Online Learning Technologies Research Articles

Challenges in assessing the nature of effective collaboration in blended university courses

The ability to collaborate effectively face-to-face and online represents a critical skill for university graduates. However, there are still challenges regarding how to accurately assess this skill through traditional student learning measures. To better understand the nature of effective collaboration of university students in blended courses, the current study drew on the student approaches to learning framework and social network analysis techniques. We examined how student approaches to inquiry, approaches to online learning technologies, perceptions of the blended learning environment, different learning outcomes and configurations of collaboration are related. The methodologies commonly used in student approaches to learning research identified deep and surface approaches to inquiry and technologies, positive and negative perceptions of the integration of the learning environment, and of online workload, which also showed logical alignment with relatively better and poorer academic achievement in the course. Based on approaches, perceptions, and learning outcomes, students were divided into groups orientated towards understanding versus reproducing learning. The social network analysis techniques revealed features of different configurations of collaborations by different groups of students and their choices as to whether and with whom to collaborate during the learning process. Nuanced differences were found amongst different configurations of collaborations.
 Implications for practice or policy:
 
 When assessing student experience of collaboration, social network analysis techniques may be able to describe nuanced differences amongst different collaborative configurations.
 To encourage students’ collaboration, assessment tasks involving a large proportion of mandatory collaborative activities should be considered.
 To help student improve experience of collaboration, teachers may consider pairing students with a reproducing learning orientation with those having a deep disciplinary understanding.

Distance learning techniques and technologies for effective and successful online learning

The experience of Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics in the transition to distance learning during the introduction of quarantine is presented. Technological and pedagogical methods for providing modern dynamic technical education in the conditions of a remote mode of work are discussed. Attention is paid to the ways of interaction with teachers and students. The opinion of students — consumers of educational technologies, on innovative teaching methods is given. Features of fast transition from usual academic training to completely distance or blended learning are considered. The most significant difficulties and obstacles in organizing such training are given. Challenges that impose additional requirements during quarantine to ensure the quality of education have been identified. Statistics on the real growth of the load on the distance learning system and how to overcome technological difficulties are presented. When working with server technologies, attention is paid to the process of deployment and constant updating of the virtual machine on external hosting. The factors that directly affect the quality of the system as a whole are given. Recommendations for operating the system during heavy loads are given.
 The tasks that are a priority for the first stage of the transition to blended learning have been identified. Emphasis is placed on the positive results obtained during quarantine in distance learning, and has prospects for further operation of the distance learning system.
 Among the modern challenges to higher education are the following: constant quality control of the educational process, student-centered learning, academic integrity, raising ratings, breaking outdated stereotypes, increasing motivation to master modern information technology in teachers.
 Technological, pedagogical and organizational directions of distance learning system development at the university are clearly defined.

Implementation of Online Learning during the Covid-19 Epidemic in Indonesia: Assessment of Higher Education Students' Use and Implementation of Online Learning Technology

By the end of 2019, the Covid-19 virus was causing concern around the world. It quickly claimed Indonesian government attention – especially as the government was already anticipating a spread of online education technology around the world that was already underway. The Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture appealed to educators for help in the creation of online programs. Researchers have tried to assess the ability of Indonesian tertiary level students to adapt to and implement online education technology. Several Indonesian universities participated in this survey. A Likert 5 item questionnaire is using to construct a

How is The Coronavirus Outbreak Affecting The Daily Lives of University Students?

Introduction: Covid19 disease is rapidly becoming a health problem in the world and has changed many aspects of human life. Many schools, including universities worldwide, have adjusted their way of the teaching method. While new online learning technologies have disrupted the sociocultural environment in higher education, there is a high possibility that students also faced a turbulent time. This study analyzed how the coronavirus outbreak affects the daily lives of university students. Method: This study used a cross-sectional study design which was conducted a month after the learning from home policy was implemented in Indonesia. We surveyed second and third-year university students about their experiences during this difficult time. There are 255 students of Public Health Bachelor Program responded to the survey. We asked what emotion they dominantly feel during the study at home period and how this pandemic changes their daily life. Their responses were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Result and Discussion: The results showed that most students felt happy (41.51%) and the rest felt sad (34.38%) while studying at home. The other feelings are fear as much as 15.81%, surprise 7.91%, and anger 0.39%. We identified seven impacts of pandemic on the student’s life. Four consequences related to the school closures, while three consequences related to the students development as human being. Conclusion: The study at home policy applies during the Covid19 pandemic has affected the lives of students both in their roles as students, adult and children in the family.

An evaluation of online students’ persistence intentions

PurposeThe high dropout rate among online learning students is a serious issue. Using the theory of planned behavior as a framework, this study investigates what effect attitude, opinion of others and perceived ease of online learning technologies leave on Pakistani online students' persistence intentions.Design/methodology/approachThe sample of this study comprises 320 students enrolled at a distance learning university in Pakistan. Online questionnaires are used to gather data for the study. Correlations and regression analysis are run to figure out the effect of independent variables on the dependent variable of the study.FindingsThe findings of the study show that 51% variance in online students’ persistence intentions can be explained by personal attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control.Research limitations/implicationsThe use of a non-random sampling technique along with a cross-sectional design form the major limitations of the study.Practical implicationsThe outcome of the study may help online education providers as well as policymakers to design programs and initiatives to improve students’ retention in online study programs.Originality/valueThe study contributed to the extant literature by finding out Pakistani online students’ persistence behavior is affected by their attitude, subjective norms and perceived ease of online learning. The study also found that the opinion of people closely related to students influences their study persistence decisions.

How to Motivate Students to Study Online

Covid-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented change in education. All the schools in Israel and other countries had to find all the possible solutions to convert their teaching and learning to remote online options. According to the research, distant learning with the help of online boards is supposed to catch students’ attention and make them interested and motivated (Newton, 2020). You can do it with the help of such smart boards as Zoom, Miro, Wakelet, Socrative and others. They provide teachers and their students with a wide range of eye-catching materials, such as highlighted pieces of text, pictures, videos which enhance general understanding of the material and enlarge students’ passive and active vocabulary. Moreover, kids can create their materials themselves and share them with their classmates. Sometimes it is the only way to keep them motivated and to prevent them from leaving “boring online lessons”. It also has a great educational effect on those students who struggle while using traditional textbooks and misunderstand the tasks. Besides, online Learning Technology (LT) helps them to develop the skills of collaboration, negotiation and leadership which is especially important in international communication.

The Challenges of Online Learning: An Interview with Natalie Reed

Although online learning has shown significant growth since last decade, it has never been considered as seriously as during this uncertain period of isolation when the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has moved rapidly across the world in 2020 and affected the education system worldwide. Thus, it is important to examine advantages and disadvantages of online learning, especially in the current lockdown situation. Some previous studies demonstrated that online learning can offer flexibility for learning in terms of financial positions, learners’ availability, easy accessibility, mobility and other factors (Bowers & Kumar, 2015; Merhi, 2011). As a result, online learning technologies have become more popular in the educational system. Thousands of college students use online platforms and technologies to submit their homework, assignments, and quizzes. In fact, the rapid growth of online learning has enabled learners to access education at any time and from any place (Merhi, 2015).
 However, at the same time, there are concerns regarding low rates of student engagement and high erosion rates in online programs and courses. For instance, studies have reported a non-completion rate of 75% in multiple courses (Jun, 2005; Rochester & Pradel, 2008). Different factors such as lack of motivation, lack of contextual support strategies, and technological impediments can be considered for the high erosion rates in online learning contexts (Broadbent & Poon, 2015; Chen & Jang, 2010; Smith & Ayers, 2006). Studies have also examined the application of various self-regulated learning approaches in online learning contexts and shown that online programs require learners to demonstrate higher levels of self-regulation, self-motivation, and time commitment in compassion with traditional face-to-face learning (Broadbent & Poon, 2015; Serwatka, 2003). Besides the self-regulation strategies, contextual support is important in online courses. Online students need a variety of support and interaction from their teachers, tutors and even peers (Chen & Jang, 2010). Some studies have demonstrated that not being present in the same location at the same time eradicates the chance for immediate social interactions to take place among teachers and students in online learning (Smart & Cappel, 2006). Thus, learners in online learning environments have negative feelings such as confusion isolation, anxiety, and frustration (Piccoli, Ahmad, & Ives, 2001). Moreover, some studies have reported that lack of instructor presence could lead to student disengagement. Research have pointed out that students are more likely reluctant to online learning when they perceive a lack of social interactions and instructor presence (Capra, 2011; Trello, 2007).
 By the way, online learning is becoming a reality of our education system in a time when the world self-isolates. The UK has not been excluded from this situation and its education process has changed since the spring semester of 2020. The UK became one of 188 countries having suspended the education process. So, the country has decided to continue the education
 
 
 through the online form of distance learning such as online portals, Google Classroom, and Microsoft Teams or platforms like Zoom, Slack and Google Meet and even intelligent online learning programs like Tassomai, Memrise, and Mathletics. Thus, in order to find some answers to our questions about the challenges and issues of online learning that colleges and students have faced during the current lockdown situation, we conducted an interview with Natalie Reed who is the Assistant Headteacher for Teaching and Learning in Regents Park Community College Southampton, the UK.

Assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on honors student learning, institutional connections, and intent to return to campus

The COVID-19 pandemic quickly converted classes to an online format in the middle of the academic semester at South Dakota State University (SDSU), USA. Our objectives were 1) to identify factors affecting student learning and connectivity following this transition and 2) to evaluate differences between honors and non-honors students. Students (n=230) were surveyed with Likert-type, descriptive, and open-ended questions about their experiences following the transition. Clear, frequent communication between students and SDSU was identified as the most appreciated aspect of SDSU’s response. Students who reported struggling academically following the transition were more likely to be facing difficulties with finances and access to or use of online learning technology. Honors students reported fewer technology barriers and financial stressors than non-honors students. Degree completion and social connections were driving the desire to return to face-to-face classes, but this enthusiasm was dampened by COVID-19-related health concerns. Communication, structure, and flexibility were identified as factors affecting student success.

Assessing university student collaboration in new ways

This study argues for the importance of using the different evidence to assess and evaluate a key graduate skill – collaboration. To do so, it investigates the experience of 356 first-year students in a blended course design and measures their collaborative patterns. Combining research methodologies from student approaches to learning and social network analysis, the results reveal evidence of different collaborative patterns across the population sample. The investigation uncovers contrasting groupings of students with deep and surface approaches to inquiry and to online learning technologies, positive and negative conceptions of the learning environment, and relatively higher or lower academic outcomes. These are discovered to logically relate to different collaborative patterns. The most effective collaboration strategies involve collaborating only as much as tasks needed, in smaller groups, and being reciprocal by accepting and inviting peers to work together. Effective collaboration strategies also include students positioning themselves to gather information easily in their collaboration networks and to develop closely knit collaborative groups. The results offer an evidence-base to identify different experiences of student learning and collaboration to improve program design and the attribute of collaboration, and to improve the concepts underpinning policy development for quality improvement of university graduates.

Investigating the use of podcasts in an open, distance and e-learning environment

In a world where the podcast stands out as one of the important support technologies for online learning, lecturers face great challenges in the delivery of podcasts in a qualitative and productive way. The introduction of podcasts into distance teaching and learning has often failed to meet the expected outcomes, and the educational landscape (Dede, 2008) contains evidence of students who have been unable to benefit from this innovation. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to explore the types of podcasts that lecturers at an open and distance an e-learning institution use for teaching and learning in the courses they teach. The focus was to explore how lecturers can use high-quality podcasting to meet students learning expectations in open, distance and e-learning institutions.

Peculiarities Of Student Distance Learning In Emergency Situation Condition

The article outlines the contemporary issues of distance learning and the use of the Internet by students during the outbreak of pandemic. The conducted research demonstrates student attitude towards distance learning, its advantages and disadvantages, student perception and acquisition of lecture and seminar material, implementation of online trainings and practical classes. The purpose of this article is to investigate student behavioral, cognitive and emotional reactions to forced distance learning conditions. The authors assume that students, being members of Generation Z, can easily adapt to the new learning environment, quickly organize the learning process, as well as choose preferable online learning platforms. The research proves that 66% of students need from 2 to 4 hours for distance learning; 22% spend from 4 to 6 hours studying remotely and only 12% spend less than 2 hours a day studying in a new way. One third of students (36%) consider the distance learning system quite comfortable, 8% – very comfortable, while a quarter of the respondents (25%) have neutral attitude towards online learning technologies. Students choose the following distance learning platforms the most often: Google Meet (94%) and Moodle (70%). They also use Zoom, Skype, Viber and Telegram in order to keep in touch with teachers and fulfil studying purposes. 19% of students regard distance learning as of a high quality, whereas 75% are currently neutral about this way of learning and only 6% of the respondents consider these necessary innovations ineffective.

The Application of Blended Learning Approach in EFL Teaching

Blended learning(BL) has been recognized as one of the most promising directions in education development in the modern world as it combines the strengths of traditional educational methods and benefits of online learning technologies. This paper starts with an exploration of BL as a concept, models and its application in language teaching and then probe into the effectiveness of BL approach in English as Foreign Language (EFL) Teaching especially to boost students speaking and listening competence, via a comparative study. With 50 in control group taught through traditional face-to-face instructions and 58 in experiment group through BL method, 108 students are involved to find out that BL is conducive to promote students’ motivation, self-study as well as activity and also to enhance their speaking and listening skills.

Acid Test of Ghana’s Educational Institutions Operating Distance Learning Programs

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented blow to the Ghanaian Educational System. Following the closure of all educational facilities in Ghana in March 2020, the country’s President ordered for the adoption of distance learning. This poses the question: how prepared are Ghanaian institutions to carry out distance learning using online teaching approaches? Most institutions in Ghana offering distance learning programs currently adopt the usage of the tutorial method where there is minimal or no usage of online learning technologies. This article discusses the potential usage of mobile learning by Ghanaian Educational Institutions operating distance learning programs in the wake of combating the COVID-19. It proposes a model to support the use of WhatsApp Messenger as an online tool to support distance learning programs. The proposed model is a summary comparison between a typical Learning Management System (LMS) using Jurado’s classification and the proper application of the use of WhatsApp Messenger as a mobile learning platform in a Ghanaian context.

Learning or Forgetting? A Dynamic Approach for Tracking the Knowledge Proficiency of Students

The rapid development of the technologies for online learning provides students with extensive resources for self-learning and brings new opportunities for data-driven research on educational management. An important issue of online learning is to diagnose the knowledge proficiency (i.e., the mastery level of a certain knowledge concept) of each student. Considering that it is a common case that students inevitably learn and forget knowledge from time to time, it is necessary to track the change of their knowledge proficiency during the learning process. Existing approaches either relied on static scenarios or ignored the interpretability of diagnosis results. To address these problems, in this article, we present a focused study on diagnosing the knowledge proficiency of students, where the goal is to track and explain their evolutions simultaneously. Specifically, we first devise an explanatory probabilistic matrix factorization model, Knowledge Proficiency Tracing (KPT), by leveraging educational priors. KPT model first associates each exercise with a knowledge vector in which each element represents a specific knowledge concept with the help of Q -matrix. Correspondingly, at each time, each student can be represented as a proficiency vector in the same knowledge space. Then, our KPT model jointly applies two classical educational theories (i.e., learning curve and forgetting curve ) to capture the change of students’ proficiency level on concepts over time. Furthermore, for improving the predictive performance, we develop an improved version of KPT, named Exercise-correlated Knowledge Proficiency Tracing (EKPT), by considering the connectivity among exercises with the same knowledge concepts. Finally, we apply our KPT and EKPT models to three important diagnostic tasks, including knowledge estimation, score prediction, and diagnosis result visualization. Extensive experiments on four real-world datasets demonstrate that both of our models could track the knowledge proficiency of students effectively and interpretatively.

Personalized Stride-Length Estimation Based on Active Online Learning

The ability to accurately estimate a user’s stride length plays a great important role in various applications. For a new target pedestrian or device, their heterogeneity dramatically reduces the performance of the current stride-length estimation (SLE) methods. To address the issue of heterogeneity, in this article, we propose an SLE method based on a long short-term memory (LSTM) network and denoising autoencoders (DAEs). The LSTM network is used to mine temporal dependencies and extract significant eigenvectors from the corrupted inertial sensor observations. Then, DAEs are adopted to automatically eliminate the inherent noise in eigenvectors and obtain denoised eigenvectors. Finally, a regression module maps the denoised eigenvectors to the resulting stride length. To mitigate the heterogeneity, we propose an unperceived model updating framework based on active online learning to establish a personalized model for a given target pedestrian or device. The proposed framework utilizes a magnetism-aided map-matching approach to automatically generate personalized training data and utilizes online learning technologies to evolve the stride-length model. The extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art algorithms and achieves a promising accuracy with a stride-length error rate of 4.59% at a confidence level of 80%.

Reflections on the use of Design Thinking and Service Design Tools to Improve Student Experience of an Online Learning Environment

Online learning technology offers many benefits to students and educators, but at the same time presents challenges and issues which can cause negative student experiences. These negative experiences may severely affect student learning, particularly for students who are studying remotely and may have complex causes. How does a small organisation understand, maintain, and enhance the student experience of increasingly complex online learning environments in an atmosphere of increasing student expectations?
 Design Thinking and Service Design tools were used by the Learning Innovation and Insights (LII) Team at NMIT to examine their value in understanding and enhancing a challenging fully online course to improve student experience. This Action Research intervention had a profound effect on our thinking and practice as learning designers and technologists. Use of the user-centred Design Thinking tools and techniques challenged unwritten assumptions and helped the team gain understanding of the key factors and issues affecting the experience of the students on this course, and prioritise the change strategy required to improve it. The Service Design approach helped understanding of the students’ changing needs over time. The artefacts produced by the tools proved helpful in untangling complexity, helped the team discuss and gain a shared understanding of the issues, and communicate issues to other stakeholders within the organisation.
 There are significant implications for future practice of the LII Team at NMIT:
 
 Design Thinking tools will be embedded in standard practice in the LII Team.
 A widening priority from Learning Design to Learning Environment Design.
 A refocus in the priority of LMS development from UI Design to UX Design, within a Service Design context.
 A focus on adoption and use of “empathising” and listening tools and skills.
 
 This presentation will focus on the use and impact of Design Thinking and Service Design tools and techniques such as the Hypothesis Map, the Journey Map, the Stakeholder Map, Personas and Extreme Users.

Görüntülü və canlı dərslər: keyfiyyətli idarə olunma üsulları

The article explains the reasons for the appearance of educational technologies related to the current situation. In addition to explaining the strengths and weaknesses of online learning and learning technologies to ensure that lessons are held according to also the planned structure, weak sides of online education suggest several ways to overcome.

A systematic study of online learning platforms in India and its application during covid-19

Coronavirus or COVID-19 (SARS-COV-2) is very popular word among all as a deadly and infectious disease in the world. It is spreading through droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneeze. It also spreads through the non-tangible objects that has virus on it, if someone touches it and touches their eyes, nose or mouth. The best method to prevent this disease is social distancing, sanitization, and stay at home and use of mask. The World Health Organisation(WHO) have declared it as pandemic. To restrict the spread of this disease different nations have declared shut down or lock down the entire country and closes all the educational institutions and other activities. Sudden declaration of the lockdown, gives importance to online learning resources and its providers. The national, international, and private educational bodies give more importance to online learning. Online learning has widened the scope of education and transcend it beyond classroom boundaries. This online learning technology is more transparent and does not discriminate between the front and back bench student. Digital learning can be possible when the society will be switching from the-traditional to the modern digital world and it creates lots of e-content. The enrolment of the MOOC Courses has been increasing at the accelerating rate within the last three months. This articles gives information about the different online learning platforms which are helping to the students, teachers and parents to learn the different subjects through the online in India and aboard. It also explains the importance, limitation of online learning.

The problem of digital transformation of Russian universities

There are numerous disputes and discussions about the need to introduce online learning technologies into the educational process of the university. However, the welcoming examples of individual educational institutions should not give rise to the illusion of complete and widespread prosperity. In many Russian universities, the situation with the introduction of new teaching aids is, to put it mildly, difficult both in terms of the availability of an organizational strategy and in terms of cultural changes. The article attempts to characterize the situation with online education in universities based on an analysis of the expectations of students who seem ready to move to digital, and the decisions of the Bologna process, requiring the introduction of online components in the educational process of universities. In addition, the authors of the article provide an overview of the initial attempts to introduce online learning into the educational process of universities in a particular region, taking into account the systematic and psychological difficulties that have arisen. As the best option, the authors propose a combination of online education with a research component in order to preserve the university’s status as a center of science and education.

Business (Teaching) as Usual Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Online Teaching Practice in Hong Kong

Aim/Purpose: This article aims at the critical present: to serve a constructive purpose in the current COVID-19 crisis by presenting practice driven pedagogical strategies for online learning and teaching. It acknowledges the multitude of challenges faced by educators through the delivery of online instructional strategies for schools. Background: The development of information technology enables online learning and blended learning to be increasingly popular in extending students’ learning opportunities. Technology-enabled learning approaches make students’ learning more flexible and personalized. In Hong Kong, one of the first few cities where the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak was first reported, school classes have been suspended since the end of Lunar New Year on February 3, 2020. Methodology: This research used a qualitative method of multiple case analysis to explore how three educators from primary, secondary, and tertiary institutes employed various strategies to offer learning and teaching as usual. Naturalistic inquiry was used to observe, describe, and interpret the “lived experiences” of the three educators and the perceptions of stakeholders. Contribution: Since early February 2020, school classes have been suspended amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong, one of the first cities where the coronavirus outbreak was first reported. This timely article overviews effective practices with the use of online learning technologies to support academia from around the world to achieve teaching and learning in an online environment. Findings: Results indicate that meaningful cognitive activities rely on teachers’ leading role to build a blended approach that combines the advantages of asynchronous and synchronous methods in order to facilitate social interaction among students. Furthermore, our research has revealed that educators are likely to perceive three non-teaching challenges on a rapid blended transition of the learning – digital divide, data privacy, and professional leadership. Recommendations for Practitioners: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the learning of a generation of students and driven a sudden shift to online learning. Our case study recommends a blended model of asynchronous and synchronous learning as an effective pedagogy that allows learners flexibility, autonomy, and opportunities for learners to socialize with each other, which can be applied at any education level. Impact on Society: Technological advancements have made online classes possible, but how feasible is it to believe that a near overnight transition can lead to effective learning and teaching? The current article strongly acknowledges the multitude of barriers that stand in the way of feasibility, capacity building. and delivery of inclusive online instruction for today’s school districts, administrators, curriculum and technology directors, teachers, parents, and students. Future Research: In an effort to generate new knowledge within the challenges of the current pandemic, further studies are suggested to examine the longitudinal impact of these blended approaches, the digital divide, inclusive and accessible learning opportunities of vulnerable groups, and psycho-social support for students towards their academic and social development.