the future of…

Desktop virtual reality is an emerging educational technology that offers many potential benefits for learners in online learning contexts; however, a limited body of research is available that connects current multimedia learning techniques with these new forms of media. Because most formal online learning is delivered using learning management…

Adaptation to customer needs is a key component of competitiveness in any service industry. In online HE (higher education), which is increasingly worldwide, this adaptation must include consideration of learning styles. Most research shows that learning style has little impact on learning outcomes in online education. Nevertheless, students with…

E-learning is an educational approach that combines different types of multimedia technologies to ensure better education experiences for students and teachers. Today, it is a popular approach among especially teachers and educators. In this sense, this paper describes a web based e-learning system that was designed and developed to be used in the…

In a recent meta-analysis of distance and online learning, Bernard et al. (2009) quantitatively verified the importance of three types of interaction: among students, between the instructor and students, and between students and course content. In this paper we explore these findings further, discuss methodological issues in research and suggest…

This study investigated the use of multimedia materials to enhance student learning in a large, introductory biology course. Two sections of this course were taught by the same instructor in the same semester. In one section, video podcasts or "vodcasts" were created which combined custom animation and video segments with music and…

The power of a web-based forensic science game to teach content and motivate STEM careers was tested among secondary students. More than 700 secondary school students were exposed to one of the three web-based forensic cases for approximately 60 min. Gain scores from pre-test to a delayed post-test indicated significant gains in content knowledge.…

The introduction of new online technologies in Higher Education brings many challenges for staff, not only in learning new functionality, but in deciding how to use tools in pedagogically effective ways. This case study describes an initiative at the Open University (UK), which set out to provide professional development in the use of an online…

Multidisciplinary courses are being developed at a number of US colleges and universities to highlight the connections between the rise or fall of world civilizations and the sustainable or unsustainable uses of soil and water resources. The content presented in these courses is complex because it includes concepts from disciplines as varied as…

This work explores the feasibility of proposing universal design guidelines for E-training modules considering aging differences as an important factor. A controlled experiment was designed and conducted to evaluate the effects of module design characteristics on information recall, satisfaction, disorientation, and task workload, and the…