Adult Learners Online

The current chapter describes how adult learners of different cultures experience and respond to online learning, and what different instructional strategies and personnel in higher education can do to develop an appropriately delivered online experience. Adult learners approach formal education differently than younger children (Olsen & Clark, 1977), namely the utilitarian functions of education and the application of learning to personal experiences, and personal needs are paramount to the learning experience (Peters & Associates, 1980). This foundation has a limited element of cultural differentiation and is complicated by using one-size-fits all online courses. Instructors, administrators, and instructional designers must all collaborate to re-think and re-build the effective online course experience: an experience with a hallmark of flexibility and diversified instructional techniques. Effective cultural responsiveness can greatly improve adult learning and potentially respond to a unique group of learner motivations.

Adaptation of Descriptive Metadata for Managing Educational Resources in the GREDOS Repository

In this chapter the authors describe a Project entitled “Divulgación de Recursos Educativos Digitales (DIRED)” (Divulgation of Digital Educational Resources) addressed to promoting specific educational resources and mobile apps for educational proposals in order to manage them through the institutional repository of the Salamanca University (GREDOS). The authors present a proposal for describing learning objects based on pedagogical information, digital competences and learning styles. The authors also suggest educational information for classifying useful mobile apps. To achieve their suitable access and recovery, the authors focus on the use of Learning Object specific metadata in digital repositories such as LOM (Learning Object Metadata). The authors study the metadata mapping necessary to adapt from LOM to Qualified Dublin Core, because this is the standard used in the GREDOS repository built with a DSpace platform. Finally, the authors present their implementation of Learning Object Description in the GREDOS repository.

Human Systems Engineering and Educational Technology

The design and development of educational technologies is a complex, interdisciplinary endeavor. Learning science research reveals principles of learning and instruction, and advances in computer science implement these principles in innovative technologies. This chapter promotes a complementary discipline—human systems engineering or “user science”—that emphasizes designing with human users' goals, needs, capabilities, and limitations in mind. Systematic and iterative human systems engineering should contribute to educational technologies that are more functional, usable, desirable, and ultimately more effective. The authors overview key human systems engineering principles (e.g., usability and user experience) and methods (e.g., cognitive task analysis, contextual inquiry, heuristic evaluation, and participatory design), and then consider example applications from research on automated writing evaluation technologies. The chapter concludes with broad research questions posed to researchers, developers, and educators in the field of educational technology.

Adult Millennials

Discussions about students in post-secondary education are often based on divisions of distinct subpopulations, which are in turn often based on demographics or generational status. In the context of adult learners who are also members of the Millennial generation, there exist no discussions of the overlaps between the two groups. In this chapter, the author provides an overview of the characteristics of both adult learners and members of the Millennial generation. Following a comparison of the characteristics of the two groups, the author offers a perspective of a distinct subpopulation: Adult Millennials. After offering strategies for working with Adult Millennials, with attention to online learning environments, the chapter concludes with suggestions for further research addressing Adult Millennials.

Information Superhighway and Continuous Professional Development for the Networked Teachers

This chapter focuses on the impact of technology on teacher training through online communities of practice (CoP) and investigates its potential for facilitating continuous professional development for the educators who can create personal learning networks on the web. Wenger's Community of Practice Theory (1998) and Garrison et al.'s (2000) Community of Inquiry (CoI) are explored as underlying theories of CoP. Furthermore, examples of online communities of practice will be briefly enlisted. The chapter will provide brief information how online learning is operationalized within the confines of CoP. The chapter will also discuss role of online communities of practice for teachers' continuous professional development with reference to current literature, explore challenges and focus on suggestions and avenues for further research.

Interactive Online Learning

This study is focused on the implications of the student voice in digital-based entrepreneurship education basing on the case study example from university-level schooling from Finland. Practice-based subjects, such as entrepreneurship, have been seen in literature as a problematic field for digital-based education. The studied education was implemented using the synthesis of two computer-mediated communication channels. Analysis based on the content analysis of individual portfolios (diaries), which were returned and stored in the asynchronous platform. In the case study environment, the decision of using use two-channel digital teaching platforms (synchronous and asynchronous) seemed to be successful, because dual channels enable wider forms of feedback and student voice activities during and after the lecture. The results of this study encourage educators to use multifaceted digital educational technology in education and as a channel for the student voice also in practice-based subjects, such as entrepreneurship.

Teaching English for Academic Purposes Through the Use of Digital Tools

This chapter discusses an ongoing seven-year Digital Development Program (DDP) which has trained and encouraged English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instructors to teach digitally. As leaders of an EAP team at Ruppin Academic Center, and as proponents of the idea that mindful use of technology enhances both teaching and learning, we adopted the Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge model known as TPACK (Koehler & Mishra, 2008), as our guiding. We used Moodle as the virtual learning environment (VLE) platform for our program. In our attempt to achieve as paperless and digital a classroom as possible, we continue to introduce numerous online programs and activities via our VLE. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the transition from face-to-face English and content teaching to blended and flipped learning at our institution. Feedback has been positive. We also offer suggestions to other institutions which may be seeking to make similar changes. The appendix lists the websites, resources, software, and applications, which are mostly free or open source.

Assistive Technology and Distance Learning

For those with disabilities, distance-learning courses can provide access to a world that was once inaccessible. Online learning becomes a possibility and for many a gateway to contributing to the world around them. However, there are many points to consider when ensuring accessibility in distance-learning courses. By exploring the current research and trends, this chapter reviews learning management systems, learner interaction styles and tools, and methods to design accessible course materials. It provides the educator with not only a working vocabulary but also with strategies and implementation methods for ensuring accessible content in online learning.

Characterizing Online Learners' Time Regulation

The importance of the time factor in online learning is starting to be recognized as one of the main factors in the learners' achievements and drop outs (Barbera, Gros, & Kirshner, 2012; Park & Choi, 2009; Romero, 2010). Despite the recognition of the time factor importance, there is still the need for theorizing temporality in the context of online education. In this chapter, the authors contribute to the advancement of the evaluation of time factors in online learning by adapting the theoretical framework of the Academic Learning Times (Caldwell, Huitt, & Graeber, 1982; Berliner, 1984) for evaluating the online learners' time regulation. For this purpose, they compare two case studies based on the Academic Learning Times framework. The case studies characterize online learner regulation based on an analysis of online learners at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Spain, and the initiatives taken by the instructional team of the Virtual Campus at the University of Limoges (CVTIC) to support online learner time regulation on this virtual campus in France. After comparing the two case studies, the chapter provides guidelines for improving online learners' individual and collaborative time regulation and reflects about the need to advance in the theorization of the time factor frameworks in online education.

Contradictions and Expansive Transformation in the Activity Systems of Higher Education International Students in Online Learning

This chapter features a description of three contradictions (i.e., disconnects) in the activity system of international higher education students in online learning. These disconnects are interpreted in relation to the constructs of teaching presence, real presence, and social and cultural presence and analyzed in terms of their origins in face-to-face, time- and place-dependent contexts of learning. Teaching presence is the external (to the student) regulation and management of learning, real presence is the sensory-rich character of learning, and social and cultural presence relate to specific types of interactions and communication that occur in conjunction with learning. Learning presence reflects a constructivist perspective that values socially-constructed forms of knowledge and self-regulation. The chapter follows with a description of how the disconnects can be bridged and the activity system expanded.