The accelerated development of the information and communication technologies determined universities, companies and educational institutions to implement alternatives to the traditional teaching methods, thereby leading to the development of e-courses. New Information and Communication Technologies mediating learning represent an important…

"Informacy", the learning of information technology skills, is now a key element of all Social Work curricula in the U.K. following the General Social Care Council's accreditation requirements. These stipulate that all undergraduates acquire computer literacy skills to the level of the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) or its…

Engineering education in India has witnessed a major change over the past few years. Substantial increase in the demand for high-quality education has led to the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies for extending the outreach of education. This paper presents a review of some of these technology-enhanced initiatives already taken…

This article describes a graduate distance education course at North Carolina State University, which combined science content and pedagogy with video game design. The course was conducted entirely in a synchronous, online, Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) through the ActiveWorlds[TM] platform. Inservice teachers enrolled as graduate students in…

Distance education courses must cope with the difficulties imposed by delivering a class at a distance. As most courses only emphasize the cognitive aspects of the class and neglect the course's effect on the students, this gives no help for reaching the affective domain teaching goals. Especially for younger students, in distance education, when…

This case study documents how a group of 14 academically at risk Primary 5 students (11 year olds) were engaged in academic related tasks in an after school program mediated by a "3-D Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE)." Although there was no significant difference in the students' academic performance, they were found to be more engaged in the…

Virtual worlds create a new opportunity to enrich the educational experience through media-rich immersive learning. Virtual worlds have gained notoriety in games such as World of Warcraft (WoW), which has become the most successful online game ever, and in "general purpose" worlds, such as Second Life (SL), whose participation levels (more than 10…

The purpose of our paper is to describe and compare educational models based on four major concepts that can be used to assess educational quality. We focus on graduate management programs since they are increasingly supporting their education offerings with state-of-the-art technology. We examine why some distance educational models are more…

Limited empirical research exists regarding the prevalence of academic dishonesty in the online classroom. This limited evidence supports the notion that factors contributing to academic dishonesty in the traditional classroom also apply to online courses. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between factors known to contribute…

A 3D virtually synchronous communication architecture for situated language learning has been designed to foster communicative competence among undergraduate students who have studied English as a foreign language (EFL). We present an innovative approach that offers better e-learning than the previous virtual reality educational applications. The…

The availability of online collaboration software has provided new opportunities for instructors to interact with students outside the classroom. This report describes how Elluminate "Live!"[R], a particular conferencing software package, can be used with a tablet PC to conduct virtual office hours in a biochemistry course. The educational value…

In recent years one of the most significant changes in UK Universities has been the increased use of virtual learning environments (VLE) as a method of supporting learning and teaching. This has in part been influenced by research which suggests that student learning experiences can be enhanced by the judicious use of new technologies and partly…

This qualitative study was intended to explore the roles that an early childhood instructor undertook in a virtual learning environment. Throughout three consecutive semesters, multiple forms of data collection techniques were employed, including: field notes, teacher-student online interaction, the course design, students' online submissions,…

If the world of education had a crystal ball, even its own visionary might feel a bit of uncertainty. Perhaps one of the furthest ideas from the minds of those considering the future of education facilities is that in 50 years, there will be no education facilities. One reason given for this belief is that 50 years worth of technological…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceived differences between asynchronous online discussions and face-to-face discussions in a classroom setting. The students' reflections were analysed by following a qualitative research approach. The results showed that atmosphere, response, efficiency, interactivity and communication were the…