There are multiple challenges to designing learning experiences for schools in remote communities, including technology and infrastructure limitations, high teacher and administrator turnover, and conflicting interests between local culture and school curricula. In this paper, we offer a brief history of educational initiatives in remote Arctic…

Does learner participation vary depending on the learning context? Are there characteristic features of participation evident in formal, non-formal, and informal online learning environments? Six online learning environments were chosen as epitomes of formal, non-formal, and informal learning contexts and compared. Transcripts of online…

This paper theorizes issues involved with conflicts between participation in on-line settings and real-world social commitments, such as has recently happened in schools with students using public discussion forums for classes. We problematize how real-world social commitments negatively affect participation in online learning environments…

The debates surrounding the effectiveness of teaching social work online highlight the challenges of adequately preparing students for face-to-face practice by way of web-based technologies. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to briefly describe how a particular School of Social Work when designing its part-time undergraduate degree…

This reflective case study was based on our independent use of the debate as an online instructional approach and our shared interest in teaching strategies. In an interdisciplinary manner, using narrative inquiry and action research, we melded our data sources and analyzed the findings, including our individual experiences with the technique. Our…

A qualitative research project was conducted to test the viability of augmenting an e-learning program for workplace learners using mobile content delivered through smart phones. Ten learners taking a six week web-based e-learning course were given smart phones which enabled them to access approximately 70% of the course content, in addition to…

In order to stay current within their field, many professionals regularly attend conferences and training events in distant locales. Travel to these conferences costs professionals, and their sponsor organizations, both time and money. In the past the benefits afforded by these conferences, and the lack of comparable alternatives, have provided…

This study looked at the instructional and assessment effects of using learning journals in three distance asynchronous computer conferencing courses (n = 18, n = 16, n = 17). The instructor used a design-research methodology: each iteration of the course involved modifications to how learning journals were used based on analyses of the responses…

Discusses reusable digital learning resources or objects in distance education and training. Focuses on the pivotal role of metadata and issues relating to classification, description, and meaning, specifically issues of semantics; and describes the CanCore Learning Object Metadata Application Profile. (Author/LRW)

Reports on the design and development of video-based learning objects created to enhance the educational experiences of American Sign Language (ASL) hearing participants in a distance learning course that used video conferencing and Web-based technologies and, following the course, the creation of new applications for use of the learning objects.…