In recent years, Web technologies have helped expand distance education in higher education. Online programs have become widely and generally accepted in many countries. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the number of Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) offering distance education has increased by one-third since 1994-1995; and 44…

As the whole society is experiencing a notable shift from the industrial age to the information age, an urgent need for a mindset change in education has been frequently discussed during the past decades. This paper will approach the mindset change through three interconnected sections: the first section reviews the conceptualization of mindset…

Interaction is one of the key variables involved in successful online learning. Previous studies analyzing online interaction are limited in their ability to reveal dynamic aspects of interaction in online learning environments. The aim of this study is to develop and test the multi-level assessment framework for analyzing multi-facets of online…

This study was designed primarily to investigate the impact of anonymous peer feedback on student meaningful learning in higher education. Forty-seven students from three undergraduate classes from a central US university participated in this study. Students were asked to build a web-based project. In the experimental group, technology-mediated…

The use of electronic portfolios for authentic student assessment is growing rapidly (Batson, 2002). Creating portfolios electronically offers a number of benefits not available using traditional paper-based portfolios. Advantages include the portability from one application or institution to another, wider accessibility of the portfolio, and the…

This paper discusses how the authors' department curricula, classroom environments, and ultimately student learning might be improved by "high tech" assessment and evaluation techniques to find out "what people really care about." Collaborative technologies are used to gather and process the opinions of students, faculty, and…

Compared to conventional classroom settings, e-learning relies heavily on a student's reading ability. However, many students, particularly those at-risk or those who may have already dropped out of conventional schools, tend to have low reading ability that affects their ability to learn online. The problem is that relatively little has been done…

In the development of distance learning, advances in cognitive science merge with new technology to deliver instruction worldwide. However, one major difficulty in evaluating the efficacy of these tools is determining which elements of instruction truly lead to observed changes in student performance. As content, pedagogical methods, and media are…

The research team identified and tested six criteria that operationalize cultural responsiveness as a factor for evaluating school district Websites: cultural utility, representation of diverse cultures of target populations in graphics, percentage of website topics translated into Spanish, the content of topics translated, the level on which…