The Great Khan's atlas contains also the maps of the promised lands visited in thought but not yet discovered or founded: New Atlantis, Utopia, the City of the Sun, Oceana, Tamoe, New Harmony, New Lanark, Icaria. Kublai asked Marco: "You, who go about exploring and who see signs, can you tell me towards which of these futures the favouring winds…

The Laptop Integration in Teacher Education project provided laptop computers for a cohort of students undertaking a one-year Initial Teacher Training course at the University of Ulster for the award of Post Graduate Certificate in Education. The study sought to measure the value of laptops to student teachers whilst on Teaching Practice. Data…

Online discourse environments are increasingly popular both in distance education contexts and as adjuncts to face-to-face learning. For many participants such contexts are experienced as positive, community-supported learning opportunities, but this is not the case for everyone. Understanding more about the online and off-line factors that…

Two online collaborative assignments that connected students in courses at Unitec, New Zealand, and Baruch College, City University of New York, are the focus of this article. For the first assignment, small, blended groups used five different online techniques to explore topics being discussed in an intercultural communication course at each…

This article examines some of the social, technical, and economic issues encountered in the implementation of an educational technology at an Australian regional university. Reference is made to the implementation of the videoconferencing network at Central Queensland University (CQU). In late 1996 when the implementation process was completed the…

Within the Scottish educational system there have recently been significant moves towards devolution of decision taking and the expressed intention that schools must be more responsive to changing community requirements and expectations. We focus on two aspects of those organizations considered successful within changing external contexts: their…

This article provides a brief history of Web logging and subsequent examples of Web log use specific to an educational arena. Although the blogging phenomenon began a few years ago, it is only recently that a critical mass of educators has realized its potential in and out of the classroom for teaching and learning content while acting as a…

Learning Management System (LMS) is the main element of internet-based education. In parallel to this, studies in this area are increasing. The aim of this research is to evaluate the current existing Open Source Learning Management Systems in the market. For this, seventy-two Open Source Learning Management Systems have been subjected to a…

Unfortunately, alternatively certified novice teachers are not being properly prepared. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, the primary concern is that all classrooms are housed with highly qualified teachers. In the present, alternatively certified novice teacher attrition has increased significantly. Many classrooms across the United States have…

The purpose of this research was to determine if there is an opportunity for colleges and universities to improve the quality of knowledge constructed in online (asynchronous) discussion boards by optimizing the number of students in the discussion. 93 online graduate students and 36 online faculty were surveyed to gain the perspective from both…

This paper is about a pilot study which has been carried out at the Near East University during the 2004/5 Fall Semester using the Moodle LMS [learning management system] together with GREWPtool collaborative editor. The system has been tested with 36 students taking the Java and the Pascal programming courses. The results of the pilot study…

Many libraries are using co-browsing chat products to provide reference services to their patrons, whilst their patrons are online and using the internet. The concept of such an online service is highly desirable, but many libraries are concerned that they will never be able to afford such a system. This may have changed: Instant Messaging (IM)…

As part of required coursework, 112 students in an educational psychology course made asynchronous postings to online study groups. Students permitted their course marks to be used for research purposes and completed a questionnaire that assessed a range of psycho-educational characteristics as well as personal interpretations of the online study…

This case study analyzed how an online learning community developed among a cohort of 18 students in an instructional design and technology master's degree program taught at a distance. Students' reflections about the effectiveness of the program revealed that a community-centered approach to learning, a constructivist learning environment, and…

This study examined member behaviors, distribution of performed behaviors, and development-shaping forces in order to identify group development patterns of virtual learning teams. Participants of this study were 7 newly formed virtual learning teams working on a final group project in a 12-week online graduate-level course. Examining the group…