We studied student learning in the MOOC 8.MReV Mechanics ReView, run on the edX.org open source platform. We studied learning in two ways. We administered 13 conceptual questions both before and after instruction, analyzing the results using standard techniques for pre- and posttesting. We also analyzed each week's homework and test questions in…

The 2013 study, "Daily Online Testing in Large Classes: Boosting College Performance While Reducing Achievement Gaps," examined the impact of frequent online testing and immediate feedback on the academic performance of college students. The study was conducted at the University of Texas in the fall of 2008 and 2011. Researchers found…

The Grammar for Writing intervention is a curriculum intervention aimed at improving writing skills by providing contextualised grammar teaching. This evaluation was set up as an effectiveness trial to test the impact of a four-week version of Grammar for Writing, delivered with the developer leading the recruitment and retention of the schools…

In this article, Robert Golden envisions the current trends in practice at State University of New York (SUNY) in Plattsburgh, being so firmly entrenched as to still be the same practices in place 60 years into the future. He notes the decline of full-time faculty, the rise in the numbers of contingent faculty, the increasing use of massive open…

People are increasingly looking to online social communities as ways of communicating. However, even as participation in social networking is increasing, online communities often fail to coalesce. Noted success factors for online communities are linked to the community's purpose and culture. They are also related to structures that allow for…

For the fortieth time, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Jacksonville, Florida. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two volumes.…

With the rise of the internet and new communication technologies, language learning has moved beyond the classroom walls. This volume presents a range of important studies on innovative ways for learning languages outside the classroom. Chapters discuss MOOCs in the UK, Belgium, China, and Italy for studying a range of languages, research on new…

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is a model for delivering learning content online to any person who wants to take a course, with no limit on attendance. The MOOC industry is growing rapidly, fueled by students interested in free higher-education learning, and the universities and venture capitalists willing to fund the courses. This paper…

A recent phenomenon in the MOOC space has been the development of courses tailored to educators serving in K-12 settings. MOOCs, particularly as a form of educator professional development, face a number of challenges. Academics, as well as pundits from traditional and new media, have raised a number of concerns about MOOCs, including the lack of…

Inteaction determines and affects the conditions of language acquisition especially in contexts where exposure to the target language is limited. This is believed to be successful only within the context of small classes (Chavez, 2009). This paper examines learners' progress resulting from interaction in large classes. Using pre-, post-, and…

The current discourse surrounding Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is powerful. Despite their rapid and widespread deployment, research has yet to confirm or refute some of the bold claims rationalizing the popularity and efficacy of these large-scale virtual learning environments. Also, MOOCs' reputed disruptive, game-changing potential…

While education has been both open and online, the sizeable enrolment numbers associated with massive open online courses (MOOCs) are somewhat unprecedented. In order to gauge the significance of education at scale, this article analyses specific examples of massive participation derived from E-learning and Digital Cultures, a MOOC from the…

The pace of technological innovation is affecting nearly every organization in the world. Unfortunately, much of the recent conversation about the uses of technology in higher education has become derailed by the intense promotion of, and equally intense reaction against, the development of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Some of the…

In this inaugural year of the faculty technology study, EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR) partnered with 151 college/university sites yielding responses from 17,451 faculty respondents across 13 countries. The findings are exploratory in nature, as they cover new ground to help us tell a more comprehensive story about technology…

Massive open online courses (MOOC's) are the latest development in online education. Over the past decade, millions of students have taken free online versions of existing courses at well-known universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but such courses often offered little more than reading lists and lecture notes. MOOC's are…