TEAP2014

This recording of a webinar organised by The eLearning Guild looks at the common reasons learners disengage in synchronous virtual environments, and which factors you can influence to change this. There are also five pdf resources including a helpful checklist on the features of an engaging online classroom.

The Blackboard Exemplary Course Program began in 2000 with the goal of identifying and disseminating best practices for designing engaging online courses. Blackboard have created an exemplary Course Rubric, which they suggest instructors and course designers use to evaluate how well their course conforms to best practices outlined in the rubric.

Thomas, I wonder whether my Project can benefit of this evaluation rubric?

This presentation on slideshare was put together by Glasgow City College and shares the work they have done on making their Moodle user friendly. It is interesting that more often than not FE colleges are more advanced than HE institutions in the design and development of Moodle.

Useful video resource on making use of the underused workshop module.

Another idea! Let me explore on how and if there is any use of this in my Project!

This web article discusses the competencies required for mobile learning design and provides useful links to further reading on the design of mobile learning.

This blog post shares students views' on mobile learning from a survey carried out at the University of Liverpool. One of the most interesting aspects of this post is the summary of student views in response to the question; 'How would you expect to use mobile devices at University?'

Thomas thank you for sharing. I wonder whether digital natives and "others" would have different opinion? Also I can not guess on how much of a difference would UG students have to part time PG students. Do you have any idea on that or maybe a good resource to look at?

This web article is one of a series on instructional design models. It concisely outlines the The Inquiry-based Learning Model which relies on the idea that individuals are able to learn by investigating scenarios and problems, and through social experiences.

When writing a Final Project my students need to look at previous papers and to learn from that. I wonder whether I will be able to take advantage of this resource to cater for this need.

This blog post discusses the required learning conditions for effective online discussions, and include excerpts from peer-reviewed papers that describe how asynchronous online discussions can promote deep, rich learning.

This web article published by Faculty Focus suggests that students are more willing to ask questions and interact with their fellow students in face to face settings if they have been offered the opportunity to engage through synchronous online tools. It then outlines reasons why these tools are beneficial for learning.

Now this was and is interesting. Thanks mr T

This academic paper discusses strategies for encouraging first year undergraduate students to participate in online discussion. It looks at Salmon's five stage model to engage students and the responsibility that lecturers have to initiate purposeful activities that promote community development.

Thomas, it seems that there has been lot of thoughts on UG. Have you found any info on PG students as well?

This web article shares the results of a study exploring which types of interaction are most predictive of students' sense of community in online graduate courses at a US university. Interactions between learners which emerged as contributing the most to sense of community, in decreasing order of contribution, were (a) introductions, (b) collaborative group projects, (c) contributing personal experiences, (d) entire class online discussions, and (e) exchanging resources.

This paper published by The Open University looks at how social presence can be used to engage students with online learning. It outlines the benefits and problems of online communication for learning and then looks at the pros and cons of different online communication tools.

The Spring 2014 issue of this bi-annual e-learning journal published by the Learning and Teaching Institute at the University of Hertfordshire contains useful research on the educational use of blogs and wikis and the use of quizzes for formative assessment.

This blog post on Ebbinghaus' theory of memory and learning is one of a series by Steve Wheeler summarising influential learning theories. Each post offers a nice clear summary and provides further references if you want to dig deeper.

Looks at components of blended learning, effective integration and how to create meaningful experiences. It also highlights resources required when planning and executing blended learning, including tutor support which is often overlooked.

I have not seen this one before. Let me have a look and I will use that data when assembling the Project.

Excellent and succinct. Helped address weaknesses in my project proposal Thank you

An academic article introducing the concept of evaluation of Learning Technology. By Martin Oliver, Higher Education Research and Development Unit, University College London

Very interesting look at the future of academic publishing

Being "new" to research myself I am on the quest for information related to it!

A succinct introductory video on podcasting and its use in higher education, highlighting key benefits of student engagement and emphasizing the key realities of the steep learning curve

Well done and thank you! I plan to use this when thinking of my Project design.

A lighthearted look at how to re-engage bored students. Activity was introducing a wiki and a expectations are detailed.

Would "bored" describe accomplished full time working professionals doing a part time PG programme?

Case studies on reflective blogging and a wiki (the latter in an LTA context): components, marking, team charter, outcomes.

Reflection is one of my "challenges" at the moment. I hope that some ideas from this resource might help.