Asynchronicity, Access, and Attainment

In this chapter, the authors share specific ways in which the Organizational Leadership and Learning Program provides excellence in access, cost effectiveness, learning effectiveness, and faculty and student satisfaction. The program is designed to meet the needs of adult learners with some college but no degree and incorporates the use of asynchronous content delivery and faculty-student interaction. The exposure to course content via an online platform, interaction with students and faculty online, and the development of a learning community at a distance equips students not only with content knowledge, but also with technical prowess that is necessary in a technology-based workplace. Despite the relative ease of access and clear benefits of higher education, challenges still exist with educating an adult population. Therefore, it is essential that more adult friendly practices become integrated into the fabric of traditional four-year colleges and universities.

The MOOCs

In this chapter, the authors present the rapid rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) derived from a yearning to create and make widely available materials and conditions for participatory learning and creative space dedicated to the open education. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were developed to provide open, meaning unrestricted, online courses without higher education cost constraints to students. This new technological platform was embraced, developed, and offered by some of the country's leading universities and institutions including Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Students may collaborate through strategic social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Further, according to LeCounte et al. (2014), the social media partnerships have been found to offer competitive advantages in terms of low cost and tremendous visibility to both corporations and institutions of higher learning.

Paradigm Shift toward Student Engagement in Technology Mediated Courses

University recruitment websites continue to show students happily using technology in the higher education environment. Exactly how technology is used in the teaching and learning process continues to challenge and frustrate university instructors and students. A frequent depiction of college classrooms consists of an instructor lecturing from the front of the classroom and reprimanding students for talking to each other. In this paradigm, the professor is the “sage on the stage” and is the single transmitter of knowledge. Is this teaching and learning approach the most effective way to educate students? With recent discoveries about how students learn most optimally, and how technology can augment the process, a paradigm shift is required towards appropriate and intentional implementation of technology tools for engaging students to use higher-order thinking skills. This chapter explores the use and application of free digital tools that both improve and in turn enhance the learning process.

Quality Preparation of Mathematics and Science Teachers to Integrate ICT

This chapter clearly illustrates that emphasis on preparation of teachers to integrate ICT is gaining momentum in the education sector. Arguably, underpinning this emphasis is the convergence of assertions that ICT integration has the potential to enhance the quality of teaching and learning. Nonetheless, considering that the debate about effective teaching has overtime existed between two tensions, namely learner-centered and teacher-centered approaches, the additional concern now is how best to prepare teachers to integrate ICT. It is shown in this chapter that the best teaching approach is context specific since it facilitates the teachers' capacity to enhance student learning through quality teaching. The chapter reviews Teacher Professional Development programs in Sub-Saharan Africa and discusses what constitutes learner-centered education, ICT integration, and provides findings of a case study on preparation of science teachers using ICT.

Video Lectures in eLearning

Video presentations, also referred to as mini-lectures, micro-lectures, or simply video lectures, are becoming more prominent among the strategies used in hybrid or fully online teaching. Either interested in imitating a Khan Academy style of presenting content or responding to other pedagogical or administrative needs, there are more instructors now considering the creation of short video lectures for their courses than before. This chapter examines the use of video lectures in online and hybrid courses, describes the design and application of them in graduate and undergraduate courses, and analyzes primary and secondary data results to expose strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges experienced in the development and implementation of this technique. The use of short video lectures is a regular practice in MOOCs and has the potential of becoming a successful practice, especially with the expansion of new approaches such as the flipped classroom.

Re-Imagining and Re-Structuring Scholarship, Teaching, and Learning in Digital Environments

This chapter explores how digital scholarship, teaching, and learning is dramatically changing the educational landscape. New pedagogies are being reimagined and restructured in ways never before conceptualized. Despite the need to transform current models of scholarship, scholars and publishers have been sluggish to do so. The review of literature sheds light upon this hesitation, revealing two themes: 1) the lack of incentives for moving scholarship beyond the traditional criteria for promotion and tenure and 2) lack of technical skills to create digital works. The remainder of the chapter explores these themes further by highlighting topics including the democratization of digital publication, paradigmatic shifts, and digital spaces. Contemporary and future pathways are proposed in accessibility, following magazine publishers' lead for digitizing scholarship and including analytics in publication. The conclusion reiterates that although new communication methods will yield new methods of society's organization, the essence of scholarship will remain constant, academics will continue to converse, address problems with evidence, and disseminate findings.

MOOCs Global Digital Divide

The purpose of this chapter is to help address the question of global digital divide and provide the readers with scholarly information to help them reach their own conclusions, and to answer the question, “Is there really a MOOC global digital divide or is it just a myth?” The methods used included a critical review of the literature and a non-traditional open approach to research, which included utilization of websites, blogs, MOOCs website articles, peer-reviewed scholarly journals, books, and platform website information. Findings include total number of MOOCs users, platform providers, and the countries involved with learning using MOOCs.

Toward An Effective Virtual Learning Environment

In this chapter, the authors present an Effective Virtual Learning Model and answer the research questions, What is the perception of social presence on virtual learning? What role does social presence play in student engagement in virtual learning? and, What are the social presence factors influencing the effective learning environment? The method used to answer the pending research questions was the integrative literature review utilizing a six-step format. Authors conducted a literature review search utilizing the descriptors of virtual learning and social presence. From there articles were identified, selected, and synthesized according to the research questions. This research was informed by the Community of Inquiry Framework as the theoretical foundation from which the results were concluded. Based on results of emerging themes, the authors present the Effective Virtual Learning Model as a foundational basis for theory, research, and more importantly, practice.

The Place of MOOCs in Africa's Higher Education

In this chapter, the contentious issues of access to digital technology between the various social groups, the rich and the poor, the youth and the older generations, including rural urban livelihoods in Africa is tackled. The chapter examines the place of MOOCs in Africa's higher education and addresses the important question of digital divide in the design and delivery of MOOCs with a special focus on Africa. Using the multi-access learning theory, it is observed that the merits of investment in MOOCs included increased GDP in Africa, increased women participation in HE, creation of cultural independence in the continent, and recruitment and marketization of African institutions of higher learning. However, for Africa to enjoy these benefits, it has to surmount such challenges as high costs of design and development of MOOCs apart from developing online learning systems contingent on her own needs, practical realities, and aspirations.

Informal Individual Learning via Virtual Professional Development

This chapter incudes a discussion of general professional development and online professional development and professional learning. In particular, the authors present information on virtual professional learning from a U.S. federally-funded Investing in Innovation (i3) grant, English Language and Literacy Acquisition – Validation (ELLA-V). The grant term used is ELLA-Virsity. The overarching concept for ELLA-Virsity is proposed, and that is massive open online informal individual learning (MOOPIL).