Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have demonstrated the potential to deliver quality and cost effective course materials to large numbers of students. Approximately 60% of first-year students at community colleges are underprepared for college-level coursework. One reason for low graduation rates is the lack of the overall college readiness.…

Online and blended learning have become common educational strategy in higher education. Lecturers have to re-theorise certain basic concerns of teaching, learning and assessment in non-traditional environments. These concerns include perceptions such as cogency and trustworthiness of assessment in online environments in relation to serving the…

Much research has been done on blended learning and the design of tasks most appropriate for online environments and computer-mediated communication. Increasingly, language teachers and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) practitioners recognise the different nature of communications in online settings and in face-to-face settings; teachers do not…

The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and therefore e-learning is becoming an ever more frequently used teaching and learning technique at all levels of education. In higher education, it completely or partially substitutes the classical teaching methods. It provides richer resources than the traditional classroom and…

The present paper introduces some strategies used in teaching an Informatics course for non-IT first year university students. The strategies were developed during several years, using the main principles of flexible and blended learning. The methodology has been based on the results of experiments with students from social sciences, economics and…

This manuscript shares the results of an experimental blended course design that combines online and synchronous technology instruction across four geographically dispersed computer classrooms using ITV technology. Lessons learned include equipment requirements, both in the main classroom and remote classrooms, taking insufficient bandwidth into…

The article addresses the role of network and mobile technologies in enhancing blended solutions with a view to (a) enriching the teaching/learning processes, (b) exploiting the opportunities it offers for their observability, and hence for their monitoring and formative/summative assessment. It will also discuss how such potential can only be…

We present the UNED Virtual Mobility Campus Net Program, implemented since 2012 in collaboration with European and Latin American universities. Program's objectives, participating institutions, procedures, and evaluation are exposed. Virtual mobility is understood as a meaningful strategy for intercultural learning by studying an undergraduate or…

This study investigates interactions between calculus learning and problem-solving in the context of two first-semester undergraduate calculus courses in the USA. We assessed students' problem-solving abilities in a common US calculus course design that included traditional lecture and assessment with problem-solving-oriented labs. We investigate…

TED (Technology Entertainment Design), a collection of regularly updated talks, offers a web-based platform that is easily accessible. This platform affords language learners across multiple proficiency levels an opportunity to develop autonomy and critical thinking skills alongside their second language (L2) development. With an international…

This study analyses the educational support offered through information and communication technology during formative assessment in two different cases in higher education. We analysed one blended and one virtual case from two different universities. The study aimed at identifying specific patterns of educational support intended to foster two…

The separation of student and instructor is the core characteristic of distance education (Simonson et al., 2012, p. 28), contributing to one of the biggest challenges to distance education-attrition (Dueber & Misanchuk, 2001, p. 2). By the very nature of distance education, students are different locations from one another and their…

This paper documents a teaching innovation addressing the challenges of embedding and assessing reflective practice in work-integrated learning, specifically marketing internships. We identify four issues relating to this problem: lack of knowledge or skill for reflection, limitations of physical journals, facilitation of different forms of…

Read/write social technologies enable rich pedagogies that centre on sharing and constructing content but have two notable weaknesses. Firstly, beyond the safe, nurturing environment of closed groups, students participating in more or less public network- or set-oriented communities may be insecure in their knowledge and skills, leading to…

In the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model, cognitive presence indicators can be used to evaluate the quality of inquiry in a discussion forum. Engagement in critical thinking and deep knowledge can occur through reflective processes. When learners move through the four phases of cognitive presence (triggering, exploration, integration, resolution),…