Children's earliest years are times of significant development and learning, yet the professionals who provide care for young children often do not receive the economic or professional support they need and deserve. Given the unique situations of child care professionals, especially those running their own family child care businesses, we must…

This study examined the digital and social media communication practices of nine urban universities including UMSL and compared those to known corporate best practices. The purpose of this study was to (1) research how these universities are using social/digital communications to engage with students and prospective students; (2) compare the…

Current trends in post-secondary education enrollment indicate that colleges and universities are likely to experience an increase in the number of online students. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the type of resources and support features online faculty need, desire, and expect in a support website. The method used to collect research…

This research examines selected online comments from open courses available on Chinese websites. These courses were created by universities in the West as an effort to build open educational resources (OER) and were recently translated into Chinese and were relocated to some popular Chinese websites. This research aimed to understand why the…

Course management software (CMS) allows teachers to deliver content electronically and manage collaborative coursework, either blending with face-to-face interactions or as the core of an entirely virtual classroom environment. CMS often takes the form of an electronic storehouse of course materials with which students can interact, a virtual…

The instructional potential of video technology in the classroom is promising, especially in light of the 21st Century Learning Framework (Siegle, 2009). Studies show positive gains in student outcomes as a result of the integration of video technology in instruction. This article explores potential uses of YouTube as an instructional aid in…

Maximize the effectiveness of your professional activities through the use of wikis, and raise student achievement in turn! With strategies from online educator and technology expert Stephanie Sandifer, this book provides how-to advice on the way in which wikis result in a more efficient use of time, better communication, and increased adult…

In March 2009, Kansas State University successfully implemented the ELATEwiki website to encourage a public exchange of e-learning and teaching resources. ELATEwiki, the Electronic Learning and Teaching Exchange, facilitates the creation and documentation of innovative teaching approaches used by individuals and organizations interested in…

Today, information and communication technologies such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are some of the most popular technologies available on the Internet, with millions of users worldwide. Research is still trying to discover how people use them, for what purposes, and in what settings, and investigate how they may be shaping the ways they…

If you're new to running a library or looking for a refresher, this book can serve as your first reference source for school library operation, providing overview information on a wealth of topics, lists of resources for more in-depth information, and coverage of current topics such as Web 2.0, fundraising, digital booktalks, and cybersafety.…

With online course development on the rise the challenge for instructors is to enhance and ensure learning through this modality. When direct contact with students in a traditional face-to-face classroom is not feasible, instructors must be innovative in content delivery and provide for students a sense of instructor presence. It has been…

Two important challenges that teachers are currently facing are the sharing and the collaborative authoring of their learning design solutions, such as didactical units and learning materials. On the one hand, there are tools that can be used for the creation of design solutions and only some of them facilitate the co-edition. However, they do not…

The Adjunct Advocate @ FIT is an online, faculty development program at FIT, part of the State University of New York. This convenient new resource, developed by the Center for Excellence in Teaching, reaches out to adjunct and off-campus faculty with professional development that includes printable materials, video, discussion boards, and…

Purpose: This paper aims to demonstrate how an institutional learning, teaching and assessment (LTA) strategy was developed and a "dynamic" strategy created in order to achieve the ongoing enhancement of the quality of the student learning experience. Developing LTA strategies that foster ongoing engagement and provide inspiration to…

Like many universities worldwide, the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa has joined the open educational resources (OER) movement, making a selection of teaching and learning materials available through its OER directory, UCT OpenContent. However, persuading and then supporting busy academics to share their teaching materials as OER…