Learning in Social Networks: Rationale and Ideas for Its Implementation in Higher Education

The internet has fast become a prevalent medium for collaboration between people and social networks, in particular, have gained vast popularity and relevance over the past few years. Within this framework, our paper will analyse the role played by social networks in current teaching practices. Specifically, we focus on the principles guiding the design of study activities which use social networks and we relate concrete experiences that show how they contribute to improving teaching and learning within a university environment

Assessment of online reflections: engaging english second language (ESL) students

Online discussion boards are increasingly being used by tertiary educators as a tool for encouraging greater student interaction and developing learning communities. In particular, educators who have adopted a learner-centered, socio-constructivist approach to teaching have sought to facilitate collaborative learning in which students reflect upon and share their experiences and perspectives, and construct knowledge together through developing shared meanings. In this paper, the findings of an electronic survey of the perceptions of 70 distance education EFL and ESL students concerning a compulsory assessment item involving contribution to an online course discussion board are presented. The study revealed that the majority of the students enjoyed the assessment item and agreed that posting to the online course discussion board had allowed them to achieve a range of cognitive and social learning outcomes, as well as, to develop some important graduate skills. In particular, ESL students reported the benefits of posting to the discussion board in terms of sharing their experiences with others and reducing the feeling of isolation. Further, when considering social outcomes, ESL students perceive the discussion board provided them with an opportunity to meet and develop a closer relationship with other students in the course and encouraged them to keep up with their studies

Learning through online discussion: a case of triangulation in research

This paper reports on issues in carrying out research into online discussion. The context is a study of a distance learning module within an MBA program. The module required students to tackle problems based on real life scenarios within small online groups. Students were studying part time and shared similar professional backgrounds. The research looked at students' overall evaluation of the module, ways in which group work was conducted, and the contribution of the tutor. The approach taken was an interpretive case study using questionnaire survey, text analysis and interviews. The main findings from the study are reported, but the focus is on the strengths of, and difficulties in, using the research methods. Triangulation of methods provides the researcher with a greater degree of confidence in reporting findings, although subjective interpretation is still needed

Application of a virtual scientific experiment model in different educational contexts

E-learning practice is continuously using experimentation in order to enhance the basic information transfer model where knowledge is passed from the system/ tutors to the students. Boosting student productivity through on-line experimentation is not simple since many organizational, educational and technological issues need to be dealt with. This work describes the application of a Learning Model for Virtual Scientific Experiments (VSEs) in two different scenarios: Information and Communication Technologies and Physics. As part of the first, a VSE for Wireless Sensor Networks was specified and deployed while the second involved the specification and design of a collaborative VSE for physics experiments. Preliminary implementation and deployment results are also discussed

Exploring collaboration patterns among global software development teams.

This study examines communication behaviors in global software student teams. The authors of the paper characterize the types of communication behaviors that occur when student teams are engaged in a software development project. The authors present findings from a one-semester study that examined factors contributing to successful distributed programming interactions among students enrolled at the University of Atilim (Turkey), Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá, University of North Texas, and Middlesex University (UK). Using content and cluster analyses techniques, we identified distinct patterns of collaboration and examined how these patterns were associated with task, culture, GPA, and performance of collaborative teams. Our results suggest that communication patterns among global software learners may be related to task type, culture and GPA. It is hoped that these findings will lead to the development of new strategies for improving communication among global software teams

Lyceum: internet voice groupware for distance learning

This paper describes the design, implementation and deployment of Lyceum, a groupware system providing students and tutors with real time voice conferencing and visual workspace tools, over the standard internet. Lyceum uses a Java client/server architecture to tackle a formidable set of networking requirements: multi-way voice communication with synchronous shared displays, scalable to hundreds of simultaneous users, running over normal modem connections via unknown internet service providers, on home PCs. Additionally, the design had to support multiple courses with different requirements. We describe the interdisciplinary requirements analysis, and iterative design process, by which an academic course team was able to specify and evaluate prototypes. We present the systemís architecture, describe the technical successes and failures from Lyceumís first large scale deployment, and summarise its affordances for interaction and learning

Communication aspects of virtual learning environments: perspectives of early adopters

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are increasingly used in higher education to support communication and collaboration among students. However, there is little research into the effectiveness of VLE communication tools, and how they might be improved. This paper reports findings from interviews with teaching staff at UK universities who were early adopters of VLEs. The interviews revealed how these staff used VLE communication tools, what benefits and problems they experienced, and how VLEs might be improved to provide better support for collaborative learning

Virtual pedagogical model: development scenarios

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio