The purpose of this study was to identify emergent themes regarding higher education instructors' perceptions concerning the provision of collaborative learning activities and opportunities in their online classroom. Through semi-structured interviews, instructors described their teaching experiences and reported specifically about the online…

Feedback plays a critical role in student learning and performance. However, providing students with effective feedback is challenging in online environments because of physical separation between students and instructors. Technologies can be used to enhance the effectiveness of feedback in online courses. In this article, we propose effective…

While the use of Twitter for communication and assessment activities in online courses is not new, it has not been without its challenges. This is increasingly true of high enrolment courses. The use of a Twitter Evaluation application which leverages a Learning Management System's (LMS's) application programming interface (API) provides a…

Reading on the World Wide Web has become a daily habit nowadays. This can be seen from the perspective of changes in readers' tendency to be more interested in materials from the internet, than printed media. Taking these developments into account, it is important for web-based instructional designers to choose the appropriate font, especially for…

Rapid technological advances in the areas of telecommunications, computer technology and the Internet have made available to tutors and learners in the domain of online learning, a broad array of tools that provide the possibility to facilitate and enhance learning to higher levels of critical reflective thinking. Computer mediated communication…

It has become standard practice for professors of mathematics to have a course website with a syllabus and some basic information about the course. The author argues that many professors would be better served by using a course wiki instead. In addition to simplifying all of the tasks of a traditional course website, a course wiki facilitates…

The design of instructional text is an important consideration when attempting to design a successful learning environment. With the rising involvement in online distance education, it is becoming even more important to adhere to good principles of text design. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework of possible instructional systems…

Traces the development of an online unit for Indigenous Australian learners, and accounts for cultural issues that impacted on the design of learning tasks and the associated avenues for communication provided to learners. In this context, culturally responsive design was ensured by the adoption of Lave's (1991) community of practice model. (AEF)

This paper discusses the three types of online learning-- asynchronous collaborative learning, sametime collaborative learning, and self-paced learning--and how these modes are supported by the Lotus LearningSpace product. The following requirements for distributed learning technology are then considered: (1) flexibility, specifically the…

There are a number of issues that must be addressed when delivering courses entirely online, such as designing effective user interfaces, using the visual medium of the World Wide Web effectively, and modifying traditional instructional methods. This paper discusses the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of an online course at…

This paper presents interface guidelines from research at the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) School of Information Sciences in developing a collaborative, problem-based learning environment for the World Wide Web. The lessons learned are based on student use and evaluation of three interface prototypes over the course of 3 years and…

This paper presents a set of guidelines for the design of computer-supported distance multimedia that enables collaborative distance learning. The first section provides an overview of distance learning and discusses teacher and student roles in a collaborative distance learning environment. Conditions for effective collaborative learning are…

A World Wide Web-based course at Winona State University (Minnesota) in the history of modern Germany (1818-1990), offered during the 1997-98 academic year, showcased several teaching innovations. Taught in "studio mode," with a workstation for each student, the course combined seminar discussions with electronic communication via e-mail…

This paper presents the design of a project-based study environment on the World Wide Web based upon the e-study concept, i.e., studying by means of Internet technologies. The first section discusses the e-study concept, including Interactive Study Environments (ISE), Interactive Study Systems, and online Study Services. Design guidelines for a…