Social Presence in an Online Learning Environment

Technology alone cannot create the sense of community that is needed for effective online learning. Participants in an online environment can perceive a sense of isolation when social connectedness is not created and encouraged. A community of inquiry emerges when online participants perceive that they are seen and heard and opportunities for active engagement with others is provided. This chapter provides guiding principles for an effective online experience and includes multiple suggestions from an experienced online instructor to create and maintain the social presence of all participants in any online learning experience.

Considering Instructors' Philosophical Belief Systems and Potential Impact Upon eLearning Engagement

The philosophical beliefs of instructors directly impact how a course is designed, the extent to which each instructor's belief systems may impact the course experience, and the beliefs that may underlie instructional design and engagement systems throughout the instructional process. The focus of this discussion evolves around the philosophical belief systems of three higher education instructors at different points in their career trajectory, from adjunct instructor to full professor, that focuses upon an analysis of philosophical beliefs associated with the teaching and learning process, that leads into the potential impact upon one's elearning instructional decisions and styles of instructional engagement that may support a better understanding of styles of transformative social learning environments within the higher education elearning instructional environment.

Additional eLearning Considerations Around the Instructor's Philosophical Belief Systems

The instructor is an integral member of the educational environment through leading, facilitating, and supporting the development of a learning community. This is integrally important within an elearning environment, wherein motivational engagement is a potentially more nuanced environment due to the differentiation in time, space, and place. The instructor's philosophical belief systems highlight the potential for transformative social learning environments that directly impact the instructional design of the course, differentiating enhancements towards supporting user experience, as well as highlighting the potential for transformative impacts within learning environments as well as the holistic learning community. Advancing an enhanced understanding around the instructor's philosophical beliefs around the teaching and learning process strengthens not only the efforts of the instructor towards critical pedagogical understandings, but also the larger learning environment that includes the impact of the virtual world upon the digital connections that undergird communities of learning.

Accessing Learning Management Systems With Smartphones

Smartphones have many qualities that have made them potentially useful for learning (e.g., connectivity, interactivity, and personalization) but few studies have considered their role in understanding learning behavior and student engagement. This study investigated differences in the way students approach online learning, comparing those who use smartphones to access their online classroom with students who use more traditional tools, such as desktop and laptop computers. Specifically, the study was designed to investigate the use of smartphones and their effect on learning behavior and student engagement at a regionally accredited university in the United States. The chapter analyzes the quantitative data arising from the study and discusses why the results identified statistically significant differences in the ways students approached their own learning. Moreover, it also explores the engagement patterns which revealed that the type of tasks online students performed with a smartphone varied significantly from the tasks that students performed when using a desktop or tablet.

The Evolution of eLearning Within a Software Engineering Graduate Program

This chapter presents the journey taken by one of the top online software engineering programs in the nation as experienced by the program chairperson, reflecting upon the evolution of distant education efforts from two-way satellite synchronous course delivery to 100% online course delivery as well as other blended modes of delivery and instruction. This discussion will include the advantages and disadvantages encountered organized within a student-centered, instructor-centered, course-product, and program-centered focus followed by lessons learned. The chapter provides a practical and revealing encapsulation of salient issues surrounding the operation of an online STEM graduate program of interest to readers seeking shared operational experiences from long-term significant elearning efforts.

Transformative eLearning and Portfolio Careers in Higher Education

Distance learning has become a mainstream reality with the disruptive impact of the global pandemic COVID-19, pivoting to online delivery of learning across all sectors of teaching and learning. Within work-integrated learning (WIL) contexts, the digital storytelling program outlined in this chapter provides transformative and immersive digital workplace contexts and narratives to position student projects as professional work-oriented learning. The value of using a digital storytelling strategy is its capacity to give learners agency in skills acquisition and personal growth, preparing graduates for curating their stories across lifelong change and uncertainty. This chapter has positioned the digital narratives of work-oriented learning as contexts for learners to develop portfolio career mindsets best suited to a future world of work. This mindset will lead graduates to the concept of a portfolio career which is adaptable to disruptive change and flexible in transferring skills and knowledge across a range of positions and tasks.

Promoting Social Learning in Higher Education

Successful completion of a doctoral degree often depends on the support a candidate receives from faculty and classmates. e-portfolios are an application of social learning pedagogy that promotes collaboration among peers while simultaneously archiving an individual's academic accomplishments. In this study, 10 cohort groups of Ph.D. students at a small liberal arts university were tasked with creating and sharing an e-portfolio throughout their doctoral program. The doctors invited all current and former Ph.D. students to participate in a survey about their e-portfolio experience: a potential sample of 140 participants. Thirty-seven current or former students completed the survey. Fifty-six percent of the responses indicated a positive reaction to the e-portfolio project. Specifically, respondents stated that the e-portfolio project promoted an increased sense of self-efficacy, encouraged relationship-building within cohort groups, and helped students to develop their research agendas.

eLearning Environments as Engaging Invitations to Elementary Age Learners

This discussion shares one working parent's experiences, as a parent aiding her daughter in an eLearning environment. In March 2019, the daughter's elementary school shut down due to COVID-19. Soon after, the schools began using Zoom and Schoology to help maintain a semblance of normalcy and a semblance of attempts towards continuing the learning process within a challenging cultural and sociological situation. What is shared is the parent's journey through which the parent struggled to sustain levels of normalcy in the home and the community. The focus of the discussion revolved around the school week, the school day, and school-based relationships, while also emphasizing the parent's voice through her perspective.

Shifting to Online Learning Through Faculty Collaborative Support

This chapter describes the process of supporting faculty as they moved their classes online during the pandemic. It describes how a range of professional development experiences fostered a sense of community among participants, as well as supporting their transitions to online teaching. These virtual communities enabled faculty members both to exchange information and to offer one another peer support. This experience of teaching online also prompted changes in pedagogical practices. Informed by social cognitive theory, these conclusions are supported by survey data as well as case studies.

Transformation to Learning Organizations

As our education system becomes more technology-driven and dependent, technical support is a part of the infrastructure for successful higher education performance. Self-service technology (SST) systems allow users to access solutions without agent involvement are viewed as the most cost-effective way to provide learning support. Support design in SSTs is every bit as critical as instructional design is to content-based education. Designing a technical learning center may be far more effective to address technical support needs, as well as creating other beneficial outcomes. In theory, SST systems are viewed as beneficial because they support self-efficacy, which has a direct relation to self-actualization. Self-efficacy has also been found to promote problem solving as well as higher achievement. Creating a learning center as an SST may contribute to transformative learning in that it changes the learner's perspective of their own capabilities and encourages them to be more flexible when introduced to other technologies. Several examples are presented.