The purpose of this project was to investigate the perceptions of instructors and students with regard to delivering effective instruction in synchronous learning environments. The specific research goals were to attain an evaluation of the quality of distance education courses, to determine the effectiveness of the delivery medium, and to examine…

This paper deals with the use of personal technologies in decentralized university education. Decentralized education, delivered to off-campus students located in the same geographical area, is a hybrid genre combining features of both on-campus and distance education. The paper reports two studies. The first study focused on communication…

This paper reports on a project where three-dimensional (3D) online gaming environments were exploited for the purpose of academic communication and learning. 3D gaming environments are media and meaning rich and can provide inexpensive solutions for educational purposes. The experiment with teaching and discussions in this setting, however,…

Multimedia classroom technology provides a unique opportunity to augment the classroom experience. Coordinating instructional streams with student feedback and assessment will enable instructors to know when and if their intended message was communicated to their students. A system where both instructional and presentational aspects of a lecture…

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how an evaluation framework was developed and implemented in order to support goals of an e-learning university. The paper discusses the aim of assessment to support institution-wide e-learning goals, the benefits and challenges of this approach to assessing the development of content for e-learning, a…

This paper deals with the design of an integrated system for Web-based distance education (ISWBDE). At the highest level, this system can be dissected into two sub-systems: an integrated course authoring system (ICAS) and an integrated course delivery system (ICDS). The ICAS is designed to help with, or automate the creation and management of…

A number of recent reports note that colleges of education could do a better job in technology training. Most evident in these reports is the call for teachers to learn how to integrate technology into their instruction, rather than just learning technology skills in isolation. To heed recommendations and better respond to student needs, the…

This paper discusses computer based virtual field trips that use technologies commonly found in public schools in the United States. The discussion focuses on the advantages of both using and creating these field trips for an instructional situation. A virtual field trip to Cumberland Island National Seashore, St. Marys, Georgia is used as a point…

The Open University of Israel (OUI) is a distance education institution that offers over 250 computer-mediated courses through the Internet. All OUI students must pass an English reading comprehension exemption exam or take the University's English reading comprehension courses. Because reading instruction differs from content instruction,…

This paper provides an overview of Student Modeling techniques that have been employed in Intelligent Languages Tutoring Systems (ILTSs) over the past decade. It further discusses the Student Model of the English-as-a-Second-Languages (ESL) Tutor, an ILTS for ESL. The Student Model is based on student subject matter performance and provides…

The design rationale for the development of an exemplary, flexible online course for making accessible online courses is described. The authors developed the course by adopting the roles of content expert and instructional designer. The course has a dual purpose. The assessment for postgraduate students provides a guide to learning for academic…

In contrast to traditional types of learning and teaching processes and learning media, such as printed material for Web and hypermedia learning resources, Web resources and Web-based activities are quite often unfortunately more or less separate parts of the planning process and curriculum documentation in an organization's traditional…

Recently, attention has focused on developing methods for facilitating critical thinking in students. Scaffolding is a method that has been successfully used in many settings to support different learning goals. This study focused on the influence of scaffolding on critical thinking skills in a technology-mediated environment. The main research…

Higher education and learning calls for a human process, an interaction between facilitator and learner. A customized approach to individualized problems is more than just electronic delivery. The crucial issue is not the mode of delivery, but the skills required to facilitate learning. Unfortunately, evidence of a subtle re-definition of…

A high school science teacher reported that the students have motivation and learning problems to understand the concept of fossilization. Working with the science teacher, a Web-Based Learning Environment (Web-LE) was designed by a group of students in the Department of Instructional Technology at University of Georgia to enhance and sustain the…