This study reports on a teacher's ongoing design activities in a fully online language course when the class was in progress. The aims were, firstly, to provide first-hand experience and insight into a teacher's design work in a real-life, technology-enhanced learning (TEL) classroom; and secondly, to facilitate reflective analysis of the emerging…

A learning design describes a sequence of learning activities that learners undertake in order to help them achieve particular learning objectives, including the resources and services needed to complete the activities. Unfortunately, there is no learning design language which can be used by teachers to describe pedagogical strategies explicitly…

The use of the Web to deliver open, distance, and flexible learning has opened up the potential for social interaction and adaptive learning, but the usability, expressivity, and interoperability of the available tools leave much to be desired. This article explores these issues as they relate to teachers and learning designers through the case of…

Distance and blended collaborative learning settings are usually characterized by different "social structures" defined in terms of groups' number, dimension, and composition; these structures are variable and can change within the same activity. This variability poses additional complexity to instructional designers, when they are…

Technology-assisted learning systems are being developed at ever increasing rates, and the labels applied to such systems are growing with them. For example, not only do we have e-learning, but we also have hybrid learning, online learning, and mobile learning (m-learning), to mention only a few. Considering that technology is being incorporated…

Student retention rates are a constant concern in higher education, but this concern has become especially challenging as online courses become more common and there are widespread reports of low completion rates for online, self-study courses. We evaluated four self-study online pharmacy courses with a history of very high completion rates for…

Group social structure provides a comfortable and predictable context for interaction in learning environments. Students in face-to-face learning environments process social information about others in order to assess traits, predict behaviors, and determine qualifications for assuming particular responsibilities within a group. In online learning…

The Open University of Indonesia (Universitas Terbuka, UT) has over 450,000 students distributed across a vast, diverse archipelago. UT will play a central role in meeting the requirement that over 1 million primary teachers earn four-year postsecondary degrees by 2015. While the Open University has considerable capacity in print-based and…

Describes factors involved in designing print support materials for computer-based instruction (CBI) or independent learning. Basic principles of effective instructional design based on principles promoted by Gagne and Briggs are discussed, and a format for organizing a course manual that was developed at Grant MacEwan Community College (Alberta)…

The R2D2 method--read, reflect, display, and do--is a new model for designing and delivering distance education, and in particular, online learning. Such a model is especially important to address the diverse preferences of online learners of varied generations and varied Internet familiarity. Four quadrants can be utilized separately or as part…

Discusses the evolution of multimedia instructional approaches and users' expectations. Highlights include how educational software fits into the existing media-mix, restrictions users face, the didactic concepts, educational software development, what systems should be used for programming, how to build human resources, and the future of…

Provides an overview of issues relating to practice and research regarding collaborative online learning in distance education. Topics include traditional problems of distance education; instructional design issues, including course preparation, social climate and sense of community, instructor's role, and the effective use of technology; and…

This study explored student-led facilitation strategies used to overcome the challenges of instructor-dominated facilitation, enhance the sense of learning community, and encourage student participation in online discussions. It presents a series of cases of students' facilitation strategies and using qualitative data analysis of discussion…

"How" do adults learn from self-paced, technology-based corporate training, which they select based on its relevance to their current employment responsibilities? Specifically, "how" do adults use the following learning strategies: prior experience, reflection, metacognition, conversations, generative learning strategies, and authentic…

Explores strategies for creating online learning environments on the World Wide Web. Describes a framework that identifies elements needed in the design of online learning: course content, learning activities, and learning supports. Concludes that online courses are more successful when they are not designed as supplements to conventional teaching…