Connected Learning Environment Research Articles

Left-behind learners: Exclusion-inclusion paradox of 4IR/5IR education technology

Connected Learning Environment (CLE) was pictured as a potent tool to implement inclusive education because it supports widened access to learning that is socially rooted. However, the fact that a series of events that warrant its usage have shown that different uninvestigated factors associated with learners may serve as a clog to its potential in fostering inclusive learning created an impetus for this study. An autoethnographic study was conducted, two experienced teachers from mainstream, integrated, and special schools were interviewed and the data collected were subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The result revealed that the holistic adoption of 4IR/5IR education technology may heighten the exclusion of learners of various categories due to socio-economic background, lack of learning support, and inherent intellectual disabilities among special students. Hence, the usage of 4IR/5IR education technology at the secondary level needs to be accommodated with more nuances as it tends to amplify educational exclusion.

Sustainable Education and Digitalization through the Prism of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Our paper discusses how sustainable education has evolved at higher education institutions (HEIs) during the COVID-19 pandemic by embracing digitalization and novel technologies. In addition, it describes the innovative methods for integrating technology into professional education during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluate the global practices and fundamental changes in the sphere of higher education, particularly regarding sustainable education and digitalization. The paper aims at describing the challenges faced by higher education institutions in adopting sustainable education and digitalization, as well as the opportunities for growth and innovation that have arisen due to the pandemic. Our methods include the empirical model, which assesses the acceptance and usage of novel digital technologies for promoting sustainable education by university professors and academic researchers in four major Russian cities (Moscow, Krasnodar, Kazan, and Saint Petersburg) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of the model reveal the significance of implementing sustainability in the classroom, which could bring positive outcomes to both students and teachers. Our study provides a valuable resource for educators seeking techniques, models, and practical advice to overcome the obstacles of teaching in a digitally connected learning environment in Russia and beyond. Specifically, we propose that the primary focus of digitalizing professional education should be on teachers and instructors who are enthusiastic about leveraging technology for learning and who are familiar with novel digital technologies. It appears that digital technologies are capable of transforming teaching practices for sustainable education and economic development.

Using Social Media to Foster Engagement and Connection in Sport Psychology Classrooms

Sport and exercise psychology (SEP) educators are tasked with fostering innovation in the classroom. Given the current generation of students’ heightened attraction to technology along with an increase in social isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, social media may be useful in the classroom. The purpose of this article is to explain the process of implementing social media as a tool to foster engagement and connection in two sections of an online SEP university course. Feedback from students indicated using social media for assignments fostered a connected learning environment and provided a refreshing way to engage with peers. Lessons learned are provided for instructors considering using social media.

Library Connection: An Interactive, Personalized Orientation for Online Students

Library orientations are a very common learning experience for residential and online students. These all have similar goals of introducing students to the library and helping them feel more comfortable in navigating the library. The Library Connection is a unique type of library orientation that provides meaningful feedback to students in a personalized, connected learning environment. This program is offered through digital badges. A conventional qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the text responses of students completing this orientation. Six interesting themes emerged from these data including student perceptions of the use of the library, developing advanced search techniques, and managing a complex information environment. Interesting trends include the disparities between student and instructor perspectives of their learning and the need for a hybrid orientation that provides scaled instruction while still giving meaningful feedback and personalized responses to students from librarians.

Teaching an Interdisciplinary Graduate-Level Methods Course in an Openly-Networked Connected Learning Environment: A Glass Half-Full

Teaching an Interdisciplinary Graduate-Level Methods Course in an Openly-Networked Connected Learning Environment: A Glass Half-Full

Decision Making in the Connected Learning Environment (CLE)

In the last years, we have witnessed to an increasingly heightened awareness of the potential benefits of a challenging and promising educational research area : Adaptive Learning [1]. It has become one of the central technologies in education [2] and was recently named, by Gartner, as the number one strategic technology to impact education in 2015 [3]. In fact, adaptive learning systems become more accessible to educational institutions, corporations, and individuals, however, the challenges encountered are more structural and operational rather than technological [4]. While a lot of research has focused on development and evaluation of technological aspects [5], serious questions remain about the motivation of learners [6],[7] and also the design of the content (or domain) model [8],[9] including the learner's autonomy issues [9],[10],[11] and the lack of the learner's control [9],[12],[13]. In order to overcome those challenges, we propose CLE “Connected Learning Environment” which is an ubiquitous learning environment [14] that provide to the learners of this generation a learning environment adapted to their expectations and their lifestyle habits and stimulate also their motivation. As a pedagogical approach, CLE adopts the connectivism [15] and take advantage from its benefits (adaptation to the current technological advances [16], management of learning in communities [17], openness with respect to external resources[18], etc.) and adapts this approach in a formal context even though the connectivism was conceived as an informal pedagogical approach [19][20]. CLE introduces a new pedagogical process including four phases detailed later (Knowledge construction, Decision making, Validation, Evaluation) and the knowledge construction phase is characterized by the collaboration and communication between heterogeneous communities composed of humans and smart objects [14]. However, the ability to distinguish relevant information among the knowledge constructed by the actors is a vital point. As part of this article, we focus on the decision making process. To do this, a comparison is made between C4.5 [21] decision tree and MLP [22] neural network on the same data set using the same performance measures in order to take a decision on the relevance of knowledge constructed by the CLE actors.

Reflections on NLN Technology Conferences: 10 Years and Counting.

Nursing education has just marked an important milestone. The most recent NLN/Elsevier Technology Conference took place October 22-24 in Tampa, the 10th national conference focused on technology hosted by the National League for Nursing. As the saying goes, we've come a long way, baby! The opening session of this year's conference, presented by founding committee members Mary Anne Rizzolo, Diane Billings, Helen Connors, Pam Jeffries, and me, was a review of highlights dating from the first conference, held in 2004 in San Antonio. Since that time, conferences have taken place throughout the United States, with each site presenting unique opportunities to view the latest technologies. The initial purpose of the NLN Technology Conference was to help faculty tackle the growth of emerging technologies and harness their potential use in nursing education. The conference evolved, creating a platform for NLN Health Information Technology Scholars (HITS) to present their projects. HITS was a five-year grant to the University of Kansas funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration in 2007. The purpose was to develop, implement, evaluate, disseminate, and sustain a faculty development collaborative (FDC) initiative to integrate information and other technologies in nursing curricula. The NLN, the University of Kansas, and three university partners were involved: University of Colorado Denver, Indiana University, and Johns Hopkins University. All told, the grant provided training and mentoring for 265 scholars. More recently, Elsevier became a major supporter of the conference, which has more than doubled in size from nearly 100 participants in the early years to more than 200 today. Distinct groups of participants present each year. Many of the HIT scholars continue to attend and present their own technology projects. The theme for the 2015 conference, Partnering for Connected Health, was woven into the plenary sessions and the various breakout sessions and posters. The pre-sessions included one on DIY (Do-It-Yourself) BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) strategies for building a connected learning environment using students' smartphones. The other pre-session was on collaborating with instructional designers. Telehealth had a strong presence, with numerous presentations from faculty who use integration remote monitoring for clinical students, interprofessional education, and tasks such as diabetes management in rural areas. In her plenary address, Dr. Patricia Dykes, nurse scientist and program director for research in the Center for Nursing Excellence at Brigham & Women's Hospital and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, addressed the necessary competencies for nurses practicing in a connected health environment. She spoke about the use of consumer-facing tools, any tools that consumers use to connect to health care, such as wearable apps, to bring together inpatients and their families as part of the interdisciplinary care team. These tools help ensure concordance between the patient's goals and the goals set by the various providers on the health care team. During the second day's plenary session, we focused on integrating connected health into the nursing curriculum and asked participants to identify the take-away messages they would bring back to their organizations, as well as their next steps to start the integration. We like to describe the technology conferences as unconferences, opportunities for participants to determine the dialogue in four specific underlying areas: eLearning, simulation, informatics, and telehealth. This year there were two new additions to the conference: a conference app and a gallery walk. Both generated quite a buzz. Participants downloaded the interactive conference app for use throughout the conference and beyond. It allowed them to view the agenda, download slides, complete surveys, tweet, post pictures, send messages to other participants, and post messages about their experiences and ah ha moments. …

The Impact of Fun and Enjoyment on Adult's Learning

An exploration of the literature has shown that fun and enjoyment are often discussed in relation to the learning of children and older adults and are rarely mentioned in relation to the learning of adults. This paper explores the role that fun and enjoyment plays in adult learning programs and the impact that this has on an adults learning. The focus is on data gathered in 2012 from interviews with adult learners and their teachers in Victoria, Australia. These conversations found that both groups could identify the fun and enjoyment in their adult learning experience. The findings have been analysed firstly as an overall experience, with adult learners talking more freely about fun and enjoyment and teachers talking about engagement, social relationships and safety. Learners identified a number of elements that are part of their experience of fun and enjoyment: the activities they undertake, the process established by the teachers, interacting with others, humour, achievement, their emotions and well-being and personal benefits. Both adult learners and their teachers also believed that fun and enjoyment impacted on adults learning and they were able to articulate the role that fun and enjoyment plays in adult learning programs. Firstly both having fun and experiencing enjoyment were perceived by both learners and teachers as a motivator to attend classes and learn the knowledge and skills. Secondly fun and enjoyment were considered a mechanism that encouraged concentration by learners and helped in the absorption of learning. Finally having fun and experiencing enjoyment were identified as a proven way to build a socially connected learning environment. The research indicates that a greater focus on the affective domain of adults learning experience, in particular fun and enjoyment could prove to be as beneficial and important as it is currently considered in children's learning. A different approach to the design of adult learning experiences and methods that incorporates greater use of fun may mean that more adults are encouraged and motivated to participate in learning with enthusiasm for the journey and optimism for the outcomes.

The Connected Age and the 2014 Horizon Report.

New Media Consortium Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition (Johnson, Adams Becker, Estrada, & Freeman, 2014) identifies trends and challenges in adoption of technologies in higher educa- tion. Trends are described as key trends to accelerate higher education technology adoption and are classified as fast (one to two years), mid- range (three to five years), and long-term (five years or more). Challenges are presented as those impeding adoption of technologies according to our level of understanding and whether or not solutions can be found.The conteXt of connected aGeBefore we move to results of 2014 Report, let's place these results in context of Connected Age (Skiba, 2014), being connected to everyone and everything (Smith, 2013). As Oblinger (2013, p. 4) states, Interconnections are linked and tagged, tweeted and texted, followed and friended.Two concepts that help define Connected Age are connected learning and connected learning environment. My trusted resource, 7 Things You Should Know (http://www.educause.edu/library/ resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-connected-learning), describes connected learning as highly connected ecosystem of tech- nologies that support sharing, collaboration, and global links to special- ists and students in every area of endeavor that focuses integration, enabling all participants in higher education to assemble components in unique ways to construct pathways needed to accomplish educa- tional goals.There are several ways to describe how connected learning works. For example, students can connect to resources, people, and ideas to accomplish their learning goals. example is provided by 7 Things You Should Know: An instructor might support a connected learner by providing a variety of content choices and identifying items that can help build a customized path through subject matter.Connected learning will reshape both traditional and professional education by putting learners at center with learners, rather than institution, defining their own learning pathways. In essence, con- nected learning will dramatically change teaching-learning process. And, as faculty, we will need to revisit our roles and how we prepare our courses using various connected technologies. Educause blog- ger Joanne Dehoney (2013) notes, Teaching is about connecting. All instruction, from a tutorial conducted in an Oxford don's sitting room to a MOOC offered to 100,000 students revolves around core con- nection of expert to novice.Masie (2012) also makes a distinction between e-learning (often connotes delivery of information in a sequential, linear fashion) and the connected learning environment (integrative, personalized, interconnected, and authentic). Smith (2013) states that in con- nected learning environment, The connections magnify reach and value of not just information but also our relationships, creating oppor- tunities for learning, working, and collaborating on an unprecedented scale. Smith identifies three hallmark characteristics of a connected learning environment:* Seamless integration with planning and advising services helps students connect each course with long-term goals and a plan for success.* Personalized learning helps students connect with optimal opportunities to progress.* Engaged and authentic learning experiences help connect learn- ers to scholars and researchers, to workplace and industry, to local communities, and to global challenges.FoRces InfLuencInG adoptIonLet's examine results of 2014 Horizon Report within context of Connected Age. Six key trends will serve as driving forces influ- encing adoption of technologies in higher education.Fast, 1 to 2 Years* increase in use of social media by all age groups is widely reported. As noted in report (Johnson et al. …

Information sharing, connected learning, and a professional wrestling fan community

Research on information sharing practices of online fan communities is nascent. This paper seeks to describe information sharing in a professional wrestling fan community, focusing on the practice of youth. It also seeks to explore how information sharing effects this connected learning environment. This study finds that information sharing practices are tied to the social nature of the community fostering social ties. They also function as a means for people to stay current on new information, and help members of the community develop a more nuanced expertise in their interest.

Exploring Tutor and Student Experiences in Online Synchronous Learning Environments in the Performing Arts

High levels of student dissatisfaction and attrition persist in blended and online distance learning programmes. As students and tutors become more geographically dispersed with fewer opportunities for face-to-face contact emergent technologies like Online Synchronous Learning Environments (OSLEs) may provide an interactive, connected learning environment. OSLEs, such as Blackboard Collaborate and Adobe Connect, are web-based, computer-mediated communication programs typically using video and audio. This article reports the findings of an exploratory, nine-month study in the performing arts in which tutors used an OSLE for dissertation supervision, pastoral support and performance feedback. Garrison & Anderson’s (2003) Community of Inquiry (COI) framework was used as the basis for evaluation of student and tutor experiences to explore in what ways learning could be supported when using the OSLE. Our findings indicate significant benefits of OSLEs including convenience, immediacy of communication and empowerment of learners, even for our rehearsal-based case study. For students, it was important to see and talk with each other (peers and tutors), share and discuss developing ideas and check understanding through the video and audio media. Tutors reported that OSLEs required them to re-think the design of the learning environment, re-visit how they facilitated discourse and re-examine their communication skills especially with regard to feedback on student performance. Technical limitations such as poor quality audio and video, lack of system robustness, and the need for turn-taking did impact on learning; however, it was accepted that OSLE-technology was improving, and rapidly so. Despite the limitations of the study, the evaluation using the COI framework demonstrated that learning had been supported and that use of an OSLE could support all three elements of the framework: social, cognitive and tutor presence. Also, it was apparent that the tutors and most of the students were extremely committed to using the OSLE believing it offered a lively, personal and dynamic learning space.

Co-constructing Student Involvement: An Examination of Teacher Confirmation and Student-to-Student Connectedness in the College Classroom

In order for students to succeed academically instructors must foster a supportive and connected learning environment. Importantly, not only do instructors need to connect with students, they also need to allow students the opportunity to connect with one another. Following that framework, aligned with the Dimensions of Learning model, we examined teacher confirmation behaviors and student-to-student connectedness as predictors of students' willingness to talk in class and preparedness for class (e.g., reading assigned chapters). Results found student-to-student connectedness mediated the relationships between teacher confirmation behaviors and in-class student involvement. Thus, this co-constructed, positive classroom climate nurtures student involvement. Student-to-student connectedness also served as a stronger predictor of student involvement than class size. Regardless of class size, student-to-student connectedness is an important classroom resource that instructors need to tap into as they try to engage their students.

The challenges of leadership in a connected education environment

Deans and directors of education in the United States are being asked to position their schools, colleges and departments of education (SCDE) for teaching and learning in the twenty-first century. A key question related to this effort is ‘How is the unit going to utilize current and emerging technologies as an integral part of their planning for instructional and managerial problems? ’ If deans and directors are to answer this question in an innovative way, at least two things must happen. First, they must understand their role as institutional technology leaders. Second, they must engage faculty, staff, and students in the careful exploration of three critical questions: 1. How does the SCDE create and maintain a technology infrastructure to support innovative instruction and program delivery? 2. How can the SCDE prepare faculty, staff, and students to teach and learn in a connected learning environment? And, 3. How best can the SCDE deliver programs in this new environment? This article describes why deans and directors must be leaders if technology is to be a part of the renewal process, discusses the issues related to each of the three questions, and provides a series of questions for deans and directors to stimulate discussion and planning efforts