Scholars from three universities in three different parts of the world--North America, Africa, and Eurasia--across different cultures, disciplines, and contexts, collaborated with the objective of advancing transversal skills and intercultural competences through immersing their students in international virtual teamwork. Students and lecturers…

Advocates for geographic information system (GIS) education contend that learning about GIS promotes students' spatial thinking. Empirical studies are still needed to elucidate the potential of GIS as an instructional tool to support spatial thinking in other geography courses. Using a non-equivalent control group research design, this study…

This study aimed to investigate and classify faculty members' instructional priorities for adopting OER. In-depth interview data were collected from 10 faculty members from different regions and analyzed with NVivo 10. The original supposition was that the well-established instructional priorities, effectiveness, efficiency, and appeal would…

Blended learning has propelled into mainstream education in recent years with the help of digital technology. Commonly available digital devices and the Internet have made access to learning resources such as learning management systems, online libraries, digital media, etc. convenient and flexible for both lecturers and students. Beyond the…

With the advancement of technology over the years, there has been a vast expansion in the use of distance learning for employment training purposes. One of the main benefits of online versus traditional training is that it gives instructors the opportunity to teach pupils who, because of traveling distance and transport limitations or other access…

Evidence-based practice in education entails making pedagogical decisions that are informed by relevant empirical research evidence. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss evidence-based pedagogical approaches related to the use of Web 2.0 technologies in both K-12 and higher education settings. The use of such evidence-based practice would…

Purpose: Acquiring computer skills is more important today than ever before, especially in a developing country. Teaching of computer skills, however, has to adapt to new technology. This paper aims to model factors influencing the success of the learning of computer literacy by means of an e-learning environment. The research question for this…

This article identifies how clicker use can support or augment existing principles of good teaching across different disciplines in higher education. While many of these principles will be familiar to instructors, the link between student response system (SRS) use and existing pedagogical methods is still often unclear, even for scholars who are…

This study critically analyzed the current body of published research on microblogging in education (MIE) to build a deep and comprehensive understanding of this increasingly popular phenomenon. Twenty-one studies on MIE in 2008-2011 were selected based on the selection criteria and analyzed to answer the following questions: What types of…

Care has to be taken when relating technology's use in college and university lecture halls to the way it's applied in K-12 classrooms. Differences in pedagogy, learning styles, and even attendance can impact the way the respective students in the two environments consume technology, which in turn impacts the technology's effectiveness as a…

Web resources in Latin American higher education institutions have been reported to show a much stronger emphasis on Information than on Communication. A Course Management System (CMS), according to Social Constructivism framework, is an opportunity for fostering learning through interaction in a virtual environment for learning; hence,…

Whilst there is considerable literature on feedback for students and on the use of audio feedback, literature in the area of podcasting assignment feedback (PAF) remains sparse. Partly, this may be due to a lack of clarity about what counts as feedback, the way in which feedback is located pedagogically and the relationship between feedback…

Improvements in technology appear to provide an unprecedented opportunity to improve learning and teaching within the higher education system. At present, however, opinions are divided over the efficacy of such an approach and the extent to which technology should be embraced in teaching. Over a period of two years, we have developed a new…

It is argued in this article that the convergence of collaborative constructivist ideas and emerging instructional technologies are transforming higher education. The article begins with an overview of instructional and communications technology and how this technology is being used in the service of either sustaining or transforming teaching and…

In this paper, we review past empirical research studies on the use of three-dimensional immersive virtual worlds in education settings such as K-12 and higher education. Three questions guided our review: (1) How are virtual worlds (eg, "Active Worlds", "Second Life") used by students and teachers? (2) What types of research methods have been…