The paper reports the theoretical underpinnings for the pedagogical role and rationale for adopting 3D virtual worlds for socialisation and knowledge creation in distance education. Socialisation or "knowing one another" in remote distributed environments can be achieved through synchronous technologies such as instant messaging, audio and…

The five-stage approach to e-moderating has provided a coherent model upon which to base online learning design in higher education. However, despite its growing popularity, there are concerns that the model is becoming a dominant discourse, being adapted as a template for the design of all online teaching and learning, to the exclusion of other…

Educational design for networked learning is becoming more complex but also more inclusive, with teachers and learners playing more active roles in the design of tasks and of the learning environment. This paper connects emerging research on the use of design patterns and pattern languages with a conception of educational design as a conversation…

In this paper we describe the design of a managed learning environment called MTutor, which is used to teach an online Masters Module for teachers. In describing the design of MTutor pedagogic issues of problem-based learning, situated cognition and ill-structured problems are discussed. MTutor presents teachers with complex real-life teaching…