Adult Education as Snake Oil under the Guise of Democracy

Based on initial content analysis research into the semiotics of advertising for online learning, this paper extends our understanding of the commodification of education via the web by carefully examining the implications of this marketing on the goals of democracy, the just distribution of education and knowledge as resources, and the consequent impact on social justice and equity

Massive Open Online Courses and Educational Equality in China: A Qualitative Inquiry

Although Chinese governments are devoted to the improvement of education, considerable defects such as inequality in education and an increase in educational costs exist in the current education system of China. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) assume the hope of resolving the educational inequality in China with the potential of empowering a diverse population with free, open access to prominent educational resources. This qualitative research project applies narrative inquiry to examine Chinese MOOCs learners’ perceptions of their lived experiences and how MOOCs attend to the problems in Chinese education. The inquiry includes triangulated data in the form of interviews, observations, and online posts. The research finds that MOOCs have limited influence on the issue of educational inequality in China. By identifying the perceptions that Chinese learners have towards MOOCs, this study provides significant implications for the adoption and diffusion of MOOCs in China

An Exploratory Study of Osmo Tangram and Tangram Manipulative in an Elementary Mathematics Classroom

This exploratory study considered the literature on the history of manipulatives, with attention to tangrams, and examined the use of manipulatives in the elementary classroom through the Osmo Tangram. Specifically, manipulatives can be utilized in assisting elementary students to develop mathematical ability and achievement, with an emphasis on spatial sense. This paper describes design features of first generation virtual manipulatives, the amalgam of real and virtual manipulatives (e.g. Osmo Tangram), and results of an exploratory observational study of Osmo Tangram at the elementary level. Findings are discussed tailored to the future design and implementation of integrating tangram into mathematics instruction

The Ideal Online Course

published or submitted for publicatio

Stealing Our Smarts: Indigenous knowledge in On-Line Learning

Tell me what you know….Knowledge and knowing can be a very tricky thing. Reflect on what you are fairly certain that you know. Self-certainty in human knowledge is a function of metacognition primarily. This paper addresses how we know what we know about the most primal and fundamental functions in our everyday lives, and equates the ways in which technology has invaded such spaces as romance to the ways in which technology has begun to infiltrate our own understandings of learning. Through an examination of indigenous knowledge, also thought of as folk knowledge, but meaning that knowledge which is resident within the learner themselves, this paper asserts that we need to move to more of a user-design (Carr, 1997) approach to online learning design and development