Utilization of online instruction continues to increase at universities, placing more emphasis on the exploration of issues related to adult graduate student engagement. This reflective case study reviews nontraditional student engagement in online courses. The goals of the study are to enhance student focus, attention, and interaction. Findings…

The purpose of this article is to analyse teachers' perceptions of using the modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment (Moodle) platform as a learning management system in a small-scale blended learning (b-learning) Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) programme for in-service secondary school mathematics teachers in South Africa. It…

The following commentary presents an overview of earlier studies of discourse functions and syntactic complexity as well as recent investigations that focus on interaction and measures of syntactic and lexical complexity in learners' output in traditional classrooms and computer-mediated environments. Recent studies emphasize the need for better…

Universal design (UD) educational frameworks provide useful guidelines for designing accessible learning environments with the intention of supporting students with and without disabilities. This article describes how one university instructor defined and applied the principles of Universal Instructional Design (UID) to pedagogy, while designing…

This work presents a quantitative study of the use of a Learning Management System (LMS) by the professors of a distance learning course, focused on the guidance given for the students' Final Undergraduate Project. Data taken from the logs of 34 professors in two distinct virtual rooms were collected. After pre-processing the data, a series of…

The Community of Inquiry framework has been widely supported by research to provide a model of online learning that informs the design and implementation of distance learning courses. However, the relationship between elements of the CoI framework and perceived learning warrants further examination as a predictive model for online graduate student…

The US economic downturn has resulted in many professionals, job seekers, and high school graduates heading back to school to develop new skills, but fewer of these students can afford a conventional four-year college education today. Community and technical colleges typically charge tuition fees that are less than half of those at public…

Recent advancements in technology have changed the way educators teach and students learn (Wells, Fieger & Lange, 2005). In the last decade, educational trends have progressed towards online and blended instruction. One key in this revolution is the development of the Learning Management System (LMS); software that enables the management and…

The previous report in this series discusses current attitudes to distance education technology, with specific reference to the counter-productive effects of learning management systems. The current paper pursues this theme in relation to the evolution of online audio-conferencing systems in DE, and revisits the notion of the "productivity…