Educational webcasts or video lectures as a teaching tool and a form of visual aid have become widely used with the rising prevalence of online and blended courses and with the increase of web-based video materials. Thus, research pertaining to factors enhancing the effectiveness of video lectures, such as number of visual aids, is critical. This…

This article reports on pre-service teachers' experience of the Real-Time Coaching model, an innovative technology-based approach to teacher training. The Real-Time Coaching model uses multiple feedback cycles via wireless technology to develop within pre-service teachers the specific skills and mindset toward continual improvement. Results of…

This article explores the quality of the online learning experience based on the Sloan-C framework and the Online Learning Consortium's (OLC) quality scorecard. The OLC index has been implemented to evaluate quality in online programs from different perspectives. Despite this, the opinions of learners are ignored, and it is built using feedback…

A systematic approach to the training of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) is required to meet the challenges posed by growing numbers of undergraduate and graduate students. At University College Dublin, educational developers and academic staff across six schools collaborated on the design and phased implementation of context-specific GTA…

This paper documents how a unit of student-designed games can create a more meaningful version of physical education (PE) for disengaged students, a version that enhances the educational legitimacy of the subject matter by affording it worth in and of itself rather than being justified for other, extrinsic or instrumental reasons. Furthermore, it…

Teachers assume several key roles in the language classroom. Because any one teacher is unlikely to possess the full range of characteristics suggested in the literature, it is vital to explore what individual class groups of learners believe are the characteristics most beneficial to their language learning. This study therefore explored their…

Using data in a professional learning community is a promising form of professional development. In this study, we followed a data team of teacher educators, who systematically tried to improve the education of student teachers (by decreasing first year drop-out). By conducting a single case study, we investigated the data team participants'…

As tertiary music educators across the Tasman we argue that music, particularly song, is an effective medium for teaching and learning about non-western music when preparing generalist primary Pre-Service Teachers (PSTs). Using "voice" as a portable and accessible vehicle to transmit cultural understandings, we draw on the Zimbabwean…

As the learning paradigms are shifting to include various forms of digital technologies such as synchronous, asynchronous, and interactive methods, social networking technologies have been introduced to the educational settings in order to increase the quality of learning environments. The literature suggests that effective application of these…

Traditionally, a large lecture hall course follows a teacher-centered approach to instruction. This was the case for the "gateway" course in the undergraduate Information Technology and Informatics (ITI) major in the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. This paper describes the journey…

A new multi-disciplinary degree program in education and information studies was developed to uniquely facilitate educators' capacity to be responsive to the demands of a digitally connected world. Charles Sturt University's Master of Education (Knowledge Networks and Digital Innovation) aims to develop agile leaders in new cultures of digital…

Educational practitioners have attempted to use online technology such as Facebook (FB) in recent years to incorporate learning into students' daily social media usage. Past studies have explored FB affordances for informal learning, with a lack of investigations on interactive patterns among course participants, especially for learners in East…

Purpose: Video-based learning (VBL) is gaining increased attention as an educational means in settings such as the flipped classroom and massive open online courses. The value of VBL has been recognized in a range of contexts due to the ability to extend opportunities for life-long education for all socio-economic levels, removing geographical…

The purpose of this contribution is to share reflections and practices in cultivating a community of learners in the context of a professional development programme at Master's level for language teachers. The programme implements a highly participatory pedagogical model of online learning which combines the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model…

In language learning today, students from different geographical locations are able to interact online in a more authentic environment, share their views with their partners, create profiles as well as build online communities enjoying common interests. With this in mind, this paper examines and reports on a study about how students from two…