Web-based training, known as e-learning, has experienced a great evolution and growth in recent years, as the capacity for education is no longer limited by physical and time constraints. The emergence of such a prized learning tool mandates a comprehensive evaluation of the effectiveness and implications of e-learning. Advances in E-Learning: Experiences and Methodologies explores the technical, pedagogical, methodological, tutorial, legal, and emotional aspects of e-learning, considering and analyzing its different application contexts, and providing researchers and practitioners with an innovative view of e-learning as a lifelong learning tool for scholars in both academic and professional spheres.
"This comprehensive, six-volume collection addresses all aspects of online and distance learning, including information communication technologies applied to education, virtual classrooms, pedagogical systems, Web-based learning, library information systems, virtual universities, and more. It enables libraries to provide a foundational reference to meet the information needs of researchers, educators, practitioners, administrators, and other stakeholders in online and distance learning"--Provided by publisher.
This book investigates e-learning practices at American and Australian institutes of higher learning, their status quo, best-practice examples, and remaining issues. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, it combines three studies – two using quantitative methods and a third using qualitative methods – in order to gauge the status quo of e-learning. The first study addresses the dominant cultural dimensions, revealing that the main explanation for the results may be the fact that most suppliers of the Australian university’s e-learning system had an East Asian cultural background and predominantly traditional perspectives on learning. In Study 2, the findings indicate that the levels of e-learning practice at the Australian and US universities surveyed were above average, although the American university was ranked higher in terms of e-learning practices. In turn, Study 3 investigates current problems in e-learning practice on the basis of four aspects – pedagogy, culture, technology and e-practice – and determines that cultural sensitivity and effective cultural practices show room for improvement, while key technological challenges and issues like faculty polices, quality, LMS, and online support need to be overcome. In general, the outcomes suggest that it is essential for the Australian university surveyed to further develop and update its e-learning system, especially in terms of e-practice, using the same technologies that pioneering countries like America are employing. Indeed, the combination of adopting patterns successfully used in other countries, and adjusting them to the Australian culture, represents the best strategy for educational decision and policy makers. This book provides the basis for designing a culture-sensitive framework for higher education e-learning practice in American and Australian contexts. Moreover, students’ and teachers’ experiences with e-learning in a comparative higher education context can help higher education instructors and university managers to understand how e-learning relates to, and can be integrated with, other experiences of learning and teaching.
With the resources provided by communication technologies, E-learning has been employed in multiple universities, as well as in wide range of training centers and schools. This book presents a structured collection of chapters, dealing with the subject and stressing the importance of E-learning. It shows the evolution of E-learning, with discussion about tools, methodologies, improvements and new possibilities for long-distance learning. The book is divided into three sections and their respective chapters refer to three macro areas. The first section of the book covers methodologies and tools applied for E-learning, considering collaborative methodologies and specific environments. The second section is about E-learning assessment, highlighting studies about E-learning features and evaluations for different methodologies. The last section deals with the new developments in E-learning, emphasizing subjects like knowledge building in virtual environments, new proposals for architectures in tutoring systems, and case studies.
In the rapidly-changing world of the Internet and the Web, theory and research struggle to keep up with technological, social, and economic developments. In education in particular, a proliferation of novel practices, applications, and forms - from bulletin boards to Webcasts, from online educational games to open educational resources - have come to be addressed under the rubric of «e-learning». In response to these phenomena, Re-thinking E-Learning Research introduces a number of research frameworks and methodologies relevant to e-learning. The book outlines methods for the analysis of content, narrative, genre, discourse, hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation, and critical and historical inquiry. It provides examples of pairings of method and subject matter that include narrative research into the adaptation of blogs in a classroom setting; the discursive-psychological analysis of student conversations with artificially intelligent agents; a genre analysis of an online discussion; and a phenomenological study of online mathematics puzzles. Introducing practical applications and spanning a wide range of the possibilities for e-learning, this book will be useful for students, teachers, and researchers in e-learning.
Over the past century, educational psychologists and researchers have posited many theories to explain how individuals learn, i.e. how they acquire, organize and deploy knowledge and skills. The 20th century can be considered the century of psychology on learning and related fields of interest (such as motivation, cognition, metacognition etc.) and it is fascinating to see the various mainstreams of learning, remembered and forgotten over the 20th century and note that basic assumptions of early theories survived several paradigm shifts of psychology and epistemology. Beyond folk psychology and its naïve theories of learning, psychological learning theories can be grouped into some basic categories, such as behaviorist learning theories, connectionist learning theories, cognitive learning theories, constructivist learning theories, and social learning theories. Learning theories are not limited to psychology and related fields of interest but rather we can find the topic of learning in various disciplines, such as philosophy and epistemology, education, information science, biology, and – as a result of the emergence of computer technologies – especially also in the field of computer sciences and artificial intelligence. As a consequence, machine learning struck a chord in the 1980s and became an important field of the learning sciences in general. As the learning sciences became more specialized and complex, the various fields of interest were widely spread and separated from each other; as a consequence, even presently, there is no comprehensive overview of the sciences of learning or the central theoretical concepts and vocabulary on which researchers rely. The Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning provides an up-to-date, broad and authoritative coverage of the specific terms mostly used in the sciences of learning and its related fields, including relevant areas of instruction, pedagogy, cognitive sciences, and especially machine learning and knowledge engineering. This modern compendium will be an indispensable source of information for scientists, educators, engineers, and technical staff active in all fields of learning. More specifically, the Encyclopedia provides fast access to the most relevant theoretical terms provides up-to-date, broad and authoritative coverage of the most important theories within the various fields of the learning sciences and adjacent sciences and communication technologies; supplies clear and precise explanations of the theoretical terms, cross-references to related entries and up-to-date references to important research and publications. The Encyclopedia also contains biographical entries of individuals who have substantially contributed to the sciences of learning; the entries are written by a distinguished panel of researchers in the various fields of the learning sciences.
The "E-Learning Methodologies" guide will support professionals involved in the design and development of e-learning projects and products. The guide reviews the basic concepts of e-learning with a focus on adult learning, and introduces the various activities and roles involved in an e-learning project. The guide covers methodologies and tips for creating interactive content and for facilitating online learning, as well as some of the technologies used to create and deliver e-learning.
There is currently a technological revolution taking place in higher education. The growth of e-learning is being described as explosive, unprecedented, and above all, disruptive. This timely and comprehensive book provides a coherent framework for understanding e-learning in higher education. The authors draw on their extensive research in the area to explore the technological, pedagogical and organisational implications of e-learning, and more importantly, they provide practical models for educators to use to realise the full potential of e-learning. A unique feature of the book is that the authors focus less on the ever-evolving technologies and more on the search for an understanding of these technologies from an educational perspective. This book will be invaluable for researchers, practitioners and senior administrators looking for guidance on how to successfully adopt e-learning in their institutions. It will also appeal to anyone with an interest in the impact of e-learning on higher education and society.
"This book covers theory to practice, with readers gaining the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to be successful in teaching or training using technology-mediated instruction"--Provided by publisher.
