Teaching and Learning and E-Learning

Comprehensive study finds that students overwhelmingly prefer having their lectures available online, either for remote access or for later viewing.

In this article, we describe our collaborative research toward creating a “mixed reality teaching and learning environment” (MiRTLE) that enables teachers and students participating in real-time mixed and online classes to interact with avatar representations of each other. The longer-term hypothesis is that avatar representations of teachers and students will help create a sense of shared presence, engendering a sense of community and improving student engagement in online lessons.

The National Science Foundation defines "cyberlearning" as "the use of networked computing and communications technologies to support learning." The report of the NSF Task Force on Cyberlearning, Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge, A 21st Century Agenda for the National Science Foundation, identifies cyberlearning as having "…the potential to transform education throughout a lifetime, enabling customized interaction with diverse learning materials on any topic..."

The task force report identifies potential ways in which advanced computing and communications technologies might be leveraged to support learning, highlighting opportunities for further research. In it, the task force offers 5 recommendations for the NSF to pursue:

"The days of walled-off learning, where students are separated into grades, disciplines and physical locations, are giving way to programs in which students are encouraged to look beyond lecture halls, labs, and textbooks. Technology offers opportunities to bring together people, tools, and data in a global commons . Creating a global commons requires more than removing barriers posed by subject matter, geography, economics, or age. It requires a new set of models that may challenge many of our historic assumptions about authority and education. This presentation explores principles and examples that hint at a future global commons."

'Emerging technologies for learning' aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education in the medium term. The publications are not intended to be a comprehensive review of educational technologies, but offer some highlights across the broad spectrum of developments and trends. It should open readers up to some of the possibilities that are developing and the potential for technology to transform our ways of working, learning and interacting over the next three to five years.

Marist College's award-winning work with Web 2.0 applications has led to the development of an e-learning 2.0 strategy for the pedagogically based deployment of these technologies. We will present our strategy and lessons learned from recent implementations, including methodologies for controlling costs, enhancing learning, and ensuring alignment with strategic goals.

The demand for quality, effective online teaching environments is growing. Using three research studies (on social presence in distance learning, threaded discussion, and student technology usage), Academic Outreach proposed synchronous and asynchronous educational strategies to faculty and students in distributed/blended learning environments. Don't miss this opportunity to hear our results.