Using Virtual Learning to Teach Postgraduate Nurses

This chapter focuses on the educators perspectives as virtual learning was introduced into postgraduate nursing courses. Drawing on qualitative data the challenges educators faced are described. Technology proficiency varied amongst the educators and this had an impact on the choices they made when transitioning from traditional lecture-format on-campus classes to virtual learning. This study found that virtual learning brings a sharper focus on good teaching practice; changes the role of the educator and emphasises how essential both pedagogical and technological support is.

Integrating Online Group Work into First-Year Music Studies in New Zealand

This chapter explores students’ and instructors’ perspectives on an online group work project in a first-year, general education music course at the University of Auckland. From both perspectives, the project was effective in helping students to understand, experience, and apply the benefits of collaborative research. The project also helped students to feel part of a larger community of university-level learners. Several barriers to effective online group learning, and differences of perception between students and educators, were identified. In particular, students did not necessarily subscribe to the social-constructivist ideologies that underlie much literature examining online group work. Four general guidelines are given to help instructors design online collaborative tasks that are, from all perspectives, clearly appropriate for university-level learners.

Psychological Factors Influencing User Acceptance and Usability

Information and communication technologies allow the transmission of audio and video signals in real time, making meetings and interactions with people in remote locations a possibility. For institutions offering education in multiple geographic locations there is a real opportunity to interact with students in a virtual teaching space that supplies text, audio and visual cues. However, technological capability can outstrip availability and adoption. This chapter considers the psychological factors influencing usability and user acceptance of educational technology and associated implications for learning and evaluation. Preference for and effort devoted to educational media may be a function of personality. Preference for online or text-based education may be a function of introversion, and time spent away from study may indicate extraversion or procrastination. Using student surveys, willingness to engage in videoconferencing or to use mobile phones to support teaching and learning was explored. Within an ergonomic framework the authors detail human factors relevant to the use of videoconferencing and mobile phones to support lectures to remote locations.

Experiential Learning through Virtual Scenarios

With workplaces potentially including four generations, the differing motivations and learning styles provide new challenges to educators, as well as managers and leaders of these workforces. The Net Generation learner of the twenty first century, born after 1980 and digital media fluent, brings potentially greater collaboration and connection to knowledge and learning as a collective, rather than individual, learning process. A postgraduate Masters in Communication course explored immersive learning in two collaborative virtual and workplace-oriented environments. The Net Generation learners were able to identify the connective and experiential nature of their engagement in the virtual scenario and experiential collaborative project as being both transforming and transferable to the workplaces they were targeting through their coursework programs. The case studies explored the neomillennial learning styles as a media-based framework for designing learning tools and environments appropriate for the twenty first century learner.

Social Interactions in Virtual Communication Environments

Forensic science students must not only learn disciplinary-specific subject content, but also need to acquire the interpersonal and communication skills crucial for successful careers in policing and biotechnology. Utilizing various Web 2.0 computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies, asynchronous and synchronous communication, including chat rooms, podcasts, resource sharing and wikis, enabled the creation of virtual active-learning environments. A virtual crime scene was produced to permit distance and face-to-face university students to conduct a virtual forensics investigation. The virtual model allowed students to gain and become aware of the practical communication skills consistent with ‘real-life’ forensic crime scene analysis. Specifically, the use of virtual role-play reproduced patterns of dialogue routine among police officers, crime scene officers and lab technicians. CMC technologies not only facilitated these social interactions, but gave distance education students a simulated forensic workplace experience not possible due to cost, location and time. This narrowed preconceived gaps between distance and internal education. Finally, the authors’ chapter argues that with careful planning, the use of role playing and scripting can be an effective tool for encouraging pedagogically effective social interactions utilizing new CMC technologies

Vodcasts! How to Unsuccessfully Implement a New Online Tool

Online technology is increasingly used in higher education and training. Recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have enabled the implementation of an array of tools, such as online tutorials, videos, podcasts and vodcasts, which are utilised within the education and business sectors. In this chapter the authors describe a study analysing the uptake of a new online tool by a cohort of internal and distance first year microbiology students enrolled in Pharmacy, Medical Science and Biotechnology programs. Key findings included the central role publicising the electronic resources plays in the uptake of new technology. Potential advantages and pitfalls of implementing online ICTs in a discipline that traditionally relies on face-to-face instruction and very little virtual learning are discussed making this study relevant to any field considering the adoption of new ICTs.

Diffusion of Technology in Higher Education Classrooms

Technology use is contextual and tends to follow, often invisible, ground rules. Within the situational context of a higher education classroom the rules and sanctions regarding technology use become increasingly complex. Many universities in the United States now require that all incoming students have laptops, with the rationale being that technology is an important tool used to help students organize and catalogue knowledge. Laptops allow students to connect to library and campus resources. Further, requiring laptops on a networked campus creates a sense of digital unity rather than digital divides among students and faculty. The message to students is that personal laptops are important and even required. However, within the context of the higher education classroom, laptop use is often being limited or banned by classroom instructors, a contradiction of the larger university message. As Marcuse (1982) noted, technology is a social process. The diffusion of laptop technology into higher education has altered the modes of producing knowledge and the social relationships organized around that production process. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight how the use of this technology is negotiated between faculty and students and how issues of engagement, the self-production of knowledge, and security influence this negotiation. The authors argue that issues of laptop use in the classroom are rooted in concerns of power, legitimacy, and identity associated with the production of knowledge.

Is Anyone There? Being ‘Present' in Distance Education

Research on higher education distance education tends to focus on the technical aspects of distance teaching, with little focus on the personal components of teaching and learning. In this chapter, students are interviewed to identify whether they want a personal presence from their lecturers and if so, what this presence might look like in distance education. Conversely, lecturers are interviewed to determine what they personally bring of themselves when teaching in distance mode. Results indicate that many, but not all, distance students want their lecturers to be passionate about their subject, form relationships and be open and available. However, there were some students, albeit a minority, who wanted to focus solely on the subject. Other students were clear that even though they valued lecturers’ personal revelations, these needed to be directly related to subject materials. Similarly, distance lecturers suggest that while they do reveal aspects of their personality there are also boundaries as to how much they ‘give’ of themselves. A case study is presented that extends this discussion and provides one approach, through the use of technology, for taking the ‘distance’ out of distance teaching.

ePortfolios and Preservice Teachers

This chapter seeks to develop an analysis of the contemporary use of the ePortfolio (Electronic Portfolio) in education practices. Unlike other explorations of this new technology which are deterministic in their approach, the authors seek to reveal the techniques and practices of government which underpin the implementation of the e-portfolio. By interrogating a specific case study example from a large Australian university’s preservice teacher program, the authors find that the e-portfolio is represented as eLearning technology but serves to govern students via autonomization and self responsibilization. Using policy data and other key documents, they are able to reveal the e-portfolio as a delegated authority in the governance of preservice teachers. However, despite this ongoing trend, they suggest that like other practices of government, the e-portfolio will eventually fail. This however the authors conclude opens up space for critical thought and engagement which is not afforded presently.

Information and Communications Technologies and Policy Development for E-Democracy in Malaysia

This chapter discusses the prospect of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) enhancing Malaysia’s policy development processes through citizen engagement to enhance the development and implementation of electronic democracy (e-democracy). The Malaysian government promotes a diverse range of ICT initiatives which this chapter seeks to examine through a series of key questions: What are the initiatives and their objectives? How do these initiatives provide opportunities for civic education and citizen empowerment? Has the government through its public administrators actually started to engage citizens in policy development processes online? Are citizens ready to take part in these online initiatives? What sort of contribution can citizens provide to government online? In order to answer these questions, this chapter discusses the role of ICT planning, strategies, and initiatives to improve democratic practices. The chapter discusses four factors influencing the thinking of the Malaysian public service toward local conceptualization and implementation of e-democracy for better policy development. The answers are based on publications in the public domain and preliminary interviews with a handful of key informants.