The Informatics program at Mercer University is offered at four regional academic centers located throughout the state of Georgia. We serve non-traditional students who have primary responsibilities such as caring for family, working, and participating in their communities. We aim to offer availability and access to all required courses, access to…

Describes an analysis of the possibilities open to the designer of class teaching materials based on the use of a microcomputer. Program design and use are related to the facilities the computer offers, aspects of teaching to which they contribute, and to the problems of making materials easy to use. (Author/CHC)

The growth of interest in all things knowledge management (KM) is exponential. Developments of products and ideas, fueled by a newly designated knowledge community, is happening at such speed that few seem to question the trends or the knowledge management systems finding favor in organizational life. A consideration of what is being presented as…

How can instructional designers create executive education, seminar style (non-credit) courses that are short (one to two hours) but still provide a meaningful learning experience for managers and executives in an organization? Engaging and motivating learners in short courses without traditional assessment formats or external motivators such as…

Standardization initiatives in the field of learning technologies have produced standards for the interoperability of learning environments and learning management systems. Learning resources based on these standards can be reused, recombined, and adapted to the user. However, these standards follow a content-oriented approach; the process of…

ADAPT[IT] (Advanced Design Approach for Personalized Training - Interactive Tools) is a European project within the Information Society Technologies program that is providing design methods and tools to guide a training designer according to the latest cognitive science and standardization principles. ADAPT[IT] addresses users in two significantly…

A person-centered model of instruction has been developed for use in designing instruction in virtual, Web-based environments. This model, based on the work of Carl Rogers, attempts to address several issues raised in the literature regarding: (1) the changing role of instructors and students; (2) the broadening of the notion of learning outcomes;…

Pedagogical research and empirical studies show that student learning is encouraged by a number of general characteristics displayed by teachers (Ramsden, 1992). One of them is enthusiasm for the subject and for teaching it. User-education in research libraries is often highly repetitive and contact time with students is limited. So the question…

The prior knowledge that a student brings into the lecture is one of the major factors influencing teaching effectiveness. It is therefore important that lecturers are able to ascertain the level of prior knowledge and adjust their teaching accordingly. This paper adopts an iterative learning model that seeks to enhance teaching effectiveness by…

As a new century approaches it is time to re-assess the foundations on which instructional design currently rests, as well as the "mode of thinking" that it promotes. Traditional theories regarding instructional design have largely been implicitly based on out-moded eighteenth century conceptions of the physical universe (a mechanistic world view)…

When a school community is making a major investment in technology, the major challenge is to ensure that the technologies are used to support innovative practices that are responsive to the community's changing needs and opportunities for teaching and learning. How can implementation of technology be integrally embedded in and supportive of…

The rapid growth of Web-based instruction has raised many questions about the quality of online courses. It appears that many online courses are simply modeled after traditional forms of instruction instead of incorporating a design that takes advantage of the unique capabilities of Web-based learning environments. This paper describes a research…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is often promoted in response to the current need to offer authentic and effective professional education. PBL is a curriculum development and instructional system that simultaneously develops both problem solving strategies and disciplinary knowledge bases and skills by placing students in the active role of problem…

There is a tendency to equate electronic learning or e-learning with distance learning. In fact, e-learning covers a broad spectrum, from learning which is primarily contact based to learning which is 100% distance. Thus, each course can be measured by the proportion of learning and teaching that is intended to be conducted electronically. The…

This paper provides a holistic approach to viewing the e-learning phenomenon from a theoretical perspective. It constructs a framework for e-learning development by drawing upon the literature for learning models. knowledge management and utilization of technology for electronic education. In so doing, it conceptualizes the continuous and…