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When asked about several emerging technologies for online education, 27 percent of respondents predicted that use of course management systems (CMSs) would increase most drastically in the next five years. Those surveyed also said that video streaming, online testing and exam tools, and learning object libraries would find significantly greater use on campus during this time. Between 5 and 10 percent of respondents expected to see increases in asynchronous discussion tools, videoconferencing, synchronous presentation tools, and online testing.

this study found that the most important skills for an online instructor during the next few years will be how to moderate or facilitate learning and how to develop or plan for high-quality online courses (see Table 2). Being a subject-matter expert was the next most important skill. In effect, the results indicate that planning and moderating skills are perhaps more important than actual "teaching" or lecturing skills in online courses. As Salmon pointed out, online instructors are moderators or facilitators of

As a result, enhancing pedagogy is perhaps the most important factor in navigating the perfect e-storm. In the present study, respondents made predictions about the quality of online education in the near future and about how online courses would be taught and evaluated.

Instructors' abilities to teach online are critical to the quality of online education.

), and educational opportunities.25Online Teaching Skills.

Our findings also indicated that, in general, respondents envisioned the Web in the next few years more as a tool for virtual teaming or collaboration, critical thinking, and enhanced student engagement than as an opportunity for student idea generation and expression of creativity.

What if institutions took the opposite stance and measured face-to-face courses based on whether they could accomplish all that online instruction can?

the roles of recruiter and trainer and tightly aligning the incentives of everyone involved. Access to literature and materials is no longer the bottleneck for students, so they instead optimize on the new bottleneck and offer direct, personal access to an instructor, with close guidance through projects, and a community of peers and mentors. 

Table 2. Survey responses – rating-scale item (N = 22) Question Very Easy (1) Easy (2) No Problems (3) Some Issues (4) Very Difficult (5) 6. How difficult was it to create your VoiceThread account? 19 3 0 0

Table 3.Survey responses – open-ended item (N = 18) Question Comments 7. Anything you would like to share about VoiceThread? Positive comments (n = 12) "Very easy and convenient." "I think that once I was able to get into the system it was easy to use. Now I need to understand why the mic[rophone] does not work, maybe my laptop." "It was actually very interesting to learning [sic] how to use VoiceThread. It was something different." "I like the way I can participate by using text. As English is my second language, speaking is really difficult for me. Also, VoiceThread is really easy and simple to use." "It was really easy to navigate and use." "VoiceThread was very easy to use and it could be beneficial in the future." "VoiceThread is easy and pretty interesting!" "I like that it is very easy to use." "It seems like a good tool to utilize for some classes." "Easy to navigate and good review before the exam." "Never done it before but I think it's pretty good tool." "Seems like a great tool we can use." Comments expressing reservations (n = 4) "I think it was very easy to figure out. My hesitation about using in the future for a course to do a presentation or recommending my peers to use it is that I don't really know much about it so that is why I responded no to those questions. I don't know how to add graphics and things of that nature like on PowerPoint." "VoiceThread is easy to register [on]. However, I'm not too sure about making a presentation." "I think it's a good form of technology. It's not my first choice of communication though. Plus if you're typing your answer the font is super small, not sure if I can change this setting." "[There needs to be a] bigger text box" Unfavorable comments (n = 2) "I do not like the interface of the VoiceThread ... [The interface] makes it hard to use on anything besides a computer." One student found it slightly difficult to "figure out how to answer the questions or how to comment on others' answers."

Self-evaluation is a potentially powerful technique because of its impact on student performance through enhanced self-efficacy and increased intrinsic motivation

STUDENT SELF-EVALUATION: WHAT RESEARCH SAYS AND WHAT PRACTICE SHOWS By Carol Rolheiser and John A. Ross

Alternate assessment must be transparent (Fredericksen & Collins, 1989), meaning that the criteria for appraisal, the population from which tasks are drawn, the scoring key and interpretive schemes must be visible to students, even when the teachers who devised these procedures have an imperfect grasp of them

One teacher resolved the conflict by redefining her metaphor of assessment from that of "fair judgment" to providing a ‘"window into a student's mind" (p. 309),

STAGE 1- Involve students in defining the criteria that will be used to judge their performance.

Involving students in determining the evaluation criteria initiates a negotiation

If students have been involved in a negotiation in Stage 1, the criteria that result will be an integrated set of personal and school goals.

- Give students feedback on their self-evaluations.

Teachers need to help students recalibrate their understanding by arranging for students to receive feedback (from the teacher, peers, and themselves) on their attempts to implement the criteria.

when students are taught systematic self-evaluation procedures, the accuracy of their judgment improves. Contrary to the beliefs of many students, parents, and teachers, students' propensity to inflate grades decreases when teachers share assessment responsibility and control (Ross, et al., 2000).

Students will learn more because (i) self-evaluation will focus student attention on the objectives measured, (ii) the assessment provides teachers with information they would otherwise lack, (iii) students will pay more attention to the assessment, and (iv) student motivation will be enhanced.

Our own research and that of others substantiate these four arguments.

Positive self-evaluations encourage students to set higher goals and commit more personal resources to learning tasks (Bandura, 1997; Schunk, 1995).

Australian internet expert, Matthew Allen from Curtin University vigorously disagrees."We have to get over the myth that mobile phones have eaten the brains of our children and talk productively about using new communications tools."There is an untapped reservoir of interest and enthusiasm, and if you can find the right tasks [that] empower students, it's like reaching a [teaching] tipping point," Allen says.

The future role of formal education may be to help us navigate through this information in a really useful way

t becomes difficult to develop experiences for distance students that continue to provide work-based experiences and engage them as members in their local communities.

Reflection is a major component of service-learning

When conducting online courses, e-service offers excellent outreach to community organizations and fills a void in meeting community needs. As the educational paradigm shifts to more distance learning, students will be looking for ways to gain work experience and build long-lasting partnerships with their communities that will benefit their future careers. The experiences provide rich, authentic, hands-on training for students.

E-learning challenges students to think in new ways, explore new ways of problem solving, and raise critical questions about their learning and service. E-service enhances student academic experience through experiential learning that reflects the complex issues of students' future workplaces. Students get the opportunity to wrestle with complex issues right in their own communities and to become a part of the solution. These solutions are shared with peers statewide, assisting other small towns and businesses that may have similar needs.

Because online students tend not to be the traditional age of on-campus students and usually work a 40-hour week in addition to going to school, access to a community partner can be a challenge.

I have to squeeze a lot of material into an online course

doing it

intent

Thinking back on my experiences, I can say that I developed a support system and friendships through working with classmates in online classes, but before this class, I never realized that may have been the

How do I know this?  Because I just told you that I did. AND I did it verbatim from memory—that’s how I know.  How else do I know that I learned this?

I have been changed in many ways, particularly in how I think, how I will teach, how and what I will study in the future.  I was a proponent of online learning before I took this course, I am a greater fan now that I understand the flip side of the equation.  I love the course I built and want to keep working on it and improve on it so when I am ready (in the near future) I can teach it.  I still do not think that I am quite ready to teach—there are a few things I need to work on. However, I am confident that I will be ready relatively soon.  I feel confident and empowered!!!

because you pretend that if they could just go to Harvard, they’d be fine. Maybe that’s not true.

You have to get rid of the future

you wanted to pay off all the debt from the fancy school that was supposed to give you that future.”