Identifying an Appropriate, Pedagogical, Networked Architecture for Online Learning Communities

This chapter addresses the problem of enhancing quality of online learning processes through pedagogic design. Based on our earlier research findings from analysis of two comparable online master courses offered in two masters’ programmes, respectively from Denmark and Ireland (Ó Murchú & Sorensen, 2004), we present what we assert to be a fruitful, student-centred, pedagogic model for design of networked learning. The design model is composed of what we have identified as unique characteristics of online learning architectures that, in principle, promote and allow for global intercultural processes of meaningful learning through collaborative knowledge building in online communities of practice. Inspired by principles of best practice and Wengerian design criteria for networked learning (Wenger, 1998), the chapter intends to access, discuss, and provide evidence associated with the quality issues of the presented model, and its specific learning architectures.

Enhanced Learning and Leading in a Technology Rich, 21st Century Global Learning Environment

This chapter explores the evolution of thinking about learning, resulting from the increasingly ubiquitous presence of instructional technology and communications technology in learning environments. It provides a short history of the pedagogical growth of technology usage. It further describes the impact of technology on the potential transformation of four-walled classrooms into global, online learning communities from a constructivist perspective, while looking at learner/teacher roles in the learning process. The Global Forum on School Leadership (GFSL) and the Global Forum on Educational Research (GFER) are introduced as applications of interactive educational technology, suitable for twenty-first century learners, teachers, and school leaders, that emphasize creation of new knowledge using exploration and collaboration through self directed, technology-enhanced learning controlled by the learner. The intent of this discussion is to explore the impact of technology on learning, and recognize the transformative power behind introducing this learning experience into school leader preparation programs.

Situated Learning and Interacting With/Through Technologies

There is a growing interest within social and humanistic sciences towards understanding practice both theoretically and analytically. Lave and Wenger’s (1991) concept, “situated learning,” describes the process of newcomers moving toward full participation in a community. Wenger later refined his approach in his book Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Situated learning is equalled with social order: instead of understanding learning as a separate practice from everyday life, learning is seen as a more mundane phenomenon. It is sometimes difficult to operationalize Lave and Wenger’s concepts in data analysis. Ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (CA) find that social order is created continuously by its members in their interactions. As ethnomethodology and CA base their findings on rigorous data analysis, they are extremely useful in analysing situated learning in everyday practices. The interdisciplinary interaction analysis (IA) is suggested as the best way to study the various aspects of situated learning in technology-intensive interactions.

Inquisitivism

This chapter introduces inquisitivism as an approach for designing and delivering Web-based instruction that shares many of the same principles of minimalism and other constructivist approaches. Inquisitivism is unique in that its two primary or first principles are the removal of fear and the stimulation of an inquisitive nature. The approach evolved during the design and delivery of an online full-credit university course. The results of a quasi-experimental design-based study revealed that online students in the inquisitivism-based course scored significantly higher on their final project scores, showed no significant difference in their satisfaction with their learning experiences from their face-to-face (F2F) counterparts, and had a reduction in fear or anxiety toward technology. Finally, the results revealed that there was no significant difference in final project scores across the personality types tested. The author hopes that inquisitivism will provide a foundation for creating effective constructivist-based online learning environments.

Enhancing the Design of a Successful Networked Course Collaboration

This chapter presents a preliminary critique of an online transatlantic collaboration designed for collaborative learning. The critique by external reviewers using qualitative methods within the interpretivist paradigm hints at critical factors necessary for successful online collaborative learning. The evaluation seems to support the view that in order to raise the quality of online dialogue and enhance deep learning, it is good practice to heed, as well as give voice to participants’ needs by involving them directly in the design of the course. This has the potential to enhance student motivation and learning. The authors plan to continue their work, and present a more grounded and detailed evaluation in the near future involving multiple data sources, comprehensive surveys, and document analysis.

Online Communities and Professional Teacher Learning

This chapter examines online communities for professional teacher learning, in the context of a mixed-mode practice-based Masters degree, the Master of Teaching. It problematises key principles for designing collaborative learning online, aimed at developing teachers’ dispositions and values, as well as critical understandings that inform professional knowledge about practice. Data from teachers’ asynchronous online discussions are analysed, and the discussion is grounded in the learning activities of course participants. The authors establish the contemporary context for developing teachers’ professional learning through the affordances of new technologies, with a view to establishing what claims can be made about the potential of online communities to provide a counter to reductive models of professional development that have dominated teachers’ learning in England and Wales in recent years.

Rethinking E-Learning

“Technology alone does not deliver educational success. It only becomes valuable in education if learners and teachers can do something useful with it” (OECD, 2001, p. 24). This quotation could be used as a bon mot for this chapter. Our main goal is to rethink e-learning by shifting the focus of attention from learning resources (learning objects) to learning activities, which also implies a refocusing of the pedagogical discussion of the learning process. Firstly, we try to identify why e-learning has not been able to deliver the educational results as expected 5 years ago. Secondly, we discuss the relation between learning objectives, learning resources, and learning activities, in an attempt to develop a consistent, theoretical framework for learning as an active, collaborative process that bears social and cultural relevance to the student. Finally, we specify our concept of learning activities, and argue for the educational advantages of creating large learning resources that may be used for multiple learning activities.

Ms. Chips and Her Battle Against the Cyborgs

This chapter is written for practising teachers, and examines the institutional and individual factors that inhibit the implementation of information and communication technology (ICT) as a tool for teaching and learning. The affordances of ICT are identified, together with their contribution to attainment, creativity, and learning. The author argues that many of the obstacles to meaningful uses of ICT are embedded in the assumptions inherent in many institutional frameworks that are predicated on an outmoded industrial model that drives many school timetables, which process learners through the school machine. Individual change is easier to effect than institutional: the author provides some suggestions to liberate creative teachers from constraints of the system.

Enhancing Learning Through 3-D Virtual Environments

We cannot begrudge students their envy in looking at popular films and computer games as major contenders for their spare time. While we as teachers could attempt to fight the popularity of games, I suggest a more useful endeavor would be to attempt to understand both the temptation of games, and to explore whether we could learn from them, in order to engage students and to educate them at the same time. There are still few applicable theories and successful case studies on how we could do this using virtual environments and associated technology (referred to by some as virtual reality, or VR). To help answer the question of “but what can we do about it,” I will outline several simplified theories of cultural learning based on interaction, and the experience I gained from employing them in two different virtual environment projects.

Brain-Based Learning

Neuroscience research that explains how the brain learns is a dynamic field. Since the 1990s, there has been explosive growth in information about the neurophysiology of learning. A discussion of the neuroanatomy that is necessary to understand this research is presented first. Following the discussion of anatomy and physiology, current brain research is described, with particular focus on its implications for teaching adult students in an online environment. In addition, two instructional design theories (Gardner’s multiple intelligence and Kovalik’s integrated thematic instruction) that have a basis in neuroscience are examined. Recommendations founded on brain-based research, with a focus on adult education, follow, including specific activities such as crossed-lateral movement patterns and detailed online activities that can be incorporated into an online learning environment or a distance learning class (and face-to-face classroom) for adults. Comprehensive recommendations and guidelines for online learning design have been provided as suggestions for making maximum use of the brain-based principles discussed in this chapter.