Studying engaged learning in online communities

Workshop paper presented at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, ICLS '06, Bloomington, IN. Retrieved July 18, 2007 from http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/gerry/pub/icls2006eloc.pdf.In this interactive session, participants will think together about “live” issues in the study of online communities as environments in which engaged learning can take place. Specifically, (a) What can we learn from contrasting cases of engaged learning in online communities? (b) Given differing methods, questions, timescales, grain sizes, philosophical orientations, and site contexts, how might generalizability of findings be ensured? (c) What do researchers need in order to develop a coherent theory of learning

Understanding Educator Perceptions of Quality in Digital Libraries

The purpose of the study was to identify educators\u27 expectations and requirements for the design of educational digital collections for classroom use. A series of five focus groups was conducted with practicing teachers, pre-service teachers, and science librarians, drawn from different educational contexts (i.e., K-5, 6--12, College). Participants\u27 expect that the added value of educational digital collections is the provision of: (1) \u27high quality\u27 teaching and learning resources, and (2) additional contextual information beyond that in the resource. Key factors that influence educators\u27 perceptions of quality were identified: scientific accuracy, bias, advertising, design and usability, and the potential for student distraction. The data showed that participants judged these criteria along a continuum of tolerance, combining consideration of several factors in their final judgements. Implications for collections accessioning policies, peer review, and digital library service design are discussed