38,268 research outputs found
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
âEconomics with training wheelsâ: Using blogs in teaching and assessing introductory economics
Blogs provide a dynamic interactive medium for online discussion, consistent with communal constructivist pedagogy. This paper explores the use of blogs in the teaching and assessment of a small (40-60 students) introductory economics paper. The role of blogs as a teaching, learning and assessment tool are discussed. Using qualitative and quantitative data collected across four semesters, studentsâ participation in the blog assessment is found to be associated with student ability, gender, and whether they are distance learners. Importantly, students with past economics experience do not appear to crowd out novice economics students. Student performance in tests and examinations does not appear to be associated with blog participation after controlling for student ability. However, students generally report overall positive experiences with the blog assessment
Introducing ICT to teachers of an institution-wide language programme: principal considerations
This article sets out to introduce some principal pedagogical considerations which influenced the design and delivery of a teacher training project for an institution-wide language programme. A training programme was developed which argues for the necessity of a theoretical framework in which e-learning can take place, as well as introducing different forms of e-learning and their evaluation in context. Some of the cornerstones of the programme delivery are introduced and discussed
Technical and didactic knowledge of the moodle LMS in Higher Education: beyond functional use
Higher education institutions at the international level have seen
the need to adopt and integrate information and communication
technologies to meet the opportunities and challenges of innovation
in teaching and learning processes. This logic has led to the
implementation of virtual learning environments called âLearning
Management Systemsâ, the functionalities of which support
flexible and active learning under a constructivist approach.
This study measured didactic and technological use of Moodle
and its implications in teaching from a quantitative approach
by administering a questionnaire to a sample of 640 higher
education teachers. Some guiding questions were as follows:
Are teachers using the Moodle platform for didactic purposes?
What strategies, resources and tools are teachers using, and
what do they contribute to student-centred teaching? Are teaching
strategies that are focused on collaboration, interaction and
student autonomy promoted? The results coincide with those of
other studies, confirming an instrumental and functional use of the
platform, which is mainly being used as a repository for materials
and information, while its pedagogical use remains limited. This is
becoming a problem in higher education institutions, something
that requires debate and reflection from a systemic perspective on
the adoption and integration of technology in the classroo
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